Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Exclusive: Levy that allows almost 16,000 houses to be built on Norfolk Broads will not cover cost of mitigating environmental damage, critics say A new levy on developers to allow almost 16,000 homes to be built in the environmentally protected Norfolk Broads has been cut by tens of thousands of pounds per house, the Guardian can reveal. Ministers say the government’s environmental delivery plans (EDPs) were created to unblock housing growth across the country and are a “win-win” for development and nature. Continue reading...

Former US vice-president still has optimism for climate advocacy two decades after groundbreaking documentary Two decades after the release of his groundbreaking documentary An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore has admitted he was surprised by the ferocious, ongoing backlash from the fossil fuel industry and its political allies. But the former US vice-president insists he still has optimism the world will confront the climate crisis. At a New York event to mark the 20th anniversary of the release of the film and his subsequent climate advocacy work, Gore, now 78, joked: “I always say if it hadn’t been for me, we might have a big problem right now” when asked about the progress made over the past two decades. Continue reading...

El Niño poses critical threat to nations’ defences, says Ed Miliband in presentation to global foreign ministers The UK has warned countries around the world that the climate and nature crises and the coming El Niño threaten their national security and defence, presenting foreign ministries with the findings of a report suppressed under Keir Starmer. Ed Miliband, the UK’s foreign secretary, made a presentation to the foreign ministers of the EU as well as Kenya and other countries on Wednesday night at a private meeting during the UN general assembly in New York, based on the report by the UK’s spy chiefs that found the collapse of natural systems around the world would lead to conflict, migration and food shortages. Continue reading...

Biggest study of its kind provides insights into bats’ evolution – a potential gamechanger for research into treating viruses and cancer in humans In the northern forests of the Congo-Brazzaville, as the sun slips away, a distinctive honking fills the dusky sky. Every evening, thousands of hammer-headed fruit bats depart their daytime roosts in search of mates, calling out through large, box-shaped snouts that give the flying mammals the appearance of a winged moose. Here, along the Congo River, scientists have been collecting DNA swabs and tissue samples from the bats for years, working deep into the night in spacesuit-like protective gear. Those hard-won samples are now among the thousands of specimens gathered from bats across the world that have helped to reshape what we know about the bat family tree. Continue reading...