Navigating Norfolk’s hidden creeks and salt marshes – in a 1950s whelk boat
With an ex-Marine at the helm, a new sailing adventure in north Norfolk offers the chance to enter a watery wilderness and get up close to seals and birdlife We’re sailing across a sandy-coloured sea. Seals pop up around our little crab boat and then vanish, like a game of Whac-A-Mole. Further ahead, a group […]
Coal to stay in energy mix for foreseeable future, says Barnaby Joyce
Deputy prime minister says lights would ‘go out’ if coal was phased out and doesn’t rule out the government funding new coal-fired power plant Barnaby Joyce says coal-fired power needs to remain in Australia’s energy mix for the foreseeable future and he has not ruled out the Turnbull government either indemnifying or funding a new […]
The latest threat to Antarctica: an insect and plant invasion
Rise in tourism and warmer climate bring house flies – and the growth of mosses in which they can live Antarctica’s pristine ice-white environment is going green and facing an unexpected threat – from the common house fly. Scientists say that as temperatures soar in the polar region, invading plants and insects, including the fly, […]
Record levels of green energy in UK create strange new world for generators
As renewables play a greater role in the British market, they are making the price of power increasingly unstable As the sun shone on millions of solar panels and unseasonable gusts turned thousands of turbine blades last Sunday, something remarkable happened to Britain’s power grid. For a brief period, a record 70% of the electricity […]
Should you join the charge and buy an electric car?
Green motoring is becoming financially attractive thanks to a drop in leasing prices and lower running costs Is now the time to buy an electric car? Falls in financing costs mean that switching to a zero carbon-emitting vehicle won’t just help the environment, it can be cheaper than buying and running a conventional car. When […]
Tranquil moments where the forest meets the sea
New Forest South Only on private land can we experience a sense of remoteness that was once commonplace here Small heath butterflies flirt among the delicate pink flowers of sea-spurrey. A solitary meadow brown flashes past, wind-driven and quickly lost against the muddy crust of dried-out estuarine pools. There’s bright blue sky overhead, but the […]
Voyage to the sea floor: expedition returns with fascinating finds
Museum Victoria collects gelatinous fish, spiny crabs, scarlet sea-spiders, nightmarish cookie cutter sharks and plenty of rubbish • Gallery: Deep sea discoveries: sea pigs, a dumbo octopus and glow-in-the-dark sharks There’s no sunlight four kilometres below the waves but there is light. It comes from a sea cucumber that emits a faint glow from its […]
Deep sea discoveries: sea pigs, a dumbo octopus and glow-in-the-dark sharks
Images of bizarre deep sea creatures found in May and June by the research ship Investigator as it travelled along the Australian coastline to the Coral Sea. The scientists aboard the ship mapped the sea floor to a depth of 4,000 metres and collected more than 1,000 different marine species, about a third of which […]
How Australia's climate policies came to be poisoned by pragmatism
A history of failure has left Australia with virtually no genuinely independent advice on climate change It might seem a million miles from the climate policy debate of today but Australia’s decade-long climate wars arguably began with perfect being the enemy of good. On at least three occasions, the chance for Australia to have relatively […]
Ecuadorians denounce foreign loggers in Yasuni national park
Interview with anthropologist José Proaño on dangers to indigenous peoples in “isolation” posed by timber trade Three NGOs in Ecuador marked the UN’s World Environment Day last week by releasing a report alleging that illegal loggers are operating in the famous Yasuní National Park in the Amazon, one of the most biodiverse places in the […]