Breaking Waves: Ocean News

‘Technofossils’: how humanity’s eternal testament will be plastic bags, cheap clothes and chicken bones

admin — Sat, 22 Feb 2025 07:00:04 +0000

Fast fashion and drinks cans among technological-age matter most likely to endure as fossils, say scientists

As an eternal testament of humanity, plastic bags, cheap clothes and chicken bones are not a glorious legacy. But two scientists exploring which items from our technological civilisation are most likely to survive for many millions of years as fossils have reached an ironic but instructive conclusion: fast food and fast fashion will be our everlasting geological signature.

Extremists would not need to create an authoritarian state in Britain: Starmer is doing that for them | George Monbiot

admin — Sat, 22 Feb 2025 07:00:02 +0000

The PM and his ministers are supporting illiberal laws that hard-right authoritarians could apply with zeal

If the Trump project implodes, it might take with it the extreme and far-right European parties to which it is umbilically connected. Like all such parties, the hard-right Reform UK poses as patriotic while grovelling to foreign interests, and this could be its undoing.

Brazilian city in Amazon declares emergency after huge sinkholes appear

admin — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 22:08:56 +0000

In Buriticupu, about 1,200 people risk losing their homes, and residents have seen the problem escalate in 30 years

Authorities in a city in the Brazilian Amazon have declared a state of emergency after huge sinkholes opened up, threatening hundreds of homes.

Several buildings in Buriticupu, in Maranhão state, have already been destroyed, and about 1,200 people of a population of 55,000 risk losing their homes into a widening abyss.

The rising tide of sand mining: A growing threat to marine life

admin — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:52:45 +0000

Scientists outline the urgency to better identify the significant damage sand extraction across the world heaps upon marine biodiversity.

Labor hasn’t delivered on more effective nature laws. It’s not just embarrassing, it’s calamitous | Tim Winton

admin — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:00:42 +0000

As Ningaloo reef bleaches and an election looms, we must hold to account those who stand in the way of our safety – the small cohort profiting from fossil fuels, and the politicians who protect them

Late last spring, I was part of an expedition to Scott Reef, a magnificent coral atoll nearly 300 kilometres off the Kimberley coast. And while it was a privilege to be in such a remote and wonderful place, watching rare and endemic sea life drifting past, the moment I tipped from the boat in my mask and fins, I knew something was wrong.

Anthony Albanese under pressure on salmon farming from both conservationists and industry

admin — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:00:42 +0000

The future of Tasmanian salmon farms has become a political issue centred on whether they can coexist with the endangered Maugean skate

Eight Labor ‘climate champions’ to get election help from party’s grassroots environment action group

admin — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:00:40 +0000

Exclusive: Ged Kearney, Kate Thwaites, Josh Burns, Jerome Laxale, Sally Sitou, Alicia Payne, Josh Wilson and Renee Coffey will get extra door-knocking, phone banking and push ads

Mass firings hamstring federal land agencies and wildfire response

admin — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:00:38 +0000

Concerns are mounting that depleting already thinned ranks will only hamper extreme weather response efforts

Outcry as Trump withdraws support for research that mentions ‘climate’

admin — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 12:00:40 +0000

US government stripping funds from domestic and overseas research amid warnings for health and public safety

The Trump administration is stripping away support for scientific research in the US and overseas that contains a word it finds particularly inconvenient: “climate.”

As the UK prepares its next carbon budget, what needs to be included?

admin — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:02:28 +0000

Expert recommendations will influence plans for energy, housing, transport industry and farming for decades

Labour will next week be confronted with stark policy choices that threaten to expose the fault lines between the Treasury and the government’s green ambitions, as advice for the UK’s next carbon budget is published.

Plans for the energy sector, housing, transport, industry and farming will all be called into question in a sweeping set of recommendations for how the UK can meet the legally binding target of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.