The South Australian government has announced it will intervene in the national energy market in a $550m plan that seeks to tame the state’s turbulent power supply and prices. The premier, Jay Weatherill, says his government will build a gas-fired power station and Australia’s largest battery storage unit Continue reading...

South Australia’s premier has committed to a high-stakes rebuild of the state’s energy market – but what choice did he have?If you happen to be looking on at events in South Australia on Tuesday with confusion, let’s keep it simple.

In normal light the polka-dot tree frog has a dull complexion – but under UV light it glows bright greenThe world’s first fluorescent frog has been discovered in the Amazon basin in South America.Scientists at the Bernardino Rivadavia Natural Sciences Museum in Buenos Aires made the discovery by accident while studying the pigment of polka-dot tree frogs, a species common across the continent. Continue reading...

Wepham Down, West Sussex The hen harrier raises its wings as air brakes, using the wind to lift, stall and loop backwardsA skylark rises up in loud, breathless song, claiming its breeding territory. The bird hovers with vibrating wings, unmoved by the strong gusts of wind. It climbs into the air in steps, each new phrase propelling it further up into the sky, until I can no longer see it. Another skylark answers in the distance.Fieldfares hop across the grass – they’ll be moving on, returning to northern Scandinavia to breed, within days. Black and white lapwing patrol a bare patch of soil. They feed in quick down-up motions, as if bowing to each other. This large flock will also soon disperse, many returning to the continent, but some will stay here to nest. Continue reading...

Grylls thanks supporters on Facebook after Colin Barnett’s government loses Western Australian electionBrendon Grylls, the leader of the Western Australian National party, who spearheaded a campaign to increase charges paid by Australia’s two biggest mining companies, has lost his seat to Labor.Grylls is yet to make a formal statement but told Australian Associated Press on Tuesday that he had conceded the seat, saying: “I can’t come back from this.” Continue reading...

Premier Jay Weatherill announces drastic measures for the state to take control of its energy sources, saying Australia’s energy market is ‘failing the nation’• South Australia’s energy plan – as it happened The South Australian government has announced it will intervene in the national energy market in a $550m plan that seeks to tame the state’s turbulent power supply and prices.

From encouraging bike riding and compostable plates to better recycling, organisers have diverted 98% of waste from landfill – and they want to do moreFor all the good vibes and communal spirit, when it comes to environmental sustainability there isn’t a great deal to celebrate about the average music festival.As anyone who has gazed upon the aftermath of one can attest, these orgies of consumption typically leave in their wake a trail of plastic cups and dumped tents strewn about a wasteland of churned earth. Continue reading...

Pipeline from Tennant Creek to Mount Isa could bring gas from the territory into the eastern states market amid power crisisAn $800m gas pipeline from the Northern Territory to Queensland is one step closer after the federal government granted environmental approval for construction.The approval, which carries conditions to protect the native death adder snake, had not been expected by the NT government for several weeks, and follows Malcolm Turnbull’s statement that his government will consider “all measures” to ensure energy security. Continue reading...

Sharp intake of breath on reading Chitra Ramaswamy’s statement that Pembrokeshire is the only coastal national park (Last Night’s TV, G2, 8 March). True, it is the only fully coastal one, but here in North Yorkshire we have the best national treasure of all in a park with heather moors, beautiful villages nestling in valleys, heritage and craftspeople aplenty as well as a delightful varied coastline.

Rescue workers search 74-acre site for survivors, with residents blaming construction of biogas plant for disasterAt least 65 people were killed in a giant landslide at Ethiopia’s largest rubbish dump this weekend, officials said on Monday, with entire families including children buried alive in the tragedy.“The rescue operation is still ongoing. Security personnel and rescuers are trying their level best to locate any possible survivors, while searching for the dead,” said communication minister Negeri Lencho. Continue reading...

Packaging – much of it single-use food wrapping – has created a rubbish problem that now pollutes every corner of the world. Manufacturers got us into this mess, but it’s up to us to dig ourselves out – and here’s howIn 2003, I was told by a restaurant owner on a Thai island that local fishermen used to wrap their lunch in banana leaves, which they would then casually toss overboard when done. That was OK, because the leaves decayed and the fish ate the scraps. But in the past decade, he said, while plastic wrap had rapidly replaced banana leaves, old habits had died hard – and that was why the beach was fringed with a crust of plastic. Beyond the merely unsightly, this plastic congregates in continent-scale garbage gyres in our oceans, being eaten by plankton, then fish; then quite possibly it’ll reach your plate ... This is a worldwide problem – we can’t point the finger at Thai fishermen. The west started this. The developing world justifiably yearns for its living standards and, with it, its unsustainable convenience culture. Continue reading...

Competition watchdog will urge companies to sell to the domestic market, as South Australia reveals its plan to head off further power cutsThe head of Australia’s competition watchdog will urge gas companies to support the domestic market to ensure struggling manufacturers don’t go to the wall, as the Turnbull government mulls options for boosting domestic gas supply to head off forecast shortages.The chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Rod Sims, will outline his views on the east coast gas crisis in a speech in Sydney on Tuesday, as the South Australian government unveils a blueprint to shore up the state’s unreliable power network, perhaps including new investment in baseload power and storage. Continue reading...

Corporate capture of academic research by the fossil fuel industry is an elephant in the room and a threat to tackling climate change.On February 16, the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center hosted a film screening of the “Rational Middle Energy Series.” The university promoted the event as “Finding Energy’s Rational Middle” and described the film’s motivation as “a need and desire for a balanced discussion about today’s energy issues.”

Industry wants more support from federal government now prime minister has ‘taken interest in the tweets of an American billionaire’Malcolm Turnbull should encourage Australia’s battery energy storage industry now he has “taken interest in the tweets of an American billionaire”, Zen Energy chairman Ross Garnaut says.Garnaut was referring to Elon Musk, the billionaire co-founder of electric car giant Tesla, who tweeted that Tesla could solve the power shortage issue causing price spikes and blackouts in South Australia within 100 days by installing 100-300 megawatt hours of battery storage. Continue reading...

Llanon, Ceredigion The paths retain their sense of age, hinting at centuries of daily journeys from homestead to field and backBetween the village of Llanon and the sea lies an area of flat land perhaps a kilometre wide, bordered to north and south by minor rivers. On the large scale maps of the area it is labelled Morfa Esgob – which translates roughly as Bishop’s Land. In contrast to the steep, thin-soiled hill pastures inland it is a favoured spot. Well-drained and quick to warm in spring, thanks to the great heat store of Cardigan Bay, the land is now mostly grazed, but both map and landscape hint at a more complex past.

Macfarlane urges MPs to pass legislation to protect land use agreements as Indigenous leaders call for consultationThe former federal resources minister Ian Macfarlane has said the majority of 126 mining projects under Indigenous land use agreements could be shut down pending renegotiations following a federal court ruling on native title.His comments come after a federal court ruling in the McGlade native title case found that an Indigenous land use agreement (Ilua) was invalid because not all Indigenous representatives had signed it. Continue reading...

Damaging winds are forecast to hit parts of New South Wales on Monday, bringing large hailstones and heavy rainSevere thunderstorms with heavy rain, hail and winds of up to 90km/h are forecast to hit parts of New South Wales on Monday.The Bureau of Meteorology has warned people in the central west slopes and plains, and northern tablelands, to brace for large hailstones, damaging winds and heavy rainfall that may lead to flash flooding.

Many victims are thought to have been people who scavenged for a living at Koshe landfill siteAt least 46 people have died and dozens more have been injured in a giant landslide at Ethiopia’s largest rubbish dump outside Addis Ababa, a tragedy squatters living there blamed on a biogas plant being built nearby.Dozens of homes of squatters who lived in the Koshe landfill site, on the outskirts of the capital, were flattened when the largest pile of rubbish collapsed on Saturday. Continue reading...

Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 17 March 1917Surrey

For too long, no one suspected that any car manufacturer was cheating. Instead it was thought to be a weakness in the testIt is amazing that the Volkswagen and diesel emissions scandal was not discovered earlier. In 2003 nitrogen dioxide alongside London’s Marylebone Road increased by around 20%. As we approached the 2010 legal compliance date, concentrations from traffic went up, not down, and diesel cars were shown to be much more polluting than the official tests led us to believe.However, according to the EU parliament’s recent inquiry, no one suspected that any car manufacture was cheating. Instead it was thought to be a weakness in the test. Continue reading...

