Science Media Centre

The Government’s emissions trading legislation – the Clean Energy Future package – was passed the Australian Lower House of Representatives by 74 votes to 72 after weeks of debate. Although the legislation still has to be approved by the senate, the majority held by the current Government and the Green party in the senate suggest [...]

Here are two more podcasts from the 2011 NZBio conference held in Auckland (March 21 – 23, 2011). These particular presentations were from the session titled ‘Clean Green 100% New Zealand: Powering the Globe‘, which focused on how New Zealand companies are tackling the question of clean energy in innovative ways. Dr Will Barker, VP [...]

Anthony Doesburg writes in the NZ Herald about soil carbon, and scientists’ efforts to measure just how much is contained in our ground and how to increase, rather than decrease, it. Soil contains more carbon than the atmosphere and plants combined, but as yet there’s no accurate way to measure just how much there is. [...]

A visiting soil scientist says that conventional farming practices prevent soil from increasing its carbon content – soil carbon is important for healthy soil and healthy crops. Soil is also able to store more carbon than trees and other plants. An excerpt: (read in full here) “They say increasing carbon storage in soil can reduce [...]

Eloise Gibson writes in the New Zealand Herald about research which showed that, given the choice, birds preferred ‘conventional’ over organically grown seeds. The research suggested it could be due to the higher protein levels of the non-organic seeds, but also made it clear that other impacts, such as environmental impact of farming chemicals, had [...]

The Australian Science Media Centre rounded up questions on climate science from journalists and put them to leading scientists in the field. Below is the resulting Q&A. 1) There has been conflicting messages about warming in recent years – is it or is it not getting warmer? Professor Steven Sherwood, Climate Change Research Centre at [...]

This week’s issue of Nature Geoscience (cover –  “Locking carbon in minerals”), timed to coincide with Copenhagen climate talk preparations, carries a focus on carbon sequestration. Contributors include Phil Boyd of NIWA and University of Otago, who weighs in on the geopolitics of geoengineering. Other articles and commentaries look at mandatory sequestration linked to fossil [...]