Environment
Climate change
Could planned burns be making our forests more flammable?
Hazard-reduction burns are designed to clear undergrowth and reduce the risk of large-scale bushfires. But the science is far from settled.
- by Bianca Hall
Latest
‘Just diabolical’: European wasp plague devastates crops
Unseasonably warm and wet conditions in Victoria have led to an infestation of wasps that is wiping out some vineyards, beehives and orchards.
- by Bianca Hall
After years of promises on climate change, oil giants are backtracking
Fossil fuel majors are choosing profits over plans to bring a clean future closer.
- by Nick O'Malley
Exclusive
Extreme weather
‘Opportunistic’ fraud and scams target disasters in a warming world
Financial criminals are exploiting Australia’s worsening climate disasters and extreme weather events, including fires, floods and cyclones.
- by Caitlin Fitzsimmons
How Sydneysiders could save $730 a year by ditching gas
NSW residents could save $1.1 billion and the equivalent of 1 million tonnes of COâ‚‚ emissions a year by swapping gas for electricity.
- by Caitlin Fitzsimmons
Scientists struggle to explain ‘really weird’ spike in world temperatures
Extreme temperatures have shattered the grimmest expectations of a warming world and tested climate models.
- by Nick O'Malley
Audacious bid to dump old oil rigs on Bass Strait sea floor
Enough material to build 110 Sydney Harbour Bridges is built into Australian offshore oil and gas rigs, and experts are now grappling with how to safely recover it.
- by Bianca Hall
A new generation is talking nuclear power. It’s unlikely to happen
Voters seem more open to nuclear power, but experts warn the support will quickly evaporate, and the risk is that the debate could delay the renewables rollout.
- by Caitlin Fitzsimmons
How Rupert Murdoch’s son-in-law solved crisis at family farm
Alasdair MacLeod was regularly escaping to the country with his young family when he realised something was going horribly wrong there – and needed a radical solution.
- by Catherine Naylor
Environmental group’s spy satellite to sniff out fugitive emissions
For years methane was largely ignored in the climate change debate, but now rogue methane emissions are being hunted out with increasingly high-tech tools.
- by Nick O'Malley