Prime minister told to adopt a domestic gas reservation policy to deal with forecast LNG shortagesThe prime minister is under mounting internal pressure to adopt a domestic gas reservation policy to deal with forecast shortages. The chairman of the government’s backbench committee on energy and the environment, Craig Kelly, has said it is something Malcolm Turnbull should consider.With Turnbull due to meet senior executives from the east coast gas companies on Wednesday, Kelly told Guardian Australia the government needed to be open to adopting a reservation policy to ensure that a looming lack of gas supply did not create a full-blown energy crisis. Continue reading...

Activists will challenge permission granted to Cuadrilla for test fracking sites near Blackpool as pressure mounts over the cost of policing the protestsThe government will go to court this week to defend test drilling at a fracking site in Lancashire as it comes under pressure to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds to cover the cost of policing anti-fracking protests.The high court in Manchester will hear two cases on Wednesday that pit Sajid Javid, the communities secretary, against protesters who oppose the permission granted to fracking companies for test sites near Blackpool. Continue reading...

Figure rises for second consecutive year, says Massachusetts’ top shark expert, warning of ‘public safety issue’ despite no deaths in state’s waters since 1936Great white sharks are swimming toward the waters off Massachusetts in rising numbers, scientists say, after a second consecutive year showing an increase in predators to Cape Cod.The latest data from a multiyear study of the ocean predators found that the number of sharks in waters off the vacation haven appeared to be on the rise, said Greg Skomal, a senior scientist with the Massachusetts division of marine fisheries, and the state’s top shark expert. Continue reading...

MPs condemn ‘waste of money’ as documents show controversial £2bn privatisation has cost taxpayers at least £1m in banking and legal feesThe troubled £2bn privatisation of the Green Investment Bank has already cost at least £1m of taxpayer money in consultancy fees, official documents have revealed.Ministers have promised that the sale of the bank, which has invested in green projects from offshore windfarms to energy-saving street lights, will deliver value for taxpayers’ money. An announcement on the sale to Australian investment bank Macquarie was expected in January but has yet to materialise amid strong political opposition. Continue reading...

Tesla boss speaks to South Australian premier and then Australian prime minister about issues with state and national supplyMalcolm Turnbull has spoken to the Tesla founder, Elon Musk, about energy storage issues after the tech billionaire offered to supply battery technology to solve South Australia’s energy reliability problems within 100 days.The prime minister’s office said the hour-long conversation on Sunday had occurred by mutual arrangement, given Turnbull’s longstanding commitment to exploring technological options to enhance storage. Continue reading...

Smallholders hope to reverse years of dairy industry decline with a return to cows grazing in the great outdoorsThis is a story that is almost as rare as a free-range cow: a good news story about the British dairy industry.This month, Jenni and Jerry Hobbs will swing open the gates to the yard of their modest farmhouse in Gloucestershire, shout a few words of encouragement and watch as their herd of brown Swiss, Friesians, Fleckviehs and the rest, big eyes blinking as they survey the expanse of grass before them, buck and cavort their way out to pasture. Continue reading...

Manu national park in Peru threatened by roads, oil/gas operations, narco trade, goldmining, logging and ‘human safaris’Just under half of Unesco’s World Heritage sites are under threat, the WWF asserts. Sites deemed threatened include the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, the Pantanal in Brazil and the Virunga national park in the Democratic Republic of Congo – and 111 others.But what about the Manu national park in Peru’s Amazon, which Unesco calls the most biodiverse place on Earth and was declared part of a biosphere reserve in the 1970s? Continue reading...

But campaigners remain unconvinced by firm’s shift towards cleaner energyWhen Shell sold most of its Canadian tar sands operations last week, the Anglo-Dutch oil company took a modest step towards making good on its promise to be part of the solution on global warming, rather than the problem.Tar sands are reviled by climate change campaigners as one of the dirtiest forms of energy. The sands are a glutinous, bitumen-addled mix when extracted from the ground and a huge amount of energy is need to turn them into synthetic crude oil. Continue reading...

Rapidly growing Canada goose population is health hazard but quarter of King’s students sign petition to spare the birdsIt’s been an exasperating week for Philip Isaac, domus bursar at King’s College, Cambridge University. It all started with an impassioned letter from students which, invoking the words of Gandhi, called for the peaceful coexistence of scholars and geese. It was only a matter of time before the press got wind of the petition. Journalists flocked to cover the story of the college that’s murdering its wildlife.Related: Make a honk for rare geese | Patrick Barkham Continue reading...

