Breaking Waves: Ocean News

12/02/2024 - 22:19
Could the fungal apocalypse of The Last of Us have roots in reality? A new study shows that climate warming can potentially make bacterial and fungal infections deadlier for cold-blooded animals like corals, insects, and fish, raising questions about the broader risks warming temperatures pose to ecosystems and biodiversity -- and potentially humans.
12/02/2024 - 20:57
Vanuatu leads the charge of several nations arguing developed nations have a legal responsibility beyond UN commitments Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Australia has been accused of undermining its Pacific neighbours in a landmark international legal case after it argued that high-emitting countries are not obliged to act on the climate crisis beyond their commitments under the 2015 Paris agreement. In the case before the UN’s international court of justice (ICJ), Vanuatu is leading an argument brought by several Pacific nations and developing states – including Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu – that developed countries have a legal responsibility beyond existing UN frameworks. The case does not specify the names of countries that would fall under the definition of high emitters. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading...
12/02/2024 - 15:24
This blog is now closed Commonwealth Bank $3 cash withdrawal fee ‘a kick in the guts’, assistant treasurer says Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Weather check shows mixed conditions forecast across Australian cities It’s a mixed, if warm, bag in capital cities today, with the Bureau of Meteorology forecasting storms in Melbourne, sunny skies in Brisbane and Adelaide and showers across all other major cities. Continue reading...
12/02/2024 - 13:27
At least one of the marine mammals was recently spotted in Washington wearing the multipurpose fishy accessory Researchers suspect that orcas may be reviving a peculiar fashion statement of sorts not seen since the 1980s. Scientists in Washington state have observed at least one orca balancing salmon on its head, a trend known as the “dead salmon hat”. They spotted the stylish killer whale this autumn in Puget Sound. Continue reading...
12/02/2024 - 11:46
New GCSE was announced under previous government in 2022 but now ‘sitting in limbo’, says Mary Colwell, one of its architects The natural history GCSE has been shelved because it is “seen as a Conservative party initiative”, one of the architects of the proposed new qualification has said. The conservationist and campaigner Mary Colwell told the Guardian she was “hugely frustrated” with the halt to the proposed new GCSE, which had been announced in 2022 and was supposed to be taught in schools by 2025. Continue reading...
12/02/2024 - 09:31
Paul Watson, an early Greenpeace member, says his imprisonment in Greenland is a ‘political case’ The anti-whaling activist Paul Watson will learn within 14 days whether he will be extradited to Japan, a court has been told, as his four-month imprisonment in Greenland was extended. At a hearing in Nuuk, the capital of the autonomous territory of Denmark, the judge Lars-Christian Sinkbæk said that Watson, who turned 74 on Monday, would continue to be detained in a high security prison pending a decision from the Danish government. Watson’s legal team immediately submitted an appeal to Greenland’s high court. Continue reading...
12/02/2024 - 09:00
Organisation asked supporters if they ‘want to feel different on our election night’ in an ad with half of Trump’s face and half of Dutton’s Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Climate 200 has reported a surge in first-time donors in November off the back of a donation-matching campaign comparing the Coalition and opposition leader Peter Dutton to the politics of Donald Trump. The funding aggregator claims to have raised $377,000 from 3,900 donations including 1,373 people who donated to it for the first time, the biggest wave of first-time supporters since it was launched in 2021. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading...
12/02/2024 - 09:00
The word ‘probably’ will haunt this fish for the rest of its days – a deflating description for a cute, toxic creature Pufferfish are cute, and most pufferfish are toxic. Like people, they spend their weeks moving between states of puffed up and deflated. Or, really, three states: normal, puffed up and then the hangover after the puffing up. Ironically, the pufferfish toxin, called tetrodotoxin, is deadly because it stops a person’s diaphragm from moving – in other words, it stops you from being able to puff yourself up. And you could see that as a lesson for wanting to eat them in the first place. You’re wondering what is inside a blown-up pufferfish, how they inflate. Firstly: it is not air, or else they would pop up and out of the water like a balloon in a swimming pool. Also, air is hard to come by down there. They turn themselves into absurd-looking spherical objects by sucking water – something called, grossly, “buccal pumping” – into their extremely elastic stomachs. They don’t have ribs, which helps. This gives predators a fright – but perhaps more to the point, large spheres are hard to swallow. Continue reading...
12/02/2024 - 09:00
Readers led to believe a short-on-facts advertorial exhorting government to let companies extract more gas is straight news coverage Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast The big news on Monday morning was that the story splashed across the front of News Corp’s biggest-selling tabloid newspapers wasn’t news at all. It was an advertorial paid for by a fossil fuel industry. Not that readers glancing at page one of the Daily Telegraph, Herald Sun, Courier-Mail or Adelaide Advertiser were let in on this secret. Instead, they were sold a lie – that the story was straight news coverage, in some cases described as an “exclusive” or a “special report”, on how (in the words of the Courier-Mail) Australia must “step on the gas” as it was the “only way to avoid higher bills, blackouts”. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading...
12/02/2024 - 09:00
Researchers at ANU found no real difference between the climate opinions of regional and urban Australians. Remember that as we head into the next federal election, with renewable energy on the frontline Sign up for the Rural Network email newsletter I have many heritages: Chinese, Irish, Anglo and Japanese among them. I am a journalist. I grew up in the city but have lived in the country for 30 years. How should I define my identity? Rural life has colonised my writing life. But I would hazard a guess I am not fully accepted as rural in many circles. I am certainly not the mythical bush person of legend. Sign up to receive Guardian Australia’s fortnightly Rural Network email newsletter Continue reading...