Exclusive: Documents reveal offer was made three years before Origin and government reached deal to keep Australia’s biggest coal-fired power station open
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Origin Energy offered to sell its Eraring power station to the New South Wales government for more than half a billion dollars before announcing it would close the plant in August 2025, a document now made public reveals.
The energy company, which last week announced a pact with the government to keep the nation’s biggest coal-fired power station open for at least another two years, had offered to sell back the privatised facility for $544m during negotiations in 2021.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
05/30/2024 - 10:00
05/30/2024 - 07:00
The bipartisan proposal that would remediate farms affected by toxic PFAS contamination is gaining speed in Congress
The US may soon bail out farmers whose livelihoods were destroyed by toxic PFAS “forever chemical” contamination.
The proposal for a $500m fund aims to head off a crisis for the nation’s growers and is moving through Congress amid increasing evidence that PFAS-contaminated sewage sludge used as a cheap fertilizer alternative poisoned crops and livestock. Separately, around 4,000 farms nationwide have been contaminated by PFAS from neighboring military bases.
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05/30/2024 - 06:00
The golden state legalised marijuana production in 2016, but strict curbs have led to a thriving black market. Its hub is in Siskiyou county, where the environmental damage is clear to see
In the shadow of Mount Shasta in northern California, a sea of makeshift greenhouses and plywood huts sprawls between the conifer trees of the high desert. From the air, many of the polytunnels look in bad shape, their plastic covers torn by the wind to reveal what’s inside: hundreds of cannabis plants packet tightly together, their distinctive green leaves easily identifiable against the volcanic soil.
This remote area of Siskiyou county is known for its goldrush history, black bears and returning grey wolves, but in the last few years it has also become a hub for California’s parallel market in cannabis production. More than 6,000 hectares (15,000 acres) of illicit cannabis farms cover the Republic-leaning county, which voted not to legalise commercial farming despite the statewide vote for legalisation in November 2016.
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05/30/2024 - 05:00
Analysis of the carbon offset projects used by top corporations including Delta, Gucci and ExxonMobil raises concerns around their emission cuts claims
Some of the world’s most profitable – and most polluting corporations – have invested in carbon offset projects that have fundamental failings and are “probably junk”, suggesting industry claims about greenhouse gas reductions were likely overblown, according to new analysis.
Delta, Gucci, Volkswagen, ExxonMobil, Disney, easyJet and Nestlé are among the major corporations to have purchased millions of carbon credits from climate friendly projects that are “likely junk” or worthless when it comes to offsetting their greenhouse gas emissions, according to a classification system developed by Corporate Accountability, a non-profit, transnational corporate watchdog.
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05/30/2024 - 04:18
Premier Steven Miles says laws prohibiting greenhouse gas storage in the basin will benefit farmers and the environment
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The Queensland government plans to legislate to ban the Great Artesian Basin (Gab) from being used for carbon capture and storage, ruling out future proposals similar to a Glencore development that was knocked back earlier this month.
On Friday, the premier, Steven Miles, will announce that the Gab – which covers 1,700,000 square kilometres of the state – will be protected from greenhouse gas storage, describing the move as a win for the state, the environment, and farmers.
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05/30/2024 - 02:04
Broadscale treatment under way after nests found at Nirimba in Queensland’s south-east
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Fire ants have been found on the Sunshine Coast as the super pest continues to spread beyond a containment zone in Queensland’s south-east corner.
It’s the latest in a series of so-called outlier detections of the hyper aggressive invasive species that Australia has been fighting to eradicate for decades.
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05/30/2024 - 02:00
From crab monitoring and bear patrols to rescue operations, the watchmen are the official eyes and ears of indigenous communities
It’s Delaney Mack’s first time pulling crab traps and she is unsure what to do. Mack, the newest member of the Nuxalk Guardian Watchmen, has had months of training for the multifaceted job, which might on any given day include rescuing a kayaker, taking ocean samples or monitoring a logging operation. But winching crabs up 100ft from the sea floor was not in the manual.
Soon, however, the four-person operation is humming along. The crab survey is a vital part of their work as guardians of this Indigenous territory in the Canadian province of British Columbia. It was started more than 15 years ago in response to heavy commercial crab fishing in an area where the federal government had done little independent monitoring to determine if a fishery was sustainable.
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05/30/2024 - 01:35
Government of Christopher Luxon has made sweeping cuts to climate projects in its first budget, with no new significant environmental investments
The New Zealand government has been accused of waging a “war on nature” after it announced sweeping cuts to climate action projects, while making no significant new investments in environmental protection or climate crisis-related policy.
In its 2024/25 budget, handed down on Thursday, the rightwing coalition announced spending on law and order, education, health and a series of tax cuts, as the country struggles with inflation and cost-of-living pressures.
Māori knowledge-based approaches to agricultural emissions reduction
Community-based renewable energy schemes
The Climate Change Commission
External and internal specialists who supply evidence and data on environmental monitoring and science
Freshwater policy initiatives
Native forest planting
Development of a circular economy, relating to recycling and reuse
Jobs for Nature, a programme creating jobs to benefit the environment
Reducing biosecurity monitoring
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05/29/2024 - 13:48
Research that looked at 53 million births says Black and Hispanic mothers and those in lower socioeconomic groups most at risk
Heatwaves increase rates of preterm births, which can lead to poorer health outcomes for babies and impact their long-term health, a new study found.
Black and Hispanic mothers, as well as those in lower socioeconomic groups, are particularly at risk of delivering early following heat waves.
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05/29/2024 - 13:41
Researchers involved in cataloguing the world's plant species are hunting for answers as to what makes some groups of plants so successful. One of their major goals is to predict more accurately which lineages of flowering plants -- some of which are of huge importance to people and to ecosystems -- are at a greater risk from global climate change.