Trump administration’s zeal for deregulation seen by environmentalists as a recipe for fossil fuel cronyism, runaway climate change and toxic water crisesScott Pruitt, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, caused conniptions among scientists this week by claiming that carbon dioxide isn’t the primary catalyst of global warming. Conservative groups and industry, on the other hand, heard hints that a cherished goal may be within reach.

South Uist Though we cannot see the hunters their presence is signalled by the waders that suddenly rise in flocksFar in the distance the craggy peaks of Skye have been rendered Alpine-like by the overnight snow. Away to the north the high hills of Harris also bear a covering, and even South Uist’s less lofty heights have a dusting of white. There is a hint of warmth in the morning sun, but what makes this a glorious day to be outside is the complete absence of wind, for with even a light breeze it would be skin-flayingly cold.

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All of the methods of catching moles described in your article (The long read, 8 March) rely on the violent crushing of a sentient creature. Society wouldn’t tolerate killing a dog in this way, yet moles have a nervous system similar to dogs’ (and humans’), which strongly suggests they are capable of feeling pain and thus suffering. As the article indicates, the total cost of mole “damage” is very low but as it is part of the routine, casual cycle of killing practised by country dwellers we’re expected to accept it. All this because of a few piles of earth on a lawn.The destruction of wildlife should be prohibited unless absolutely necessary – and only after there is evidence that damage is substantial, cannot be prevented by other intervention and that the killing can be done humanely. Continue reading...

The recent killing of a rhino in a Paris zoo marks a shocking new development in this ruthless global trade but rhino experts remain optimistic that the situation can be reversedOn the black market it is reputedly worth more than its weight in gold or cocaine, and this week the lure of rhino horn brought the bloody business of poaching to a zoo near Paris. There, in the dead of night, criminals broke in, shot a white rhino called Vince three times in the head and then hacked off its eight-inch horn with a chainsaw.

The week’s top environment news stories and green events. If you are not already receiving this roundup, sign up here to get the briefing delivered to your inbox Continue reading...

A rare jaguar sighting in the US, a green toad and spring flowers are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world Continue reading...

With nothing to eat and no sign of respite, people in the Somali town of Caynabo are fighting to stave off malnutrition and disease as they survive off scrapsOn a rock-hard dust bowl of barren land outside the Somali town of Caynabo, more than a thousand people have pitched up makeshift shelters as they figure out how to survive. Searing drought has all but destroyed their pastoral lifestyle and now it threatens to kill them.They are among 6 million people here in Somalia in need of urgent food assistance to prevent a repeat of the 2011 famine that claimed a quarter of a million lives. Continue reading...

In the remote Altai mountains, cameras traps are shedding light on the secret lives of these elusive animals, enabling researchers to identify individual leopards in the first ever nationwide censusThe snow leopard is so rare and elusive that it’s commonly known as the “ghost of the mountains”. But researchers in the Altai mountains, where the borders of Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan and China converge, are increasingly coming face to face with this endangered animal through a growing network of camera traps.On a recent day in Sailyugem national park in Russia’s Altai Republic, rangers in ski goggles and huge parkas were retrieving footage from a high-altitude camera trap – a black box holding a dozen AA batteries, a memory card and a motion-activated lens – nestled among a cluster of dark burgundy rocks covered with orange and green lichen. Such windswept ridges are where snow leopards typically travel in search of prey such as ibex and musk deer, sneaking down from above to break the victim’s neck with one crunch of their powerful jaws. Continue reading...

Ship ran aground at Raja Ampat, one of the country’s most popular dive sites that has been likened to an underwater Amazon, reports Mongabay

People who fled after March 2011 nuclear meltdown face losing housing subsidies if they do not go back, despite radiation fearsThousands of people who fled the meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant six years ago have been told they must return to their homes or lose housing subsidies, despite lingering concerns over radiation in their former neighbourhoods.The instruction, condemned by campaigners as a violation of the evacuees’ right to live in a safe environment, will affect an estimated 27,000 people who were not living inside the mandatory evacuation zone imposed after Fukushima became the scene of the worst nuclear accident in Japanese history. Continue reading...

Cairngorms National Park We’ve tried to spot this mountain dwelling grouse in its white-feathered finery, but it’s elusiveEvery birder has a “bogey bird”, a species they have repeatedly failed to encounter. For my father and me, this bird is the winter-plumaged ptarmigan.We have made numerous visits to the Cairngorms in the hopes of seeing this mountain dwelling grouse – Lagopus mutus – in its white-feathered finery. But it has proved to be frustratingly elusive. Previous attempts have been foiled by extreme weather, from 90mph winds and whiteout conditions to horizontal rain and shrouding cloud. Continue reading...

Labor supports ban on foreign donations to political parties and associated entities but not groups ‘that are in any way involved in public campaigning’The Coalition has singled out environment groups for special attention in a new parliamentary report that recommends banning foreign donations. The report draws on testimony from the mining industry to argue some some activist groups “appear to be circumventing the system”.

Former Climate Change Authority member reveals what went on before he quit and offers a withering assessment of the PMClive Hamilton has been at the pointy end of public discourse on climate change for more than 20 years.Among lots of other things, he’s written challenging books on the science, founded a progressive thinktank and had a failed crack at being an MP for the Greens. Continue reading...

Businesses and cities are taking up the slack left by government policy, aligning environmental goals with climate scienceEach year, Investa Office Management releases its corporate sustainability report. In 2016, it announced that electricity use was down by 43% since 2004, gas use had fallen 38% over the same time, and water use had also being curtailed.This sounds impressive but how meaningful are those proclamations? And what difference do they make in the wider context? Now an international movement is urging businesses to take an evidence-based approach to their green strategies, by setting emissions reduction goals in line with climate science. The goal is to encourage the business sector to close the emissions gap left by shortfalls in country-level commitments to the Paris climate agreement. Continue reading...

Greenpeace argued that ExxonMobil, where secretary of state was CEO, would ‘directly and predictably’ benefit from approval of multibillion-dollar pipelineThe US secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, has recused himself from issues related to TransCanada Corp’s application for a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, the state department said in a letter on Thursday to the environmental group Greenpeace.“He has not worked on that matter at the Department of State, and will play no role in the deliberations or ultimate resolution of TransCanada’s application,” said the letter from Katherine McManus, the state department’s deputy legal adviser. Continue reading...

Reef authority says findings of aerial surveys show enough to confirm another mass coral bleaching event, after last year’s dramatic death rateA mass bleaching event is taking its toll on the Great Barrier Reef for an unprecedented second year in a row, a Queensland government agency has confirmed.The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has declared widespread damage from an underwater heatwave after a single day of aerial surveys between Cairns and Townsville on Thursday. Continue reading...

Scott Pruitt, the new head of the US Environmental Protection Agency, gave an interview on CNBC on Thursday during which he denied carbon dioxide was a primary contributor to global warming. Pruitt also said that there is ‘tremendous disagreement’ over the extent to which human activity such as CO emissions are affecting the earth, despite widespread agreement in the scientific community

Trump adviser shocks scientists and environmental advocates with statement that negates EPA policy and ‘overwhelmingly clear’ evidence on climate changeScott Pruitt, Donald Trump’s head of the US Environmental Protection Agency, has dismissed a basic scientific understanding of climate change by denying that carbon dioxide emissions are a primary cause of global warming.Pruitt said on Thursday that he did not believe that the release of CO2, a heat-trapping gas, was pushing global temperatures upwards. Continue reading...

Parents should protect their infants by using covers on prams during the school run, particularly in the morning, according to expertsParents should use covers on their prams during the school run to protect their infants from air pollution, experts have warned.Scientists tested the pollution levels inside prams to assess the exposure of infants taken on the school run with older siblings. The researchers found that the fine particle pollution from vehicle exhausts, which is particularly harmful, was higher during the morning journey. Continue reading...

A trend towards using plastic parts in electrical and electronic goods is causing a headache for the recycling industryFlame retardants used in plastics in a wide range of electronic products is putting the health of children exposed to them at risk, according to a new report (pdf).Brominated flame-retarding chemicals have been associated with lower mental, psychomotor and IQ development, poorer attention spans and decreases in memory and processing speed, according to the peer-reviewed study by the campaign group CHEM Trust. Continue reading...