NEWLY DEVELOPED WATER-BASED BATTERY COULD SIGNIFICANTLY HELP HOUSEHOLDS
Engineers at Monash University have developed a water-based battery that could help households store roof-top solar energy more safely, cheaply and efficiently than ever before.
Head of Materials Science and Engineering at Monash University Professor Matthew Hill* says, “The water is like salt water. The salts move from one side to the other; that’s what carries the electricity. We’ve been working on this for 3-4 years; like a lot of research you fail most of the time and eventually you work out what you’re doing wrong… we’ve got a system that we’re pretty excited about.”
Described as being like two fish tanks of water and joined with iron, these promise to be cheaper and safer than batteries currently available. To see a report and hear a full interview go to https://www.4bc.com.au/the-newly-developed-water-based-battery-that-could-signifcantly-help-households/
* Professor Matthew Hill grew up in Ryde. He was a student at Ryde East Primary School in the 1980s and is the son of Kim Phillips, current president of the Ryde District Historical Society. Matt received the Prime Minister’s Prize for Science in 2014.

FNPW NEW STRATEGY GUIDING THE YEARS AHEAD
Partnering For Impact
As we celebrate our 55th year of conservation, we're proud to launch Partnering for Impact, a bold new strategy that will guide the Foundation for National Parks & Wildlife from 2025 to 2028.
For over five decades, we've been at the forefront of protecting Australia's biodiversity. But now, with mounting environmental challenges, we're stepping up in a bigger way. This plan isn't just about preserving nature — it's about empowering communities, expanding protected areas, and forging powerful partnerships to safeguard Australia's natural heritage.
Key Goals
•Protect & restore 10,000+ hectares of high-conservation value land
•Secure $50 million in funding from corporates, government, and philantropy
•Establish 20+ high-impact partnerships
•Develop 10+ flagship projects, each valued at over $1 million
•Expand national reach to ensure broad-scale environmental impact
Our Strategic Pillars
•Growing National Parks
•Healing Our Land

NURDLES: THE PLASTIC POLLUTION CRISIS IN MELBOURNE'S WATERWAYS
Tiny plastic pellets are polluting Melbourne's waterways at alarming levels.
These lentil-sized plastics spill from industrial sites, washing into stormwater drains, rivers, and beaches – posing a serious environmental threat.
Citizen scientists from have uncovered widespread nurdle contamination, with thousands found in stormwater traps. Marine life mistakes them for food, leading to injuries and chemical exposure.
Despite existing environmental laws, enforcement has been weak. EJA lawyers are calling on the Victorian EPA to act now. Read more about microplastic pollution what needs to be done >

NSW Government’s Best-Practice Guidelines for Sporting Fields were published in January 2025.
Developed by the NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, this comprehensive guide supports the planning, construction, and maintenance of climate-resilient natural turf playing surfaces across New South Wales.
These guidelines respond to the increasing need for more sustainable and durable community sporting facilities in a changing climate. They provide a valuable resource for councils, turf managers, planners, and sporting organisations.
Key Highlights from the Guidelines:
•Benchmark performance standards for turf quality, irrigation, drainage, and wear capacity
•Practical strategies for designing, constructing and upgrading natural turf fields to suit a variety of site and climate condition
•Case studies and comparative data on field types including sand-over-soil, hybrid turf, and best-practice natural turf fields
•Clear water-use benchmarks and irrigation scheduling tailored to different NSW regions
•Guidance on enhancing field resilience to drought, flood, and increased usage
Why It Matters:
An assessment of over 1,000 fields across NSW found that 76% are in poor or marginal condition, requiring significantly more resources to maintain. These new best-practice guidelines provide a roadmap to improve field quality, reduce water use, and extend the life of natural turf surfaces—without relying on synthetic alternatives. Download the full publication here

NATURE CONSERVATION COUNCIL (NCC) NEWS – GOLD MINING IN THE MACQUARIE MARSHES?
From Mel Gray, Water Campaigner:
We have some important progress to report.
After we exposed this reckless decision in the media and in parliament, the NSW Resources Regulator withdrew its previous approval of the drilling.
The story didn’t end there – the miner, Australian Consolidated Gold Holdings (ACGH), took the Regulator to court seeking a variation on the application. However, in good news for the Marshes the miner has recently dropped the case and withdrew its application!
The Macquarie Marshes are internationally recognised for their rich biodiversity and cultural significance. The Marshes include 200,000 hectares of interconnected semi-permanent wetlands on both private and public land. This is one of the most important water bird nesting sites in the country, supporting hundreds of thousands of water birds at its peak. These marshes provide critical habitat for numerous threatened and endangered species such as the Australasian bittern, magpie goose, and Australian painted snipe. NCC seeks their permanent protection.

