Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Plastic pellets attract algae and smell like food so can be eaten by birds, fish and dolphins, which can prove fatal Beads spreading on Sussex coast after ‘catastrophic’ spill, meeting told Millions of toxic plastic beads were spilled on to Camber Sands beach, in East Sussex, a few days ago, putting wildlife at risk in what the local MP called an “environmental catastrophe”. Southern Water, the local water company, has taken responsibility for the spill after a mechanical failure at one of its treatment plants, which caused the beads to be released. Continue reading...

Jonathan Jarvis, who led the agency from 2009 to 2017, laid out the dire consequences of not closing parks in shutdown Americans should “raise hell” to protect US national parks through the “nightmare” of Donald Trump’s presidency, according to a former National Park Service director, amid alarm over the impact of the federal government shutdown. Jonathan Jarvis claimed the agency is now in the hands of a “bunch of ideologues” who would have no issue watching it “go down in flames” – and see parks from Yellowstone to Yosemite as potential “cash cows”, ripe for privatization. Continue reading...

Diane Wilson recognized Exxon’s playbook – and showed how local people can take on even the most entrenched industries When ExxonMobil announced it would “slow the pace of development” on a $10bn plastics plant along the Texas Gulf coast, the company blamed market conditions. But it wasn’t just the market applying pressure; it was a 77-year-old shrimper named Diane Wilson who refused to stay silent. Her fight exposes big oil’s latest survival plan: ramping up oil and gas production to create plastic. I first met Wilson back in 2019 while tracking her historic lawsuit against Formosa Plastics, the Taiwanese petrochemical giant accused of dumping toxic plastic waste throughout coastal Texas. Billions of tiny plastic pellets were contaminating waterways, shorelines, and even the soil itself. Shilpi Chhotray is the co-founder and president of Counterstream Media and Host of A People’s Climate for the Nation Continue reading...

About 600,000 people seeking compensation a decade on from disaster that killed 19 and devastated villages The global mining company BHP Group has been found liable for the deadly 2015 collapse of a Brazilian dam, in a landmark ruling that could pave the way for a multibillion-dollar payout. The high court in London on Friday ruled that BHP was responsible for the collapse of the Fundão dam in Mariana 10 years ago, which led to the country’s worst environmental disaster. Continue reading...