Breaking Waves: Ocean News

UK reportedly planning electric car loan subsidies to push sales

admin — Wed, 29 Jan 2025 10:01:17 +0000

Ministers in talks with vehicle finance sector about making more low-interest or interest-free loans available

The UK government is reportedly considering subsidising purchases of electric vehicles by guaranteeing consumer loans, as it looks at ways to boost sales that are failing to reach official targets.

Ministers have started talks with the car finance sector on how to make more low-interest or interest-free loans available to help consumers buy more EVs, according to the Financial Times.

Five years in prison for nonviolent protest: it’s plain wrong, and Keir Starmer knows it | Caroline Lucas

admin — Wed, 29 Jan 2025 10:00:43 +0000

If the courts let 16 climate activist’s draconian sentences stand this week, we are no better than an authoritarian state

Vets urged to cut back on flea treatments amid UK biodiversity fears

admin — Wed, 29 Jan 2025 09:00:43 +0000

University of Sussex scientist calls promotion of preventative practice when pets are flea free ‘profiteering’

Vets need to stop “profiteering” by giving dogs and cats preventive flea treatments that are wiping out insects and songbirds, according to a well-known scientist.

The standard practice in the UK at present is to advise that customers take a preventative approach, treating their pets every couple of months even if they don’t have fleas.

In this government's hands, big ideas always end up looking small. Just ask Ed Miliband | Rafael Behr

admin — Wed, 29 Jan 2025 06:00:39 +0000

Labour is constantly torn between its self-image as a party of radical change and its fear of alienating voters with the wrong kind of radicalism

When Keir Starmer became Labour leader he was unpractised in politics. For advice, he naturally turned to someone who had done his job before and with whom he had a good personal rapport: Ed Miliband.

Thousands of trees planted in Devon to start creation of Celtic rainforest

admin — Wed, 29 Jan 2025 06:00:38 +0000

More than 2,500 native trees have been planted to form a temperate rainforest in decades to come

The first step towards creating a Celtic rainforest – a now extremely rare habitat that once covered large swathes of the west coast of Britain – has been completed in Devon.

More than 2,500 native trees have been planted so far this winter at Devon Wildlife Trust’s Bowden Pillars site, above the Dart valley and close to the green-minded market town of Totnes.

Sixteen jailed UK climate activists to appeal against ‘unduly harsh’ sentences

admin — Wed, 29 Jan 2025 06:00:37 +0000

Protesters will gather outside court of appeal in support of activists, who say judges defied decades of precedent

Sixteen environmental activists jailed in the past year will appear at the high court on Wednesday to ask England’s most senior judge to quash their “unduly harsh” sentences.

The appellants, from four separate cases, will appear before a bench of judges led by Lady Carr, the Lady Chief Justice, in a full session of the court of appeal in which they will argue that judges defied decades of precedent to hand them long jail terms for nonviolent protests.

‘Super pod’ of more than 1,500 dolphins spotted off California coast

admin — Tue, 28 Jan 2025 22:46:22 +0000

Whale watchers capture rare footage of miles-long cluster of dolphins ‘just having a great time’

A miles-long cluster of dolphins has been filmed leaping and gliding across Carmel Bay off the central coast of California, forming an unusual “super pod” of more than 1,500 of the marine creatures.

“They were on the horizon I feel like as far as I could see,” said Capt Evan Brodsky, with Monterey Bay Whale Watch, who captured drone footage of Friday’s huge gathering of Risso’s dolphins.

Pennsylvania flood museum temporarily closed due to flooding

admin — Tue, 28 Jan 2025 17:12:52 +0000

Cold weather causes leak at Johnstown Flood Museum, which commemorates 1889 catastrophe that killed 2,209

A museum dedicated to commemorating the victims of a 19th-century flood in Pennsylvania has temporarily closed due to flooding – caused on the inside of the facility by a water leak stemming from recent, extremely cold weather, officials said on Monday.

Aquarium surprised by ‘virgin birth’ of swell shark in all-female tank

admin — Tue, 28 Jan 2025 15:24:39 +0000

Baby shark Yoko hatched in early January, flummoxing staff and experts at a US aquarium

Birds do it, bees do it. Even educated fleas do it, according to Cole Porter’s classic song on the universal nature of sex.

But a baby swell shark born in a Louisiana aquarium that houses only females has flummoxed marine experts and raised the possibility that the species may not require such earthly pleasures to produce offspring.

Produce in home gardens near PFAS plant in US contain dangerous levels of chemicals

admin — Tue, 28 Jan 2025 11:00:03 +0000

Research provides more evidence that food is a potentially overlooked exposure route to toxic ‘forever chemicals’

Produce grown in home gardens around a North Carolina PFAS plant contain dangerous levels of the chemicals, new research has found, providing more evidence that food is a potentially overlooked exposure route to the compounds, especially when grown near polluters.