Breaking Waves: Ocean News

We need a dash of hope, but is too much diverting our gaze from the perils of the climate crisis? | Jonathan Watts

admin — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 15:35:07 +0000

Enforced positivity encourages risk instead of solid action and gives us a way to ignore the fast-approaching future

If despair is the most unforgivable sin, then hope is surely the most abused virtue. That observation feels particularly apposite as we enter the Cop season, that time of United Nations megaconferences at the end of every year, when national leaders feel obliged to convince us the future will be better, despite growing evidence to the contrary.

‘It’s a big lever for change’: the radical contract protecting Hamburg’s green space

admin — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 14:50:13 +0000

Citizen power forced Germany’s greenest city-state into a binding agreement balancing housing and nature

When Fritz Schumacher laid out his vision for Hamburg a century ago, the sketch looked more like a fern than a town plan. Fronds of urban development radiated from the centre to tickle the countryside, bristling with dense rows of housing. The white spaces in between were to be filled with parks and playgrounds.

Dog owners warned about boom in ticks on Australia’s east coast after last year’s hot, wet summer

admin — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 14:00:55 +0000

Expert reminds owners ‘freeze it, don’t squeeze it’ when it comes to a tick, ideally with a tick-freezing spray from a chemist

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Dog owners have been warned about a tick boom unfolding along Australia’s east coast, with some experts predicting an unusually bad season for furry friends.

‘Crunch time for real’: UN says time for climate delays has run out

admin — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 14:00:51 +0000

Means to stop catastrophic global heating exist, says UN chief, but political courage is needed to end world’s fossil fuel addiction

The huge cuts in carbon emissions now needed to end the climate crisis mean it is “crunch time for real”, according to the UN’s environment chief.

US imposes strict limits on dust from lead-based paint to protect children

admin — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 11:50:49 +0000

More than 30m homes are thought to contain lead paint, including nearly 4m where children under age of six live

Two weeks after setting a nationwide deadline for removal of lead pipes, the Biden administration is imposing strict new limits on dust from lead-based paint in older homes and childcare facilities.

A final rule announced on Thursday by the Environmental Protection Agency sets limits on lead dust on floors and window sills in pre-1978 residences and childcare facilities to levels so low they cannot be detected.

US power grid added battery equivalent of 20 nuclear reactors in past four years

admin — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 10:00:08 +0000

Pace of growth helps maintain renewable energy when weather conditions interfere with wind and solar

Faced with worsening climate-driven disasters and an electricity grid increasingly supplied by intermittent renewables, the US is rapidly installing huge batteries that are already starting to help prevent power blackouts.

Disposable vapes to be banned in England next June, says Labour

admin — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 07:39:09 +0000

Move is designed to combat environmental damage from single-use vapes and their widespread use by children

Disposable vapes will be banned from sale in England next summer, the government has confirmed.

From June 2025 it will be illegal to sell single-use vapes, in a move designed to combat environmental damage and their widespread use by children.

‘Potential issues’ with Coalition’s planned nuclear reactor sites, safety expert warns

admin — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 07:02:46 +0000

Government agencies and departmental officials spend full day scrutinising Peter Dutton’s controversial plan to build seven nuclear power plants

Biodiversity declining even faster in ‘protected’ areas, scientists warn Cop16

admin — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 05:00:02 +0000

Just designating key areas will not meet 30x30 target on nature loss, study says, pointing to oil drilling in parks

Biodiversity is declining more quickly within key protected areas than outside them, according to research that scientists say is a “wake-up call” to global leaders discussing how to stop nature loss at the UN’s Cop16 talks in Colombia.

‘There is a python with a platypus in its mouth’: botanist’s extreme monotreme v reptile encounter

admin — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 04:00:12 +0000

Plant enthusiasts stumble across 2-metre long snake consuming egg-laying mammal in Marys Creek State Forest in Queensland

A botanist was admiring a myrtle shrub in bloom in an obscure state forest just west of Gympie in Queensland when his companion uttered 10 words that can rarely have been heard before – at least in English.

“I was just looking at a Gossia bidwillii, in flower and Darren calls out,” Elliot Bowerman said.