Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Society to retire plants no longer suited to UK’s changing climate after 14% fewer days of ground frost recorded Fig and almond trees are thriving in Britain as a result of fewer frosts, the Royal Horticultural Society has said. The lack of frost, one of the effects of climate breakdown, means plants used to warmer climes have been doing well in RHS gardens. Almond trees from the Mediterranean were planted at Wisley in Surrey several years ago, and without frost this year have fruited well for the first time. Continue reading...

I want to give my kids that overarching sense of a single summer going on all through childhood, a door to a memory they can open any time More summer essentials Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast You never step into the same river twice. But you can step into the same ocean, or so it seems, each January when we take that first swim: ducking our heads under a wave to feel the rush of cold and the sting of salt, shaking like dogs when we emerge, washed clean of the year just gone. When I was a child, it was Phillip Island: a green canvas tent in my grandfather’s back yard; a chipped foam surfboard rasping against my skin as I lay on it, just floating in the channel between the island and the mainland, never daring to go into the actual surf. It was the acrid smoke of mozzie coils and the oily texture of the battered flake from the fish and chip shop. Showers under the tank stand; the sun burning our skin until it peeled. Sign up for a weekly email featuring our best reads Jenny Sinclair is a Melbourne journalist and writer of creative nonfiction and fiction Continue reading...

Emboldened red states could advocate for rightwing reforms from steep tax cuts to slashes to education Republican state lawmakers and conservative leaders around the United States see Donald Trump’s re-election as a mandate that will help them enact rightwing policies in Republican-run states across the US. The policies include steep tax cuts, environmental legislation, religion in schools and legislation concerning transgender medical care and education, among other hot-button social issues. Continue reading...

With the climate crisis hitting Britain, we must build resilience at a local level by rewilding, saving water and fighting floods Imagine, for a moment, if 2025 was the year that the UK achieved its legally binding targets of reducing dangerous carbon emissions to zero. Imagine if the Extinction Rebellions of 2019 had achieved their goal, and the government had bowed to the pressure of climate activism to meet this target. In this counterfactual reality, the world would be much saner than our own. But as the new year arrives, we’re forced to confront a stark reality. Britain is nowhere near achieving zero carbon in the next 12 months. When Extinction Rebellion (XR) was founded in 2018, the 2025 target was conceived as a clarion call to action. It was based on the need to decarbonise quickly, to mitigate the worst impacts of climate decline, and to fulfil our historical responsibility as one of the world’s largest polluters. With the new year upon us, it’s clear that decarbonisation at the scale and speed we imagined isn’t a feasible goal within our existing political and economic frameworks. And this failure brings with it some uncomfortable truths that everyone concerned about the climate crisis must face head-on. And that means, in effect, everyone: for even if you don’t feel affected by this crisis, it still affects you. Continue reading...