‘SPIRAL OF SILENCE’: CLIMATE ACTION IS VERY POPULAR, SO WHY DON’T PEOPLE REALISE IT?
- précis of article by Damian Carrington published in The Guardian 22.4.2025
Researchers find 89% of people around the world want more to be done, but mistakenly assume their peers do not…
The illusion that climate action is not popular is global. So imagine dispelling that myth: such a shift could be a gamechanger, pushing the world over a tipping point into climate progress.
A communication campaign, low-cost and scalable, could be among the most powerful tools available to fight the climate crisis. Decades of psychological research indicates that correcting misunderstandings can change people’s views across a swathe of issues.
Silent Majority

Social scientists and economists considered: “What kind of research can we do?”
Their biggest result was a huge, globe-spanning survey that revealed the remarkable fact that people across the world are united in wanting action to fight the climate crisis but remain a silent majority, because they think only a minority share their views.
The team found 89% of people across the world wanted their national governments to do more to fight global heating. More than two-thirds said they were willing to give 1% of their income to fight the climate crisis. Crucially, however, they thought only a minority of other people – 43% – would be willing to do the same.
Even in the petrostates of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the vast majority – about 80% – were willing to give 1% of their income to climate action. How many of these wanted more government action is unknown: these countries did not allow the question to be asked.
Those feeling the heat most directly had the strongest pro-climate views. Those in rich countries were significantly less willing to contribute 1%. And the countries where people most strongly wanted to fight the climate crisis had implemented significantly more climate policies.
Perception gaps are real
A US study from 2022 found people thought only about 40% of their fellow citizens supported climate policies: the real proportion was about 75%. An earlier study found the same in China.
Other commonly held beliefs have been revealed as false, including the idea that people in rich nations are unwilling to give money to poorer nations to help fight the climate crisis. A study testing support for the redistribution of money from a global emissions trading scheme from the rich to the poor found the scheme was backed by 76% of Europeans and 54% of those in the US.
Political illusions
You might think politicians finely tuned to public opinion, but they are not. And that matters, said Dr Niall McLoughlin, at Climate Barometer, which analyses climate opinions in the UK.
The group found in 2024 that 72% of the UK public supported onshore wind being built in their areas, but only 19% of MPs thought a majority of their constituents did so. Climate action is backed even by those who vote for political parties that are explicitly opposed to it.
The apparent contradiction is explained by the fact that many voters supported other policies but not their environmental policies. Informing the policy debate on climate issues can be very helpful.
If we make politicians more aware of what the people in their country want, they might actually act on the people’s preferences.”
Social creatures
Most people are social creatures, highly influenced by what others do and say. So correcting mistaken beliefs about the views of fellow citizens can make an impact on what you think and do.
There is a lot of research showing this can shift people’s views on a range of social justice issues.
First, people are drawn towards “social norms”, the perceived standard of acceptable behaviour.
People are also “conditional cooperators”: they are more likely to contribute to the public good if they think others are doing the same.
Studies have shown that telling people how popular environmental action is with others can increase their own actions, for example in saving energy and green living.
But correcting the misperception did not lead to people putting more priority on government climate action, or living greener lives themselves.
The impact of dispelling mistaken views might depend on how it is corrected, for example, using stories rather than data, or correcting repeatedly not just once. Other barriers might also remain, such as entrenched ideologies. But one approach is clearly shown to work: correcting people’s misperception about the proportion of climate scientists that agree that global heating is human-caused and a serious problem, which is extremely high.
Breaking the silence
Why do these collective illusions about the level of support for climate action exist at all? What is the root cause? The answer is uncertain but is likely to be a complex mix of human psychology (e.g. people tend to think worse of others than themselves) and fossil-fuelled disinformation.
Another critical reason is the existence of a very large, sophisticated, well-funded and longstanding misinformation campaign being driven by the fossil fuel industry and its allies, sowing doubt and division to maintain their profits. This campaign has acted as an “enormous megaphone” for the small but vocal minority that dismiss climate science. As a result, they tend to dominate the public square. Climate change has joined sex, religion and politics as a taboo topic.
So communicating social norms is one of the most powerful interventions you can make.
What about today’s rapidly changing geopolitics, with rising nationalism, Trump entrenching climate denial in the US, and the threat of trade wars and recessions? This makes the data on people’s real climate views more important than ever. The People’s Climate Vote result showed that people are actually very multilateral. 86% of people thought that countries should put aside their differences on other issues and work together. People understand our fates are tied together when it comes to the climate crisis and they want world leaders to act on it.”
And everyone can help break the “spiral of silence”. The empowering truth is that every public statement counts, and the more diverse the voices, the more effective the message will be.
This story is part of the 89% project, an initiative of the global journalism collaboration CoveringClimate Now.
Postscript - This is what we're up against:
•Bad actors spreading disinformation to fuel intolerance.
•Lawyers from the rich and powerful trying to suppress stories they don’t want you to see.
•Lobby groups with opaque funding who are determined to undermine facts about the climate emergency and other established science.
•Authoritarian states with no regard for the freedom of the press.