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Donations to restore Great Barrier Reef could dry up if land clearing continues, says donor

Exclusive: Australia’s biggest environmental philanthropist says private investment to clean up reef ‘doesn’t make sense’ with current land clearing

Private investment in work to restore the Great Barrier Reef is likely dry up if the Queensland government fails to pass tighter land-clearing laws, warns Australia’s biggest environmental philanthropist.

David Thomas, who has donated $30m and bequeathed another $30m to environmental causes in Australia, told Guardian Australia that state and federal governments’ drive for private investment in Great Barrier Reef water quality projects would be unsuccessful if rampant land clearing continues.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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Queensland shuts down 'inhumane' goat cull using poisoned dingoes

Environment minister orders all dingoes to be removed from Pelorus Island, where they had been introduced to kill goats

An “inhumane” program that used surgically sterilised dingoes as a form of pest control for goats on a far north Queensland island has been shut down by the state government.

The Hinchinbrook shire council had decided to release dogs implanted with time-delayed poison pellets on Pelorus Island, north of Townsville, to kill baby goats as a form of pest control.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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Energy companies withholding supply to blame for July price spike, report finds

Analysis of temporary jump in prices in South Australia showed generation capacity far exceeded demand, pointing to market manipulation


Fossil fuel electricity generators in South Australia withheld their supply to push up prices and reap bigger profits, according to an analysis of the causes behind the extremely high prices there in early July.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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Majority of Victorians support urgent shift to renewable energy, poll finds

A ReachTEL poll commissioned by Friends of the Earth shows 68% of the state, including a majority of Liberal voters, want to see an end to reliance on coal

The vast majority of people in Victoria – and even a majority of Liberal voters – support the state moving towards 100% renewable energy “as a matter of urgency,” a new poll has found.

The polling comes as the state government works to rewrite the Climate Change Act, including pre-2050 emissions reduction targets.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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Louisiana floodwaters begin to recede but thousands remain in shelters

Massive recovery operation begins as Red Cross reports flood that left 11 dead and damaged 40,000 homes is worst US disaster since Hurricane Sandy in 2012

Floodwaters in Louisiana have begun to recede, but the horror of the disaster continues to mount: on Wednesday afternoon more than 30,000 people had been rescued from the flood, 40,000 homes were affected and 6,000 people remained in shelters. At least 11 people have died.

Related: Louisiana floods: state begins recovery from devastating storm – in pictures

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Source: Guardian Environment

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The Guardian view on the heatwave: still hope on climate change | Editorial

Ira Glass the radio show host says global warming may not be amusing or surprising but it is still the most important thing that’s happening

The documentary broadcaster Ira Glass, the man behind the hit radio programme This American Life, is in Britain this week with his theatre show, Three Acts, Two Dancers, One Radio Host. The production, a collaboration with the experimental dancers of Monica Bill Barnes & Company, puts storytelling and dance together in an improbable but, the reviews say, endearing and entertaining combination. The dancers like to bring dance into places were no one expects it. Mr Glass does the same with documentary. The collaborators are united in wanting to tell serious stories in an engaging manner.

Not many subjects defeat Mr Glass’s creativity. But climate change, he admits, is beyond even his midas touch with a tale. “Any minute I’m not talking about climate change it’s like I’m turning my back on the most important thing that’s happening to us,” he said recently. The trouble with it is that it is “neither amusing nor surprising”. It is “resistant to journalism”.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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Tidal energy support ebbs and flows | Letters

Steve Emsley is wrong when he compares tidal lagoons with Hinkley and asks why tidal energy is not even being discussed (Letters, 17 August). The latest estimated cost of the lagoon proposed for Swansea Bay is £1.3bn. Hinkley would produce 65 times as much electricity, all day, every day – true “baseload”. Tidal lagoons would produce variable amounts (four times as much on a spring tide as on a neap tide in Swansea and a bigger difference further up the Severn estuary) and the generation would be intermittent (four three-hour blocks a day) – that’s not “baseload”.

Lagoons could only produce 8% (about 25TWh a year) of the UK’s electricity requirements (a figure challenged by tidal energy experts), if five others followed Swansea, each many times larger and much more costly than Swansea (many times more than £5bn in total). But consent for the next two (huge lagoons further up the Severn estuary off Cardiff and Newport) is most unlikely because of various EU environmental designations (special area of conservation, special protection area etc). As to why no one is discussing them: in fact, Charles Hendry is conducting a review of tidal lagoons to assess, among other things, whether they could play a cost-effective role in the UK energy mix (see www.hendryreview.com). Some think the review was prompted by belated government realisation that the figures bandied around for lagoons just don’t add up.
Phil Jones
Ynystawe, Swansea

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Source: Guardian Environment

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Pete Meyer on the health benefits of a circular economy

Keeping materials cycling throughout the economy is good, right? Perhaps not, if you haven’t considered exactly what materials you’ve got re-entering the loop. Unfortunately, we don’t know all the substances contained in the products and built environment around us, or understand the health impacts that can occur as a result of the accumulation of certain chemicals. Creating pure material flows is a crucial value driver for the circular economy, offering economic and health benefits.

In this talk from the 2016 CE100 Annual Summit, Pete Meyer, CEO and Chief Scientist at Environmental Health Science, shares some alarming findings from his research in this area, and highlights a lesser-known appeal of the circular economy: to improve our long-term health and wellbeing.

The post Pete Meyer on the health benefits of a circular economy appeared first on Circulate.

Source: Circulate News RSS

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The coral die-off crisis is a climate crime and Exxon fired the gun | Bill McKibben

This week we’re staging protests on the ‘crime scene’ of the world’s affected reefs to send a signal that we’re not going to let fossil fuel firms get away with murder

Coral reefs are probably Earth’s most life-packed ecosystem; those who’ve had the privilege of diving in the tropics know the reef as an orderly riot of colour and flow, size and shape.

Which is why a white, dead reef is so shocking – as shocking in its way as a human corpse lying on the street, which still takes the form of the living breathing person it used to be, but now suddenly is stopped forever, the force that made it real suddenly and grotesquely absent.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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Visitors rush to the Great Barrier Reef to catch it before it’s gone

Survey finds that 69% of visitors to the world’s largest coral reef system are motivated by the fear that it might disappear, reports Climate Home

In a reversal of the normal travel bucket list, tourists are rushing to see the Great Barrier Reef before it dies.

Half of the reef’s coral has disappeared in the past three decades due to a combination of warming ocean temperatures, coastal development, invasive starfish and agricultural runoff.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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