A future of extreme heatwaves, drought and collapsing habitats awaits if we continue to ignore the danger signs
What does British summertime mean to you? Blackberries? Picnics? Festivals? Ticks? This summer has been the hottest on record in the UK. As human-caused climate breakdown intensifies, the outdoor areas we spend time in are changing – and so, too, are our relationships with the land and the ecosystems we live in.
My home is in the south of England, near beautiful woodlands. Since moving there in 2016, the number of ticks my family has picked up in the woods has increased each year, but this summer has been astonishing. For a few weeks, our four-year-old came home from nursery with a tick almost every day. I’ve had many: some tiny nymphal ones that could be easily missed. We spend time in Scotland, too, and find ticks often when we go there now.
Lucy Jones is a journalist and the author of Losing Eden and The Nature Seed
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
09/03/2025 - 02:00
09/03/2025 - 00:00
Hundreds of billions of dollars invested in extractive mining for green transition with few safeguards, research finds
The financing of transition mineral mining is driving widespread environmental destruction and human rights abuses, according to a report.
Banks and investors have ploughed hundreds of billions of dollars into companies mining for minerals for the manufacture of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, energy grids and electric vehicles in the past decade, according to the research.
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09/02/2025 - 21:02
Australia’s 2035 target for cutting emissions will reveal how serious we are about addressing the climate crisis
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The climate crisis is often a fight over numbers – and we are coming towards the end of a big one. It will shape how ambitious Australia will be in addressing this era-defining problem, over the next decade and beyond.
The Albanese government is weighing a decision on the national emissions reduction target for 2035. Along with the policies that follow, it will be a legacy marker for a prime minister who is sometimes accused of being risk averse.
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09/02/2025 - 15:50
More than 97% at Yosemite and Sequoia & Kings Canyon parks voted to unionize as president enacts major cuts
Hundreds of staff at two of California’s most popular national parks have voted to unionize, a move that comes during a troubled summer for the National Park Service, which has seen the Trump administration enact unprecedented staff and budget cuts.
In an election held between July and August, more than 97% of workers at Yosemite and Sequoia & Kings Canyon national parks voted in support of organizing a union, according to a statement from the National Federation of Federal Employees. The Federal Labor Relations Authority certified the results last week.
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09/02/2025 - 13:37
‘Megaberg’ known as A23a has rapidly disintegrated in warmer waters and could disappear within weeks
Nearly 40 years after breaking off Antarctica, a colossal iceberg ranked among the oldest and largest ever recorded is finally crumbling apart in warmer waters, and could disappear within weeks.
Earlier this year, the “megaberg” known as A23a weighed a little under a trillion tonnes and was more than twice the size of Greater London, a behemoth unrivalled at the time.
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09/02/2025 - 12:56
MPs on Commons committee describe figures as a waste and say money should have been used to fix infrastructure
English water companies have spent £16.6m fighting legal action against regulators and campaigners over environmental breaches such as illegal sewage spills.
Correspondence from the companies to the Commons environment, food and rural affairs (Efra) committee published on Tuesday reveals that millions of pounds of billpayers’ money has been spent over the past five years on expensive external lawyers enlisted to reduce liabilities for regulatory breaches.
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09/02/2025 - 12:46
Authorities said the boy, who survived and was hospitalized, was bitten while snorkelling near Key Largo
An eight-year-old child suffered “a significant amount of blood loss” after he was bitten by a shark as he was snorkelling near Key Largo on Monday, authorities in Florida said.
The boy survived and was taken by helicopter to hospital in Miami for treatment to a leg wound above the knee. His condition was unknown on Tuesday morning, but local media reports described his wounds as “severe”.
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09/02/2025 - 10:01
Exclusive: The progressive thinktank, which has championed a ‘real zero’ emissions policy, says it protects privacy of donors to avoid them being targeted
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Andrew Forrest’s charity has made an undisclosed donation to the Australia Institute, raising transparency concerns about the funding of influential advocacy groups.
The donation to the progressive thinktank, which has been confirmed by several sources familiar with the deal but not authorised to comment, highlights differing disclosure standards across the research and advocacy sector.
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09/02/2025 - 10:00
More than 40 round-leaf pomaderris discovered by environmental community group inside the area earmarked for fire break in July
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A mere 150 round-leaf pomaderris were thought left in the world in 2021 and now a planned firebreak in Victoria could destroy dozens of the plants.
The critically endangered shrub, which bursts into cascades of creamy flowers, is known to exist in only a handful of locations in central Victoria’s hill country.
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World Ocean Explorer Wins Gold Medal Serious Simulation Award from Serious Play Annual International Competition
10/26/2023 - 14:35
For Immediate Release October 19, 2023
Sedgwick, Maine USA World Ocean Explorer, a 3D virtual aquarium and educational simulation, was recently cited for excellence, winning a Gold Medal Award in the 2023 International Serious Play Awards Program.
World Ocean Explorer is an innovative 3D virtual aquarium designed for educational exploration of the world’s oceans. With interactive exhibits and a lobby space, visitors can immerse themselves in realistic marine environments, including a DEEP SEA exhibit funded by Schmidt Ocean Institute, showcasing unprecedented deep-sea discoveries off Australia. Targeted at 3rd graders and beyond, this immersive experience offers a range of perspectives on the ocean environment and can be explored through guided tours or user-controlled interfaces. Visit DEEP SEA at worldoceanexplorer.org/deep-sea-aquarium.html.
Serious Play Conference brings together professionals who are exploring the use of game-based learning, sharing their experience, and working together to shape the future of training and education. For more information on Serious Play Award Program visit seriousplayconf.com/international-serious-play-award-programs.
World Ocean Explorer is a transformative virtual aquarium designed to deepen understanding of the world ocean and amplify connection for young people worldwide. Organized around the principles of Ocean Literacy and the Next Gen Science Standards, World Ocean Explorer brings the wonder and knowledge of ocean species and systems to students in formal and informal classrooms, absolutely free to anyone with a good Internet connection. As an advocate for the ocean through communications, World Ocean Observatory believes there is no better investment in the future of the sustainable ocean than through a new approach to educational engagement that excites, informs, and motivates students to explore the wonders of our marine world and to understand the pervasive connection and implication for our future, inherent in the protection and conservation of all aspects of our ocean world.
World Ocean Explorer presents an astonishing 3-dimensional simulated aquarium visit, organized to reveal the wonders of undersea life, with layers of detailed data and information to augment the emotional connection made to the astonishing beauty and complexity of the dynamic ocean. Within each of the virtual exhibits, students visit exemplary theme-based sites with myriad opportunities to understand the larger perspectives of scientific knowledge as organized and visualized to dramatize the impact and change on ocean life as a result of natural and human-generated events. Through immersion among displays, mixed media and 3D models, the experience of an aquarium visit will be brought into classrooms or home school environments as a free, accessible, always available opportunity for teaching and learning. All of this will be available to a world audience without physical limitation or cost. World Ocean Explorer, a project of the World Ocean Observatory, receives support from the Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Foundation, Visual Solutions Lab, the Climate Change Institute, the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, and The Fram Museum Oslo. To learn more about the current and future exhibits of World Ocean Explorer, visit worldoceanexplorer.org.
media contact
Trisha Badger, Managing Director, World Ocean Observatory | director@thew2o.net +12077011069
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