Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Trump administration ‘villainizes’ immigrant families with misleading directive on food aid

admin — Thu, 20 Mar 2025 10:00:23 +0000

Experts warn new memo could deter families from accessing food assistance, despite no changes to eligibility rules

The Trump administration is now using popular anti-hunger programs, including food assistance and school lunch, as part of its attack against immigrants in the US – a move many say will prevent large numbers of families, especially children, from getting the food benefits they’re eligible for.

How bottled water companies are draining our drinking water – video

admin — Thu, 20 Mar 2025 09:46:46 +0000

As droughts become more prevalent, corporate control over our drinking water is threatening the health of water sources and the access people have to them. Josh Toussaint-Strauss explores how foreign multinational companies are extracting billions of litres of water from natural aquifers to sell back to the same communities from which it came – for huge profits

‘I trust my eyes, not the forecast’: Alexandria is sinking. Why don’t local fishers believe it?

admin — Thu, 20 Mar 2025 09:00:20 +0000

The ancient Mediterranean city is at risk as sea levels rise. But most people in the vulnerable fishing village of El Max believe it will always weather the storms of time

On a sunny January morning in El Max, west of Egypt’s second city, Alexandria, where a canal meets the Mediterranean Sea, Ahmed Gaz is untangling his fishing net on the beach after landing his catch at dawn.

Like almost everyone in the neighbourhood, Gaz was born and raised by the water, destined to fish for a living: “My whole life is in the sea. My life, my work and my livelihood.”

Badenoch’s attack on net zero is ridiculous. But so were the right’s Brexit claims, and look where they left us | Zoe Williams

admin — Thu, 20 Mar 2025 08:00:19 +0000

The run-up to 2016 shows ‘common sense’ isn’t enough. Even ignorant, reactionary arguments must be properly countered

Kemi Badenoch’s speech on climate this week was not interesting of itself: she said net zero couldn’t be achieved by 2050 “without a serious drop in our living standards or by bankrupting us”. She has no expertise in climate science, no background in renewables or apparent familiarity with the advances made in their technology, no qualification in economics – just about the only bit of that sentence she knows anything about is bankrupting us.

RSPCA revokes Huon’s accreditation after video showing live salmon being dumped in Tasmania

admin — Thu, 20 Mar 2025 07:23:58 +0000

It means no Tasmanian salmon companies are certified as meeting the RSPCA-approved standard, its chief executive says

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RSPCA Australia has revoked its accreditation of Tasmanian salmon company Huon after the release of a video that it said showed the inhumane handling of live fish.

UK must spend £1.5bn a year on flood defences to protect public, experts warn

admin — Thu, 20 Mar 2025 06:00:17 +0000

Researchers cite £2.4bn annual cost of flooding and say a third of England’s critical infrastructure is at risk

Spending on flood defences will fall off a cliff edge next year, a report warns, calling on the chancellor to commit at least £1.5bn a year in the spending review to protect the economy and the public.

Nearly 2 million people across the UK are exposed to flooding every year, which is equivalent to the combined populations of Birmingham, Sheffield and Newcastle upon Tyne.

Take a blossom break at work, National Trust urges, as spring warms UK

admin — Thu, 20 Mar 2025 05:00:16 +0000

Charity’s poll finds 80% feel more positive after spending breaks outside, but only 10% do so

Employees are being urged to step outside to take time to observe one of the wonders of the natural world: the fleeting but lovely spring blossom season.

Research commissioned by the National Trust, which operates in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, shows that while almost all those polled said they felt better if they took breaks in nature, only one in 10 did so.

Albanese to rush through new laws to protect Tasmania’s salmon industry from legal challenge

admin — Thu, 20 Mar 2025 00:06:01 +0000

Labor will push the contentious bill through parliament next week despite concerns about the extinction of the Maugean skate

Greenpeace must pay at least $660m over Dakota pipeline protests, says jury

admin — Wed, 19 Mar 2025 20:46:48 +0000

Non-profit, which will appeal decision, says lawsuits like this are aimed at ‘destroying the right to peaceful protest’

A jury in North Dakota has decided that the environmental group Greenpeace must pay hundreds of millions of dollars to the pipeline company Energy Transfer and is liable for defamation and other claims over protests in the state nearly a decade ago.

Farmer’s house in danger from climate change, court told in RWE case

admin — Wed, 19 Mar 2025 20:27:33 +0000

German coal giant is one of world’s biggest polluters and should contribute to flood defences, says farmer in Peru

A Peruvian farmer’s home is in “concrete danger” from climate change, a court has heard, in the resumption of a decade-long legal battle to get German coal giant RWE to contribute to flood defences in the Andes.

Lawyers for Saúl Luciano Lliuya, who say his home is threatened by rapidly melting glaciers, told the upper regional court in Hamm on Wednesday that the risk of extreme flooding represented a breach of civil law.