A local initiative is testing simple ways to stop algal blooms in the River Fal threatening some of England’s most biodiverse marine habitats
On a rocky beach in Cornwall, a group of wetsuit-clad freedivers and snorkellers are wading into the shallows. Below St Mawes Castle, built by Henry VIII to defend Falmouth harbour, they disappear in a swish of florescent pink and green fins.
They are volunteers, trained by the Cornwall Wildlife Trust to use underwater cameras and floating GPS devices to detect changes in marine habitats over time.
Two volunteers, Simon Tagney and Max Behnert, prepare to survey the seabed beneath the 16th-century St Mawes Castle. Photograph: Luke Gartside/The Guardian
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
08/25/2026 - 03:17
08/25/2026 - 02:00
Although mobiles blared in public are nothing new, this crop of headphone-dodging irritants are truly maddening. It’s time to take them on
‘Interesting cities can’t be quiet”, runs one of grime DJ and music industry thinker Elijah’s epigrams – and in its essential spirit, he is right. Silent, tidy, prim cities should be treated with suspicion. Any such atmosphere denotes that something has gone wrong at a macro level: either you’ve wound up in an authoritarian regime or, worse, Switzerland.
But not all urban sounds are created equal, and some are more unwelcome than others. Take the tide of (Instagram, TikTok, YouTube) reels crashing on the shores of our collective attention on public transport, thanks to the astonishing number of grown adults who think it’s OK to surf the slopwave without headphones.
Dan Hancox is a writer and editor covering music, politics and cities. His latest book is Multitudes: How Crowds Made the Modern World
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08/25/2026 - 02:00
Henry Astor looked back to his grandfather’s time for the inspiration to find older varieties that could help nature on his Cotswold farm
It is the earliest harvest Henry Astor can remember. But walking through the scorched wheatfields of his Cotswolds farm, signs of life are everywhere – swarms of insects, kaleidoscopic wildflower meadows, bushy hedgerows several metres wide. A yellowhammer perches on a nearby tree.
There are 18 other red-listed birds on the farm, says Astor, who this year ringed 23 barn owls, three kestrels, two little owls as well as goshawk chicks. “Last winter we had clouds of goldfinch, chaffinch and greenfinch,” he says. Britain has lost 73 million birds since 1970; but at Bruern Farms, a small but welcome reversal is taking shape.
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08/25/2026 - 00:00
Exclusive: Economic harm of CO2 pollution from Rosebank and Jackdaw forecast to far outweigh any boost to UK
The climate damage caused by developing the Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields under consideration by the UK government would destroy their economic benefits many times over, according to an analysis.
It estimates the economic damage caused by the carbon pollution from the oil and gas produced would be between £119bn and £336bn in the coming decades, compared with the £28.7bn in value to the UK estimated by Adura, the fossil fuel company promoting the new fields.
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08/24/2026 - 23:00
Rise in claims linked to heat-related deaths and illness, especially among older people, could drive up premiums
Europe’s intense heatwaves could hit insurers’ earnings as companies face a rise in claims linked to heat-related deaths and worsening health conditions, the rating agency S&P has said.
While a long summer of extreme heat will have increased drought and wildfire-related claims, the rating agency said there would also be fallout for life and health insurers, and for the reinsurers who provide financial protection to insurance companies.
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08/24/2026 - 23:00
True figure likely to be much higher as it only covers about half of continent and does not include August totals
At least 35,000 more people died during Europe’s four record-breaking, back-to-back heatwaves this summer than would normally be expected, according to incomplete figures from barely half the continent.
Excess mortality in three of the EU’s larger countries – Germany, France and Spain – alone has already exceeded 25,000, according to the provisional national figures, and experts say the toll will rise significantly once August totals are consolidated.
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08/24/2026 - 15:56
California, Arizona and Nevada face about 20% cut to water supply over two years under Trump administration plan
Nevada filed a federal lawsuit on Monday challenging the Trump administration’s new plan for the imperiled Colorado River, launching what could become the first of many court battles over the waterway that supplies 40 million people, dozens of tribes and 5.5m acres of farm land across the American west.
The federal plan, issued on Friday, cut roughly 20% from the water supplied to lower basin states – Nevada, Arizona and California – over the next two years, with a potential for harsher cutbacks in the future, based on conditions.
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08/24/2026 - 13:55
Man, 68, was left searching for help in 116F weather after his car became stuck in mud along remote park road
A French tourist recently died in Death Valley national park after a car mishap left him stranded in 116F (47C) weather.
The visitor, identified as 68-year-old Pierre Michel Formosa, was traveling with another French man along the park’s remote West Side Road when their vehicle became stuck in mud near Queen of Sheba Mine Road.
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08/24/2026 - 12:26
Tens of thousands are still under evacuation orders or warnings amid ‘human-caused’, wind-driven blaze
The Hawk fire is about 27% contained, authorities said on Monday afternoon, two days after the fast-moving, wind-driven wildfire sparked near Reno, Nevada.
Authorities added that 23,000 people are under a “go-now” order and 40,000 people are under a “get-set” warning, an improvement from the 90,000 Nevadans under evacuation orders or warnings on Monday morning.
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08/24/2026 - 10:17
On a panel show last week, everyone in the audience wanted to talk about the climate emergency, but the lines rolled out by a Tory MP simply dissolved on contact with reality
As it is August, and everyone with stronger opinions is currently on holiday, last week I went on Any Questions?, the BBC Radio 4 panel show. I had prepared beforehand with a friend whose life’s work it is to make sure people don’t say anything stupid on the radio (or TV), and we’d talked about everything – the strait of Hormuz and energy prices; bus fare caps and the relative price of eggs; racism in the press and in public life; the AI bubble and the next financial crash; how many bathrooms Harry and Meghan currently have in the US, and whether a property even exists in the UK with that amount of toileting hardware.
Predictably, perhaps, the audience’s questions did not spread themselves neatly across the full suite of current affairs, though Harry and Meghan’s return did come up – it was more a matter of which question about the climate crisis best represented the fact that everyone wanted to talk about the climate crisis. The news had just dropped that El Niño would deliver us an unprecedentedly wet autumn, but that was unlikely to soothe the parched earth of the record-breakingly hot, dry summer. Crops are failing, the land is on fire and nobody has not noticed.
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