Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Research casts doubt on plans by UK government to offer subsidies for carbon capture attached to the power source Burning wood for power generation can be worse for the climate than burning gas, even when the resulting carbon dioxide emissions are captured and stored, new research has shown. The findings cast doubt on plans by several governments, including the UK, to offer subsidies or other financial support for carbon capture attached to wood-burning power. Continue reading...

Sarah Finch is among six recipients of the Goldman Environmental prize, awarded to honour grassroots activists around the world The woman whose campaigning set a legal precedent in the UK that stopped thousands of tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions has been awarded one of the world’s most prestigious environmental prizes alongside five other women from around the globe. A supreme court ruling in a case brought by Sarah Finch has been cited in decisions against new oil concessions in the North Sea, the UK’s first new deep coalmine for 30 years and even plans for new large-scale factory farms. Iroro Tanshi, a Nigerian conservation ecologist who launched a successful, community-led campaign to protect endangered bats from human induced wildfires; Borim Kim, a South Korean activist who won the continent’s first successful youth-led climate litigation, finding her government’s climate policy to be in violation of the rights of future generations; Alannah Acaq Hurley, a leader of the Yup’ik Indigenous people led a campaign that stopped what would have been the continent’s largest open-pit mine, in Alaska’s Bristol Bay region; Yuvelis Morales Blanco, a youth activist who mobilised others in her Afro-descendant community in Puerto Wilches against two drilling projects, preventing the introduction of commercial fracking into Colombia; Theonila Roka Matbob, of Papua New Guinea, whose campaign forced Rio Tinto, the world’s second-largest mining company, to sign an agreement to address devastation caused by its Panguna mine. Continue reading...

Zoological Society of London commissions poet laureate for animation to mark its 200th anniversary Over its two centuries, acclaimed writers and artists have found inspiration at London zoo, from Edwin Landseer’s Trafalgar Square lions, to AA Milne’s naming “Winnie” after resident bear Winnipeg, and Sylvia Plath’s poem Zoo Keeper’s Wife. Plath’s husband, Ted Hughes, who would become poet laureate, worked at the zoo briefly as a dish washer, an experience said to have helped fuel his inspiration for The Thought-Fox. Continue reading...

A 1,200-year dataset shows the ‘peak bloom’ is arriving earlier. Global heating is unsettling nature’s rhythms – and their cultural meaning A picture posted on social media last April by Prof Yasuyuki Aono of a spreadsheet, with its blank row for 2026, carries a quiet poignancy. Prof Aono died before he got to fill in this year’s entry for when the cherry blossom fully bloomed in Kyoto. The academic had spent decades reconstructing dates of flowering that go back to the ninth century. His work illuminated how a botanical event long associated with the Japanese idea of mono no aware – a sadness at the passing of things – is shifting because of the climate crisis. The “peak bloom” now occurs around two weeks earlier than in previous centuries. In the 1820s full bloom arrived in mid-April. In 2023 the full-flowering date was 25 March. An earlier blooming indicates warmer springs – and Prof Aono’s data provides a warning signal that Japan’s “sakura front” comes sooner each year. Continue reading...