Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Experts say administration has launched ‘war on all fronts’ to undo environmental rules – here are the key areas at risk In his first year back in office, Donald Trump has fundamentally reshaped the Environmental Protection Agency, initiating nearly 70 actions to undo rules protecting ecosystems and the climate. The agency’s wide-ranging assault on the environment will put people at risk, threatening air and water quality, increasing harmful chemical exposure, and worsening global warming, experts told the Guardian. The changes amount to “a war on all fronts that this administration has launched against our health and the safety of our communities and the quality of our environment,” said Matthew Tejada, the former director of the EPA’s environmental justice program. Continue reading...

From a renovated Victorian village house in Hampshire to a new-build apartment in south London Continue reading...

Eleven endangered skinks released into a gated community in Victoria's Alpine national park will soon become 13, when Omeo, one of the females, gives birth in March. One of Australia's only alpine lizards, guthega skinks live on 'sky islands' above 1,600 metres in two isolated alpine locations – Bogong high plains in Victoria and Mount Kosciuszko in NSW. 'They're extremely vulnerable, given where they live,' says skink specialist Dr Zak Atkins, director of Snowline Ecology. As the climate warms, their alpine zone is retracting, and there's nowhere higher for them to go Nursing a skink: endangered alpine lizard numbers set to rise after Omeo falls pregnant in Victoria Continue reading...

Emergency pumps are deployed in attempt to stop water inundating homes around River Parrett ‘Like a sea out there’: flooded Somerset residents wonder how water can be managed Since medieval monks started draining and managing the Somerset Levels, humans have struggled to live and work alongside water. “At the moment it feels like a losing battle,” said Mike Stanton, the chair of the Somerset Rivers Authority. “Intense rainfall is hitting us more often because of climate change. It may be that in the next 50 years, perhaps in the next 20, some homes around here will have to be abandoned.” Continue reading...