Labor backbencher is calling for drastic intervention to secure supplies for the east coast
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The Labor backbencher Ed Husic is demanding an intervention to combat Japanese gas companies re-selling Australian exports to other markets, breaking ranks from the government and risking diplomatic blowback from Tokyo.
The former industry minister said the government must send a “powerful signal” to overseas multinationals, in particular in Japan, to stop “playing us off as mugs” by profiting off the resale of Australian gas while households and industry on the east coast face high prices and potential supply shortages.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
10/09/2025 - 03:06
10/09/2025 - 03:00
If we really want to grasp what animals are ‘saying’, we need to understand their communication on their terms, not ours
Another day, another cute story about how dogs can grasp elements of human language and use them to communicate with us.
First, there was Mr Waffles, the Yorkshire terrier that“talks” to his owners by pressing electronic buttons that have been pre-programmed with words and phrases. In one of his videos, viewed more than half a million times, the pint-sized pooch stares defiantly at the camera and responds to an empty packet of treats by pressing the “I don’t give a damn” button. Followed by the “bitch” button. Bad dog, Mr Waffles.
Helen Pilcher is a science writer and the author of Bring Back the King: The New Science of De-Extinction. To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
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10/09/2025 - 01:49
Competition watchdog agrees to requests from Anglian, Northumbrian, South East, Southern and Wessex to increase charges
Business live – latest updates
Water bills for millions of households in England are to increase by even more than expected after the competition regulator gave the green light for five water suppliers to raise charges to customers – but rejected most of the companies’ demands.
An independent group of experts appointed by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) decided provisionally to let the companies collectively charge customers an extra £556m over the next five years, it said on Thursday. That was only 21% of the £2.7bn the companies had sought.
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10/08/2025 - 23:00
Plant inventories dating back to 1884 and nearly thrown away enable unique time-lapse study of biodiversity in Swiss meadows
For two years, a team of Swiss researchers crossed the country by train, car and foot, carrying with them a red frame measuring 30 by 30 centimetres. At 277 sites they placed the frame in the grass and counted all of the plant species within it.
The scientists were retracing a path set more than 100 years earlier, when two botanists had done the same thing in exactly the same meadows, long before such plant inventories became common.
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10/08/2025 - 12:51
With global heating on a dangerous trajectory, it would be unforgivable for the prime minister to miss the summit in Belém
In a month, this year’s UN climate summit, Cop30, begins in Belém, Brazil – preceded by a key leaders’ meeting. It is a crucial moment. The UN’s scientists have yet to publish calculations based on the latest round of nationally determined contributions (NDCs) – as countries’ emissions pledges are known. But Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has called leaders together because it is already clear that the current emissions pledges are nowhere near enough. The Paris 1.5C threshold was crossed last year. Without stronger action, that temporary breach will become irreversible – with devastating consequences for people and planet.
Lula’s diplomatic outreach to Donald Trump, who calls the climate crisis a “con job”, suggests he is trying to bring key players into the fold ahead of Belém. Having heavyweights in the room can make all the difference. Ten years ago in Paris, world leaders’ presence proved crucial to securing an ambitious deal. That’s why it is important that Sir Keir Starmer attends. He may not be the most powerful world leader, but his presence is a moral and diplomatic imperative. If King Charles is able to, he ought to go too. Soft power can help to rebuild the spirit of cooperation to keep the hopes in the Paris agreement alive.
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10/08/2025 - 11:00
Armed criminal groups tear down precious rainforest to capitalise on record gold prices, report finds
An illegal gold rush has cleared 140,000 hectares of rainforest in the Peruvian Amazon and is accelerating as foreign, armed groups move into the region to profit from record gold prices, according to a report.
About 540 square miles of land have been cleared for mining in the South American country since 1984, and the environmental destruction is spreading rapidly across the country, Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP) and its Peruvian partner organisation, Conservación Amazónica, found.
