Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Without federal climate regulation, fossil fuel industry may be more vulnerable to local lawsuits The Trump administration’s repeal of a foundational climate determination could clear a path for new litigation and policies targeting big oil, legal experts say. Earlier this month, Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized a rule revoking the “endangerment finding”, a 2009 determination that established that greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare. The move eliminated federal limits on climate-warming emissions from motor vehicles, and is expected to extend to all other pollution sources. Continue reading...

With the rhetoric not matching the reality, future Olympics hosts need to forge clearer sustainable standards By the end of the 21st century, only eight of the 21 cities that have hosted the Winter Olympics are projected to be cold enough to reliably host the Games due to climate change. Challenges faced by Milano Cortina 2026 organisers such as producing artificial snow, establishing transport links between remote locations and building new infrastructure are likely to become more omnipresent at future editions. In response to a petition asking the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to prevent fossil fuel companies from sponsoring winter sports, the IOC president, Kirsty Coventry, said the governing body is “having conversations in order to be better” in its approach to climate change. A New Weather Institute report estimated that the fossil fuel giant Eni, carmaker Stellantis and ITA Airways sponsoring Milano Cortina 2026 will induce an additional 40% to the Games’ carbon footprint, enough to melt 3.2 square km of snow cover and 20 million tonnes of glacier ice. Continue reading...

npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 24 February 2026; doi:10.1038/s44183-026-00183-4 How disasters and crises reshape economic vulnerability among small-scale fishers in Brazil

As the drama shows, private firms no longer able to pollute the coast of England of Wales just switched to rivers instead There is a moment in Channel 4’s drama Dirty Business when Julie Maughan holds the body of her dead child and lets out an anguished cry. It is as brutal as it is compelling. Her eight-year-old daughter Heather had just died in hospital, two weeks after playing in the sea on the beach at Dawlish Warren in Devon, where she contracted E coli O157, a bug which comes from raw sewage. She became ill with diarrhoea and blood loss. Transferred to Bristol children’s hospital, her parents agreed to switch off her life-support machine after she suffered kidney failure and brain damage. Continue reading...