Breaking Waves: Ocean News

South Australia’s tiny pygmy bluetongue skink is baking in a warming, drying homeland, so Flinders University scientists have tried a bold fix—move it. Three separate populations were shifted from the parched north to cooler, greener sites farther south. At first the lizards reacted differently—nervous northerners diving for cover, laid-back southerners basking in damp burrows—but after two years most are settling in, suggesting they can ultimately thrive.

Exclusive: UK Green Building Council calls for adaptation of millions of buildings and warns of flood threats to towns The UK’s schools, care homes and offices are not equipped for the effects of global heating and face lengthy heatwaves even in optimistic scenarios, according to a groundbreaking report that calls for climate resilience to be declared a national emergency. The report by the UK Green Building Council also predicts that towns including Peterborough and Fairbourne will be uninhabitable by the end of the century because of flooding. The appointment of a minister for resilience within the Cabinet Office A new legal objective to ensure all planning decisions deliver climate safety. A more ambitious future homes standard to protect against increasing climate hazards – overheating, flooding and water scarcity. A comprehensive retrofit strategy to make homes and buildings climate safe. The protection of all communities with trees, parks and ponds. Continue reading...

The ACCC says it launched investigation into Australian Gas Networks after complaints from consumers and conservation advocates Australia news live: latest politics updates Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Australia’s competition watchdog has launched federal court action against Australian Gas Networks, alleging the company misled consumers with its “Love Gas” campaign. The advertisements, which ran on free-to-air television, streaming and YouTube during 2022 and 2023, claimed household gas would be “renewable” within a generation. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading...

Evolutionary change driven by intensive fishing led cod to ‘shrink’ from average 40cm length in 1996 to 20cm in 2019 Overfishing has led to a collapse in the eastern Baltic cod population, but over the past three decades the size of the fish themselves has also been dramatically and mysteriously shrinking. Now scientists have uncovered genomic evidence that intensive fishing has driven rapid evolutionary changes that have contributed to these fish roughly halving in average body length since the 1990s. Continue reading...