Breaking Waves: Ocean News

In this month's episode of The American Blue Economy Podcast, our host Rear Admiral, Tim Gallaudet, PhD, US Navy (ret) examines how marine autonomy - or drone technology - contributes to our ocean and coastal economy. It is the 3rd in a series on technology in the American Blue Economy, building on previous episodes where he Explored the Wonders of Biotechnology and Artificial Intelligence in the Blue Economy. All 3 areas were described in his October 2022 article 7 Technologies Revolutionizing Our Understanding of the Ocean in RealClearScience. He is joined by four guests who are world-class leaders in operating uncrewed (unmanned) systems for ocean understanding, conservation, and sustainable use: Alex Ligon,  Program Specialist at the Uncrewed Maritime Systems (UMS) Division of NOAA’s UxS Operations Center in Gulfport Mississippi;  Chelsea Parrish, a newly minted NOAA Twin Otter pilot, but formerly an Uncrewed Aerial Vehicle (UAV) pilot and cetacean photogrammetry specialist at NOAA’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center (SWFSC) in LaJolla California; Jen Walsh, a research biologist and glider uncrewed underwater vehicle (UUV) pilot also at NOAA SWFSC; and rounding it out, Grant Rawson, physical scientist and another glider UUV pilot at NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML). Check it out if you are interested in learning how robots are revolutionizing the American Blue Economy!

UN report predicts water demand will increase by 80% as crisis threatens to get out of control The number of people lacking access to safe drinking water in cities around the world will double by 2050, research has found, amid warnings of an imminent water crisis that is likely to “spiral out of control”. Nearly 1 billion people in cities around the world face water scarcity today and the number is likely to reach between 1.7 billion and 2.4 billion within the next three decades, according to the UN World Water Development Report, published on Tuesday ahead of a vital UN summit. Urban water demand is predicted to increase by 80% by 2050. Continue reading...

This blog is now closed. Peter Dutton proposes criminalisation of Nazi symbols after Tuesday’s question time stoush Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast Voice negotiations The referendum machinery legislation will set up how the voice referendum will run – the machinery surruounding the vote, if you will. We’re negotiating in good faith in the Senate that’s being led by Jane Hume who is doing an outstanding job. What we said to the government in the beginning is what we’re saying to them now and that is that we are not prepared to trash decades of referendum precedent, and not do this in a way that Australians expect us to, in their interests, for their information. We’re asking for a pamphlet to outline the yes and no case, and we’ve talked about that. We’re asking for equal funding of the yes or no case, not the millions of dollars that may go into a public campaign on either side of this debate, but just the administration funding. Fifty-seven per cent of the population does not want to open new coal and gas mines and I think there’s a very clear message coming through there. Secondly, no, I have got a lot of time for Jacqui Lambie, but we had an emissions trading scheme in this country and she was part of a party that voted to repeal it so let’s let’s not get too carried away with the spin here. We’re in a climate crisis, as the UN secretary general has made clear. The decisions that we make now will reverberate for generations to come and the big decisions that we’ve got to make, do we open new coal and gas mines or not? Continue reading...

Protesters cut up credit cards and march to Washington branches of JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, Bank of America and Wells Fargo Hundreds of older Americans gathered in Washington on Tuesday to protest against four of the country’s largest financial institutions, cutting up their credit cards in an act of defiance meant to condemn the banks’ funding of oil and gas projects. The protesters marched to the downtown DC branches of the four targeted “dirty banks” – JPMorgan Chase, CitiBank, Bank of America and Wells Fargo – before staging a “die-in” to symbolize the global threat posed by fossil fuels. In a nod to the age of the protest’s participants, demonstrators sat in painted rocking chairs as they chanted “Cut it up!” to those slashing their credit cards outside the banks’ branches. Continue reading...