Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Pushing airport expansion while rail travel languishes – so much for Labour’s green agenda | Polly Toynbee

admin — Tue, 05 Aug 2025 07:00:45 +0000

The climate damage done by avoidable flying is huge, yet the government sees more planes as the answer to its economic woes

Scientists identify bacterium behind devastating wasting disease in starfish

admin — Tue, 05 Aug 2025 06:57:17 +0000

After 90% loss of global sunflower sea star population in 10 years, researchers hope decline can now be tackled

A decade after the onset of a sea star wasting disease (SSWD) epidemic considered the largest ever documented in the wild, researchers have identified the microbial culprit responsible: a strain of the bacterium Vibrio pectenicida.

Spot the human! Bodies embedded in nature – in pictures

admin — Tue, 05 Aug 2025 06:00:44 +0000

Azita Gandjei’s mesmerising black and white photos capture the point at which the boundaries between people and nature dissolve

Tuesday briefing: What the fraught talks to reach a ‘Paris agreement for plastic pollution’ could bring

admin — Tue, 05 Aug 2025 05:41:06 +0000

In today’s newsletter: Inside a critical summit of 179 countries at the UN in Geneva to secure a treaty that will combat plastic pollution

Good morning. Not only does plastic waste clog up waterways, beaches and strangle sea life, it also causes havoc inside the human body. Tiny fragments – invisible to the human eye – are probably swimming around your lungs, blood and liver right now.

Shein fined €1m in Italy for misleading environmental claims about products

admin — Tue, 05 Aug 2025 05:00:42 +0000

Chinese fast fashion retailer penalised month after €40m fine from French regulator in July

The Italian authorities have fined Shein €1m (£870,000) for making “misleading or omissive” environmental claims about its products, the second time in as many months the Chinese fashion retailer has been targeted by European regulators.

Environmental sustainability and social responsibility messages on Shein’s website were in some cases “vague, generic, and/or overly emphatic” and in others were “misleading or omissive”, said Italy’s competition authority, AGCM.

UN plastic pollution talks must result in ambitious treaty, leading expert says

admin — Tue, 05 Aug 2025 04:00:44 +0000

Professor Richard Thompson, a marine litter expert, says delegates must act decisively to ‘look next generation in the eye’

Delegates at the UN plastic pollution treaty talks in Geneva must secure an ambitious global agreement so they can look future generations in the eye, one of the world’s leading marine litter experts has said.

Joy and relief as lotus flowers bloom again in Kashmiri lake after three decades

admin — Tue, 05 Aug 2025 04:00:43 +0000

Wular Lake once supported 5,000 people who harvested the plant’s edible roots, until the lake silted up after floods. Now the lotuses are back

“We threw seeds into the lake hundreds of times, but nothing grew. It’s only now, after the silt was cleared, that we see the flowers again after nearly 33 years,” says Bashir Ahmad, a 65-year-old who fishes in Kashmir’s Wular Lake for his livelihood.

Central California issues evacuation orders after wildfire burns 72,000 acres

admin — Mon, 04 Aug 2025 19:20:11 +0000

At least three people injured and over 450 structures under threat by Gifford blaze, with only 3% of perimeter contained

A huge wildfire in central California has threatened hundreds of homes, with blazes churning through the brush-covered hillsides in Los Padres national forest.

At least three people were reported injured, and more than 450 structures were under threat by the Gifford fire, officials said on Monday.

Canada wildfires prompt severe air quality alerts across country and US

admin — Mon, 04 Aug 2025 17:55:49 +0000

More than 700 active wildfires burning across Canada and about two-thirds are currently out-of-control

Billowing smoke from hundreds of out-of-control wildfires – most of which are in the Canadian Prairies – have caused severe air quality alerts across Canada and the United States.

‘A bellwether of change’: speed of glacier shrinking on remote Heard Island sounds alarm

admin — Mon, 04 Aug 2025 15:00:31 +0000

Glacial retreat on pristine world heritage-listed island as temperatures warm could endanger unique plant life