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10/08/2025 - 10:52
Report by joint intelligence committee delayed, with concerns expressed that it may not be published
The UK’s national security is under severe threat from the climate crisis and the looming collapse of vital natural ecosystems, with food shortages and economic disaster potentially just years away, a powerful report by the UK’s intelligence chiefs is due to warn.
However, the report, which was supposed to launch on Thursday at a landmark event in London, has been delayed, and concerns have been expressed to the Guardian that it may have been blocked by number 10.
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10/08/2025 - 07:00
Report looks at White House nominees and appointees and agencies dictating energy, environment and climate policy
Donald Trump has placed dozens of people with ties to the fossil fuel sector in his administration, including more than 40 who have directly worked for oil, gas or coal companies, according to a new analysis.
The report from Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy and ethics non-profit that has been critical of the Trump administration, alongside the Revolving Door Project, a corporate watchdog, analyzed the backgrounds of nominees and appointees within the White House and eight agencies dictating energy, environmental and climate policy. That includes the Environmental Protection Agency, the interior and energy departments and others.
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World Ocean Explorer Wins Gold Medal Serious Simulation Award from Serious Play Annual International Competition
10/26/2023 - 14:35
For Immediate Release October 19, 2023
Sedgwick, Maine USA World Ocean Explorer, a 3D virtual aquarium and educational simulation, was recently cited for excellence, winning a Gold Medal Award in the 2023 International Serious Play Awards Program.
World Ocean Explorer is an innovative 3D virtual aquarium designed for educational exploration of the world’s oceans. With interactive exhibits and a lobby space, visitors can immerse themselves in realistic marine environments, including a DEEP SEA exhibit funded by Schmidt Ocean Institute, showcasing unprecedented deep-sea discoveries off Australia. Targeted at 3rd graders and beyond, this immersive experience offers a range of perspectives on the ocean environment and can be explored through guided tours or user-controlled interfaces. Visit DEEP SEA at worldoceanexplorer.org/deep-sea-aquarium.html.
Serious Play Conference brings together professionals who are exploring the use of game-based learning, sharing their experience, and working together to shape the future of training and education. For more information on Serious Play Award Program visit seriousplayconf.com/international-serious-play-award-programs.
World Ocean Explorer is a transformative virtual aquarium designed to deepen understanding of the world ocean and amplify connection for young people worldwide. Organized around the principles of Ocean Literacy and the Next Gen Science Standards, World Ocean Explorer brings the wonder and knowledge of ocean species and systems to students in formal and informal classrooms, absolutely free to anyone with a good Internet connection. As an advocate for the ocean through communications, World Ocean Observatory believes there is no better investment in the future of the sustainable ocean than through a new approach to educational engagement that excites, informs, and motivates students to explore the wonders of our marine world and to understand the pervasive connection and implication for our future, inherent in the protection and conservation of all aspects of our ocean world.
World Ocean Explorer presents an astonishing 3-dimensional simulated aquarium visit, organized to reveal the wonders of undersea life, with layers of detailed data and information to augment the emotional connection made to the astonishing beauty and complexity of the dynamic ocean. Within each of the virtual exhibits, students visit exemplary theme-based sites with myriad opportunities to understand the larger perspectives of scientific knowledge as organized and visualized to dramatize the impact and change on ocean life as a result of natural and human-generated events. Through immersion among displays, mixed media and 3D models, the experience of an aquarium visit will be brought into classrooms or home school environments as a free, accessible, always available opportunity for teaching and learning. All of this will be available to a world audience without physical limitation or cost. World Ocean Explorer, a project of the World Ocean Observatory, receives support from the Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Foundation, Visual Solutions Lab, the Climate Change Institute, the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, and The Fram Museum Oslo. To learn more about the current and future exhibits of World Ocean Explorer, visit worldoceanexplorer.org.
media contact
Trisha Badger, Managing Director, World Ocean Observatory | director@thew2o.net +12077011069
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