Climate change deniers such as Florida’s Ron DeSantis lament the impact of such events but won’t acknowledge the underlying problem
The preparations for Hurricane Milton were on a mammoth scale, as the clean-up will be. The storm thankfully lost some of its force before it slammed into Florida, making landfall on Wednesday night as a category 3 hurricane. But many more lives would surely have been lost without the massive evacuation and the deployment of thousands of national guard troops and personnel from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
This was the second direct hit on the state in less than a fortnight, after Hurricane Helene, which killed at least 225 people in the US. The hotter ocean temperatures which worsened these storms are hundreds of times likelier because of human-made global heating, a new analysis has shown. Climate change may have increased the rain dumped on parts of the south by Helene by 50%, scientists believe. Another study has suggested such double punches could arrive every three years thanks to the continuing burning of fossil fuels.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
10/10/2024 - 12:36
10/10/2024 - 11:52
Tempest brought up to 10ft of storm surge and left millions at risk from flooding after hitting Florida on Wednesday
Hurricane Milton has killed at least nine people and left extensive property damage across Florida, hitting some areas previously affected by Hurricane Helene last month.
Here are the key takeaways from what we know about its impact and what experts are saying about a hurricane that it had been feared could be one of the worst in the state’s history.
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10/10/2024 - 09:00
Shimmery cellulose-based alternative looks safer for soil than conventional microplastics, Australian-led research finds
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Even before Taylor Swift donned “glitter freckles”, the sparkly stuff was prolific – sold in tiny vials at craft shops and sprinkled on to a variety of products from clothing to Christmas decorations, cards and makeup.
Glitter ends up everywhere: in the environment as well as the carpet.
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10/10/2024 - 07:55
Wheat haul in England estimated to be down by 21%, with Britain’s wine producers also hit hard
England has suffered its second worst harvest on record – with fears growing for next year – after heavy rain last winter hit production of key crops including wheat and oats.
The cold, damp weather, stretching from last autumn through this spring and early summer, has hit the rapidly developing UK wine industry particularly hard, with producers saying harvests are down by between 75% and a third, depending on the region.
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10/10/2024 - 06:19
Firefighters are stoic about the risks they face but say climate change has affected every part of the job
A short drive and a world away from the tourist-thronged old town of Split, past retirees clambering out of cruise ships and stag parties stumbling into beachside bars, Ivan Sanader studied a smouldering hillside that stank of smoke.
The night before, he had fought a fire that charred the slope and threatened to engulf a roadside restaurant. Now, the commander of a mobile firefighter centre in Croatia was issuing orders to stop it flaring back up.
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10/10/2024 - 01:54
Former Sydney Morning Herald reporter part of community protest to protect endangered species in Bulga state forest
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Retired journalist Margo Kingston was arrested at a community protest in the mid-north of New South Wales on Thursday after she locked on to machinery to protest logging operations in endangered greater glider habitat.
Kingston and another activist who protested alongside her are the 13th and 14th people arrested since forestry operations recommenced at the Bulga state forest last week.
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10/10/2024 - 01:26
As average population falls reach 95% in some regions, experts call for urgent action but insist ‘nature can recover’
Global wildlife populations have plunged by an average of 73% in 50 years, a new scientific assessment has found, as humans continue to push ecosystems to the brink of collapse.
Latin America and the Caribbean recorded the steepest average declines in recorded wildlife populations, with a 95% fall, according to the WWF and the Zoological Society of London’s (ZSL) biennial Living Planet report. They were followed by Africa with 76%, and Asia and the Pacific at 60%. Europe and North America recorded comparatively lower falls of 35% and 39% respectively since 1970.
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10/10/2024 - 01:00
Large, cattle-like tauros will shape landscape and strengthen wildlife as huge, extinct herbivore once did
A herd of beefy, long-horned tauros are to be released into a Highlands rewilding project to replicate the ecological role of the aurochs, an extinct, huge herbivore that is the wild ancestor of cattle.
The tauros have been bred in the Netherlands in recent years to fill the niche vacated by the aurochs, which once shaped landscapes and strengthened wildlife across Europe.
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10/09/2024 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 10 October 2024; doi:10.1038/s44183-024-00089-z
Noise pollution from Arctic expedition cruise vessels: understanding causes, consequences and governance options
10/09/2024 - 21:50
Our leaders may prefer complexity because it means they can defer taking action – but doing something about emissions reduction or slow wage growth is actually not that complex
After spending any time analysing policy you quickly realise that politicians expend a supreme level of effort to avoid doing the obvious, and instead they do complex things that neither solve a problem nor appease their opponents.
For politicians, the problem with clarity is that it demands action. Complexity provides safety because action can more easily be avoided. And so the obvious and clear are painted as “extreme”, while the complex is regarded as “mature”.
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