Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Indian government accused of PR stunt after moving 337 tonnes of toxic waste that had been held in containers Forty years after one of world’s deadliest industrial disasters struck the Indian city of Bhopal, a cleanup operation has finally begun to remove hundreds of tonnes of toxic waste from the site. However, local campaigners have accused the Indian government of greenwashing, arguing that the 337 tonnes of waste removed this week represents less than 1% of the more than 1m tonnes of hazardous materials left after the disaster and that the cleanup has done nothing to tackle chemical contamination of the area. Continue reading...

Across Toronto, a team sets out at dawn to rescue migrating birds that have collided with buildings, and keep a record of the thousands each year that don’t make it Every morning at dawn, a dozen volunteers scour the streets of Toronto picking up small birds. Some days they will find hundreds of them, most already dead or dying. A few they are able to save. Live birds are put in brown paper bags and driven to wildlife recovery centres, while dead birds are put in a large freezer. If no one picks them up, their carcasses are swept up by street cleaners. “One of my first days was really horrific,” says Sohail Desai, a volunteer with the charity Fatal Light Awareness Program (Flap) Canada, which has about 135 people patrolling the streets across Toronto. Desai was walking close to his house in the North York area in Toronto when a flock of golden-crowned kinglets flew into a 15-storey glass building. Continue reading...

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...