Breaking Waves: Ocean News

The evidence against the Drax power station is damning, yet the government wants to continue its massive public funding How green is this? We pay billions of pounds to cut down ancient forests in the US and Canada, ship the wood across the Atlantic in diesel tankers, then burn it in a Yorkshire-based power station. Welcome to the scandal of Drax, where Britain’s biggest polluter gets to play climate hero. The reality is that billions in public subsidies has enabled Drax to generate electricity by burning 300m trees. Now the government is trying to force through an extension that would grant Drax an estimated £1.8bn in public subsidies on top of the £11bn it has already pocketed, keeping this circus going until at least 2031. Dale Vince is a green energy industrialist and campaigner Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

Residents of a Portuguese rural idyll where four vast mines are planned are among those who feel they will pay too high a cost for the energy transition Filipe Gomes had been craving fresh air and quiet routine when he and his partner quit the chaos of London’s catering industry for the fog-misted hills of Covas do Barroso, the sleepy Portuguese farming village in which he was raised. But his rural idyll has been disturbed by miners drilling boreholes as they push to dig four vast lithium mines right beside the village. The prospecting has sparked resistance from residents who fear the mines will foul the soil, drain the water and fill the air with the rumbling thunder of heavy trucks. Continue reading...

Temperatures at or above 100F expected as extreme hot air and humidity are trapped in atmosphere Scores of millions of people across the central and eastern US will swelter under the summer’s first “heat dome” beginning this weekend and extending through the end of next week as extreme hot air and humidity get trapped in the atmosphere. The arrival of the heatwave coincides with Friday’s first day of summer and will bring temperatures at or above 100F (37.7C) to numerous cities as it moves to the east of the US in the coming days, forecasters say. Continue reading...

Court votes to back challenge to state waiver that allows it to set tougher car emission standards than federal limits Fossil fuel companies are able to challenge California’s ability to set stricter standards reducing the amount of polluting coming from cars, the US supreme court has ruled in a case that is set to unravel one of the key tools used to curb planet-heating emissions in recent years. The conservative-dominated supreme court voted by seven to two to back a challenge by oil and gas companies, along with 17 Republican-led states, to a waiver that California has received periodically from the federal government since 1967 that allows it to set tougher standards than national rules limiting pollution from cars. The state has separately stipulated that only zero-emission cars will be able to sold there by 2035. Continue reading...