Walking a 100-mile stretch of coastline reveals how a pioneering project is transforming the seascape, rivers and land
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On a blustery morning in May on Shoreham-by-Sea’s west beach, Eric Smith and George Short are pointing out treasures the waves have left on the tideline. Cuttlefish bones and balls of whelk eggs, they say, are evidence of recovering marine habitats.
“Just give nature a bit of space and it will come back” says Smith, 76, a former lorry driver by trade, freediver by choice. He first started diving in Sussex coastal waters at the age of 11, and still recalls the underwater “garden of Eden” of his childhood, a kelp forest teeming with bream, lobsters and cuttlefish that stretched 40km between Shoreham and Selsey Bill. It vanished after years of intensive trawling, a destructive form of fishing involving dragging heavy nets along the seabed.
Whelk eggs and seaweed. Photograph: Urszula Sołtys/the Guardian
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
06/27/2024 - 01:00
06/27/2024 - 00:00
About 230 cases filed against corporations and trade associations around world since 2015
The number of climate lawsuits filed against companies around the world is rising swiftly, a report has found, and a majority of cases that have concluded have been successful.
About 230 climate-aligned lawsuits have been filed against corporations and trade associations since 2015, two-thirds of which have been initiated since 2020, according to the analysis published on Thursday by the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
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06/26/2024 - 23:00
State not acting fast enough to build desalination stations to deal with dwindling rainfall and resulting drought, say critics
On 8 June, anger over months of water rationing spilled over in the drought-stricken central Algerian town of Tiaret, where baclava-wearing demonstrators barricaded roads and burned tyres.
Rationing had been introduced to deal with a drought in parts of Algeria and neighbouring Morocco where the amount of rainfall that had historically replenished critical reservoirs was much reduced. Taps had been running dry for months, forcing people in the region – a semi-arid, high-desert plateau increasingly plagued by extreme heat – to queue to access water.
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06/26/2024 - 14:20
Researchers have found a chemical clue in Italian limestone that explains a mass extinction of marine life in the Early Jurassic period, 183 million years ago. Volcanic activity pumped out CO2, warming oceans and lowering their oxygen levels. The findings may foretell the impact climate change and oxygen depletion might have on today's oceans.
06/26/2024 - 12:21
Days of flooding have submerged homes and farmland across South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota
At least two people have died as a result of devastating floods in the US midwest. Flood warnings remain in place across South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota as more rainfall and storms are expected to hit the region this week.
More than 3 million people have been affected by days of flooding that washed away homes and submerged vast swaths of farmland. On Sunday, a railroad bridge connecting Iowa and South Dakota collapsed from flooding.
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06/26/2024 - 12:09
North Herefordshire candidate and chef also call for water industry overhaul and more support for farmers
The Green party and the celebrity chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall are calling for a “protection zone” to be placed around one of the UK’s most beautiful but threatened rivers and have demanded “drastic” nationwide changes to the water industry’s management and regulation.
At a wild-swimming event on the River Wye on Wednesday, Fearnley-Whittingstall and the Green party’s candidate for North Herefordshire, Ellie Chowns, both took dips, but only after measuring the level of pollution in the water.
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06/26/2024 - 10:00
Paper outlines different legal theories that could help governments pursue accountability for harms
Companies have spent decades obstructing efforts to take on the plastics crisis and may have breached a host of US laws, a new report argues.
The research from the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) details the widespread burdens that plastic pollution places on US cities and states, and argues that plastic producers may be breaking public-nuisance, product-liability and consumer-protection laws.
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06/26/2024 - 10:00
Climate campaigners and scientists disturbed over claims about global warming found in document obtained through Gipa laws
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The New South Wales government is facing criticism over a review of how to cut emissions from coalmines that claims the goal of limiting global heating to well below 2C will not be met – a position at odds with the state’s laws and policies.
Climate campaigners and scientists said the assertion in the report, prepared for the planning department, is inconsistent with state legislation that commits to pursuing efforts to limit temperature increases to 1.5C.
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06/26/2024 - 09:00
Charges are reasonable after July 2023 extreme weather event, prosecutors write in new memorandum
Prosecutors in Arizona could reasonably press homicide charges against big oil for deaths caused by a July 2023 heatwave, lawyers wrote in a new prosecution memorandum.
“[T]he case for prosecuting fossil fuel companies for climate-related deaths is strong enough to merit the initiation of investigations by state and local prosecutors,” the document says.
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06/26/2024 - 08:00
As temperatures broil the US, experts share how to mitigate increased chances of heat illness and heatstroke
Millions of Americans are under a heat advisory as record temperatures scorch much of the country. Pregnant people are among the most at risk – they are more susceptible to heat exhaustion and other ailments. Extreme heat is associated with stillbirth, preterm birth and other adverse pregnancy outcomes. “When we think of heat, a lot of us think of discomfort,” said Blair Wylie, an OB-GYN who leads Columbia University’s Collaborative for Women’s Environmental Health. “For pregnant patients, not only is it uncomfortable, it’s actually risky.”
Public health experts and physicians explain the risks of extreme heat during pregnancy and share ways to stay safe.
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