Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Researchers analyzing ancient fossils from caves across Western Australia have uncovered a completely new species of bettong along with two new woylie subspecies—remarkable finds made bittersweet by signs that some may already be extinct.

Chris Bowen says first 50kWh of a system would still be eligible, but discounting would not be as generous per kWh for medium- and larger-sized batteries Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Discounts for larger systems will be wound back under a popular home battery scheme as the program’s budget is tripled. The federal subsidy, which has been in place for five months, will get a generous top-up to $7.2bn across four years after initially being earmarked to cost $2.3bn, the energy minister, Chris Bowen, said. Continue reading...

In many parts of the country, there are new work requirements to get food aid. But starving people doesn’t motivate them – despite centuries of this rhetoric For more than 200 years, common wisdom and policymakers have assumed that to get people to work, you had to make them hungry. New work requirements for Snap food benefits, which went into effect in most of the US on 1 December, are only the latest in a long line of policies based on this idea. The new rules cut off benefits for any non-disabled adult up to age 65 who cannot prove that they are working or seeking work at least 80 hours every month (that includes homeless people, veterans and former foster youth). The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 2.7 million people will lose their benefits. You’ve heard this reasoning before: people are motivated to work because they and their families have to survive. If you give someone welfare – especially food aid – they become dependent and lazy. The Florida-based Foundation for Government Accountability, a conservative thinktank that has been campaigning for years to cut welfare, calls this “the dependency trap”. Starving people by taking away their food stamps is supposed to “incentivize individuals to better themselves and transition from dependency to work and self-reliance”. Continue reading...

New research shows that crops are far more vulnerable when too much rainfall originates from land rather than the ocean. Land-sourced moisture leads to weaker, less reliable rainfall, heightening drought risk. The U.S. Midwest and East Africa are particularly exposed due to soil drying and deforestation. Protecting forests and improving land management could help stabilize rainfall and crop yields.