Breaking Waves: Ocean News

09/21/2024 - 15:00
Exclusive: independent MPs and Lidia Thorpe tell PM that environment law reforms under negotiation must remove exemptions for native forest logging Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Independent MPs and a crossbench senator are trying to increase the pressure on the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, to remove Howard-era exemptions that allow native forest logging to operate outside national environment laws. The government has been negotiating over reforms to the laws in the Senate, where the Greens and crossbenchers David Pocock and Lidia Thorpe have been pushing for an end to the exemptions for logging covered by regional forest agreements. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading...
09/21/2024 - 14:00
The Marshall Project and the Prison Journalism Project asked incarcerated reporters to document the impact of extreme heat on their facilities. Their stories reveal the brutal reality After a summer of record-breaking temperatures, scientists predict that 2024 could end up being the hottest year on record. For people in US prisons and jails – who often lack access to even the most basic cooling measures – conditions behind bars exacerbate the risks of dangerously high temperatures. Several courts have ruled that extreme temperatures in prison violate the eighth amendment’s provision against “cruel and unusual” punishment. But these rulings have not led to a widespread adoption of air-conditioning or other methods to cool prison facilities or prevent heat-related deaths. Public health researchers at Brown University estimate that just one day of above-average summer temperatures is associated with a nearly 4% increase in deaths of incarcerated people. Suicides spike 23% in the three days following a heatwave. And for every 10 degrees Fahrenheit above the average summer temperature, those deaths increase by 5%. Continue reading...
09/21/2024 - 13:00
Showing climate delivery can be done effectively and fairly would be an extraordinary climate legacy for Keir Starmer A well-intentioned but badly designed and poorly communicated energy policy from the German government, and more recent protests by farmers in France and the Netherlands, have knocked the confidence of European political leaders that environmental progress can be delivered in a way that works for people and enjoys democratic support. Unashamedly popular climate policies from Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves and Ed Miliband offer the chance to reshape European climate politics and confound these sceptics. Showing climate delivery can be done fairly, effectively, affordably and with strong public support would be an extraordinary climate legacy for Starmer. It would build on Britain’s relatively strong record of having halved its climate footprint already, and it would offer hope amid all the gloom. Joss Garman is executive director of the European Climate Foundation 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...
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   |   [email protected] +12077011069
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