This month, ECOS moves to a new home, but its 41-year archive will continue to be freely accessible online. That archive tells the story of how sustainability science evolved in Australia. So where did it all begin?
Developers often cop criticism for being environmental vandals who'd do anything in the name of profit. But the industry is complex, ranging from one-off ‘mum and dad' investors to global corporations. One thing they all have in common is that what they produce – residential and commercial developments – will need to perform in future environments that may call into question how or why the structures were built in the first place.
At the recent World Future Energy Summit (WFES), a group of the world’s most influential companies – including IKEA, Nestlé and Swiss Re – argued there is a growing business case for investing in low carbon energy. As a result, these companies have joined the global RE100 campaign to go 100 per cent renewable.
As the Earth warms and glaciers all over the world begin to melt, researchers and public policy experts have focused largely on how all of that extra water will contribute to sea level rise. But another impact is carbon: more specifically, what happens to all of the organic carbon found in those glaciers when they melt?
A national review of annual commuter costs has found that Australians could save an average of $9973 every year, simply by travelling to work with public transport instead of owning and driving a car or purchasing a second household car.
Efforts to save the koala should focus on the availability of habitat and food resources under a changing climate, according to an Australian researcher.
The acceleration in global sea level from the 20th century to the last two decades has been significantly larger than scientists previously thought, according to a new study.
An international team of scientists has changed our understanding of how migratory geese cross the highest mountains on Earth, the Himalayas.
A nationwide outbreak of foot and mouth disease; an invasion of a devastating wheat disease; our honeybees completely wiped out. These are just three possible disastrous scenarios facing Australia; they're considered in the Australia’s Biosecurity Future report recently published by CSIRO and its partners.
Who speaks for the tidal flat? There are many voices for the mangrove forest, the coral reef and the seagrass meadow, but the chorus for the mud, sand and silt flats that sit hidden under shallow water for most of the tidal cycle is often silent.
City dwellers should visit parks more often and take advantage of this free and easy way to boost their physical and mental health, environmental scientists have urged.
The accelerated impacts of human activity on the Earth over the past 60 years have reached ‘planetary-scale' proportions, in turn driving the earth into a new geological age, according to new research.
An international team of researchers examining the impact of climate change on coral reefs has found a way to predict which reefs are likely to recover following bleaching episodes and which won't.
The latest round of bushfires, which claimed
Urban development often results in the ‘clean up' of existing trees for construction access, neatness or reducing the risk of damage to surrounding property from falling branches or bushfire. Now researchers are warning that, as the world's cities lose their large old trees, native wildlife that depend on those trees for food and shelter will also be in jeopardy.
Australian Antarctic stations are rethinking their operational practices after the discovery that common household pollutants are dispersing from Casey station into the local Antarctic environment.
Millions of Australia's migratory shorebirds are being pushed closer to extinction as the quality of their primary feeding grounds, or ‘refuelling areas', in East Asia continue to decline.
Hobart is the base for a new international ocean study to track the massive internal tides of the Tasman Sea.
ECOS has been exploring the ecological value of dingoes and other apex predators within ecosystems, as part of a wider debate about whether such predators should be culled or conserved in areas where they come into conflict with humans and human property. Now we ask, is it possible for dingoes and livestock grazing to co-exist?
We know more about the surface of the moon than we do about our deepest oceans, and only 12 per cent of the ocean floor within Australia's Exclusive Economic Zone has so far been mapped.
Separate analyses of available data by researchers from Europe and Australia has found that human-induced climate change played a significant role in making 2014 Europe's hottest year on record.
A long-term study into jarrah forest (Eucalyptus marginata) establishment at restored mine sites has found that they are resistant to climate variability.
Results of a joint UK-Australia research project has found that Australians who have a stronger sense of place at the global, rather than the national, level are more likely to accept that climate change is caused by human activities.
Researchers from the University of South Australia (UniSA) say that painting or choosing a roof with a light colour over a dark one will decrease annual household energy costs for heating and cooling by 4–8 per cent.
The Australian Government recently announced the successful organisations to lead research hubs under a new $142.5 million National Environmental Science Programme.
The World Meteorological Organization(WMO) reports that
What often gets lost in the public debate about forests is the fact that they are not all the same. This is not just a rhetorical point. The world's ‘primary' forests – those barely touched by industrial human activity – naturally sequester and store vast amounts of carbon from the atmosphere; are home to species found nowhere else; are a source of abundant freshwater; and provide sustainable livelihoods for forest-dwelling Indigenous communities.
Australian carnivores exhibit a remarkable diversity, from the small antechinuses found in rainforest trees, to goannas living in the heat of the central and western deserts. Each plays a vital role in our ecosystems, keeping other predators and herbivores under check and exerting ecological pressure from the top down.
Researchers from the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) have joined with Australia's AutoCRC and the Malaysia Automotive Institute (MAI) to develop longer lasting lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles.