Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Residents told to flee as firefighters battle blaze, with two homes burned and several others damaged A fast-moving fire fed by strong winds burned two homes on Friday and damaged several others in a hillside neighborhood in the city of Oakland, where roughly 500 people were ordered to evacuate, officials said. Damon Covington, the city’s fire chief, said that at about 1.30pm, calls had come in reporting a fire in front of a home in the Oakland hills. Crews arrived as the inferno quickly grew with winds ranging from calm breezes to 40mph (64km/h) gusts during red-flag conditions. Continue reading...

New research shows how human activities, like fertilizer use and polluting, are impacting nitrogen-fixing plants which are crucial for maintaining healthy ecosystems by adding nitrogen to the soil.

Campaigners point out it is often cheaper to drive or even fly within the UK than take the train Fuel duty is expected to rise by up to 7p a litre after the budget, with speculation intensifying that the chancellor will restore inflationary rises as well as ending the temporary cut. Environmental and transport campaigners have urged Rachel Reeves to bring the cost of motoring more in line with other forms of transport, after more than a decade of fuel duty freezes at the pumps and heavy increases in rail fares. Continue reading...

Ed Miliband seems happy to see the landscape blighted. We value townscape – everywhere else has to fend for itself Does Labour believe in beauty? The energy secretary, Ed Miliband, celebrated his arrival in office this summer by permitting three of the largest solar panel arrays in Britain. One, a Suffolk array covering nearly 2,800 acres, was described by a county councillor as “the poorest infrastructure application that I have ever dealt with”. Now Miliband is demanding a procession of pylons filling the glorious Amber Valley in the Derbyshire uplands. Another parade of 420 pylons, each nearly as tall as Nelson’s column, will run down the east of England from Grimsby to Walpole, near King’s Lynn in Norfolk. The government also wants to allow the return of onshore wind turbines, overriding local objections. Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...