Breaking Waves: Ocean News

12/11/2024 - 01:00
Research shows UK police arrest environmental and climate protesters at three times the average global rate British police arrest environmental protesters at nearly three times the global average rate, research has found, revealing the country as a world leader in the legal crackdown on climate activism. Only Australia arrested climate and environmental protesters at a higher rate than UK police. One in five Australian eco-protests led to arrests, compared with about 17% in the UK. The global average rate is 6.7%. Continue reading...
12/10/2024 - 15:20
US Fish and Wildlife Service extends protections to ‘iconic’ insects, who experts say may not survive climate crisis The US Fish and Wildlife Service announced a decision on Tuesday to extend federal protections to monarch butterflies after years of warnings from environmentalists that populations are shrinking and the beloved pollinator may not survive the climate crisis. Officials plans to add the butterfly to the threatened species list by the end of next year following an extensive public comment period. Continue reading...
12/10/2024 - 12:38
Drastic shift driven by frequent wildfires, pushing surface air temperatures to second-warmest on record since 1900 The Arctic tundra is undergoing a dramatic transformation, driven by frequent wildfires that are turning it into a net source of carbon dioxide emissions after millennia of acting as a carbon sink, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) said on Tuesday. This drastic shift is detailed in Noaa’s 2024 Arctic Report Card, which revealed that annual surface air temperatures in the Arctic this year were the second-warmest on record since 1900. Continue reading...
12/10/2024 - 11:54
Fast-growing and small-seeded tree species are dominating Brazilian forests in regions with high levels of deforestation and degradation, a new study shows. This has potential implications for the ecosystem services these forests provide, including the ability of these 'disturbed' forests to absorb and store carbon. This is because these 'winning' species grow fast but die young, as their stems and branches are far less dense than the slow growing tree species they replace. Wildlife species adapted to consuming and dispersing the large seeds of tree species that are being lost in human-modified landscapes may also be affected by these shifts.
12/10/2024 - 11:51
While sustaining friendships from afar can be challenging, they may offer unexpected benefits for environmental conservation. A new study found that these social ties can positively influence community-based conservation. While the study focused on 28 fishing villages in northern Tanzania, it has potential broader implications for global conservation efforts.
12/10/2024 - 09:00
Exclusive: Glenn Platt says opposition leader’s ‘lazy’ response to report undermines science Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast A former CSIRO energy director has said Peter Dutton’s attempt to politicise the national science agency’s work on the likely costs of nuclear reactors is “incredibly disappointing” and “absurd”. The opposition leader attacked the CSIRO after its latest GenCost report reaffirmed that electricity from nuclear energy in Australia would be at least 50% more expensive than power from solar and wind, backed up with storage. Continue reading...
12/10/2024 - 08:42
Friends of the Earth calls on government to rein in growth of datacentres for fear they could increase fossil fuel use Ireland has allowed itself to become a “data dumping ground” for big technology companies such as Amazon and Meta which are monopolising clean energy generation for their datacentres, campaigners claim. They say the growth of the cloud storage sector in Ireland is so rapid it is threatening the country’s legally binding decarbonisation commitments. Continue reading...
12/10/2024 - 08:19
Campaign group will pay no money to oil and gas company, but will donate £300,000 to RNLI Business live – latest updates Shell has agreed to settle its controversial multimillion-dollar lawsuit against Greenpeace after its campaigners boarded an oil rig last year as part of a peaceful protest. The oil company threatened to sue Greenpeace for $2.1m (£1.6m) in damages in one of the biggest legal threats against the group after its campaigners occupied a moving oil platform off the coast of the Canary Islands for 13 days to protest against the damage to the climate caused by Shell. Continue reading...
12/10/2024 - 07:00
Filter performs well in removing plastic pollution from water and Chinese researchers say it appears to be scalable A sponge made of cotton and squid bone that has absorbed about 99.9% of microplastics in water samples in China could provide an elusive answer to ubiquitous microplastic pollution in water across the globe, a new report suggests. Just as importantly, the filter’s production appears to be scalable, the University of Wuhan study authors said in the paper, which was peer-reviewed and published in the journal Science Advances. That would address a problem that has stymied the use of previous microplastic filtration systems that were successful in controlled settings, but could not be scaled up. Continue reading...
12/10/2024 - 06:00
Backers of blocked Utah railway proposal want justices to narrow scope of 50-year-old environmental legislation The future of environmental safeguards protecting communities, wildlife and waterways from harm will be considered by the US supreme court on Tuesday, in a case about a proposed oil train that threatens to upend five decades of legal precedent. The case brought by Utah’s Seven County Infrastructure Coalition and Uinta Basin Railway LLC is asking the supreme court to overturn a federal appeals court decision blocking the approval of an 88-mile railway through the Uinta Basin in north-eastern Utah. The railway’s backers want the court to narrow the scope of the National Environmental Policy Act (Nepa) – the country’s landmark environmental legislation passed by Congress and signed by Richard Nixon in 1970. Continue reading...