Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Seven environmental wins across the US in 2025 despite Trump-era reversals

admin — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 12:30:10 +0000

Environmental advocates notched key wins at local and state levels this year despite Trump rollbacks

As 2025 draws to a close, environmental advocates across the US find themselves weighing a year marked by both setbacks and successes.

A polycrisis has shattered our world this year. But with care, we can put it back together | Elif Shafak

admin — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 12:00:10 +0000

The challenges and strains have been almost too much to take. But in 2025, words of depth and courage have been an antidote to numbness

I once saw a young glassblower in Istanbul, still new to his craft, shatter a beautiful vase while taking it out of the furnace. The artisan master standing by his side calmly nodded and said something that I still think about. He told him: “You put too much pressure on it, you kept it unbalanced and you forgot that it, too, has a heart.”

‘They didn’t de-extinct anything’: can Colossal’s genetically engineered animals ever be the real thing?

admin — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 11:00:08 +0000

The bioscience startup has attracted billions in investment – and a flurry of criticism, but founder tells the Guardian plans to bring back the woolly mammoth will not be derailed

Death and taxes are supposed to be the things we can depend on in this life. But in 2025, the American entrepreneur Ben Lamm sold much of the world on the idea that death did not, after all, need to be for ever.

Curb the cod, park the prawns: top chefs on how to swap out the ‘big five’ seafood

admin — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 06:00:02 +0000

From moules marinière to scallop, bacon and garlic butter rolls, here’s how to cast your culinary net wider and embrace more sustainable species

‘You could see bones’: Families’ anguish over coastal erosion threat to Norfolk graves

admin — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 05:00:01 +0000

Bereaved relatives say delays over risks at village churchyards are causing distress and call for council action

Families of people buried in graves vulnerable to coastal erosion say indecision over how to tackle the problem is causing them avoidable anguish about the final resting places of their loved ones.

North Norfolk district council (NNDC) has identified three church graveyards in the villages of Happisburgh, Trimingham, and Mundesley as being at risk of being engulfed by the sea in the coming decades.

EU legislation intended to fight deforestation has been effectively ‘dismantled’

admin — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 05:00:00 +0000

Law’s original author points to removal of obligations for downstream traders to verify origin of commodities

It was hailed by campaigners around the world as a game-changing piece of legislation that would help stop deforestation.

But when a bullet-ridden version of the EU’s deforestation regulation, once supposed to be the crown of the Green Deal, finally limped across the legislative line this month, not even its architect was smiling, and one politician said it had been pretty much “dismantled”.

California snowpack gets a boost from series of December downpours

admin — Tue, 30 Dec 2025 23:53:03 +0000

Water stored as snow during the winter months feeds waterways in the summer and supplies cities and farms

A series of December storms delivered a welcome boost to California’s snowpack, scientists said on Tuesday in a closely watched assessment of the state’s water resources for the year ahead.

Iceland has hottest Christmas Eve ever with temperature of 19.8C recorded

admin — Tue, 30 Dec 2025 13:13:20 +0000

Meteorological office reports high temperatures across country and record measured at Seyðisfjörður in east

Record temperatures of almost 20C were reached in Iceland on Christmas Eve, the local meteorological office has confirmed.

Seyðisfjörður, a small town in the east of Iceland, hit 19.8C on 24 December. Average December temperatures in Iceland are between -1C and 4C.

UK’s warmest spring on record led to rise in songbirds breeding, data shows

admin — Tue, 30 Dec 2025 11:38:19 +0000

Dry and warm 2025 spring gave glimmer of hope for threatened wild birds but many remain in long-term decline

The warmest and sunniest spring on record this year led to an increase in the breeding of some of Britain’s best-loved songbirds, data has shown.

Scientists said the dry and warm spring had provided a glimmer of hope for threatened wild birds. In the 2025 breeding season, from May to August, there were higher than average breeding successes for 14 species including the chiffchaff, garden warbler, whitethroat, coal tit, blue tit, great tit and robin.

‘Zack is a phenomenal leader’: Siân Berry on the Green party’s next steps as membership doubles

admin — Tue, 30 Dec 2025 11:00:39 +0000

Since Zack Polanski took over as leader, the party has doubled its membership and its four MPs want to take on Reform’s anger and build community spirit

“Someone has to be out there making the narrative for social security. Someone has to fight the corrosive attitudes to people on benefits,” says Siân Berry, who has just finished her first year as a Green MP in the House of Commons.