Exclusive: EA warns it lacks budget to tackle England’s rising number of potential ‘forever chemicals’ locations
The number of sites identified as potentially having been polluted with banned cancer-causing “forever chemicals” in England is on the rise, and the Environment Agency (EA) says it does not have the budget to deal with them.
A former RAF airfield in Cambridgeshire and a fire service college in the Cotswolds have joined a chemicals plant in Lancashire and a fire protection equipment supplier in North Yorkshire on the agency’s list of “problem sites” for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
10/15/2024 - 06:00
10/15/2024 - 04:54
Residents and marine scientists unable to identify pale masses, as myriad theories are blown out of the water
They are slimy on the outside, firm and spongy on the inside and surprisingly combustible. And in recent months, they have been washing up on the shores of Newfoundland.
The depths of the Atlantic have long held mysteries, but the riddle of the mysterious white “blobs” spotted on the beaches of the eastern Canadian province has baffled both residents and marine scientists.
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10/15/2024 - 02:52
Tech company orders six or seven small nuclear reactors from California’s Kairos Power
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Google has signed a “world first” deal to buy energy from a fleet of mini nuclear reactors to generate the power needed for the rise in use of artificial intelligence.
The US tech corporation has ordered six or seven small nuclear reactors (SMRs) from California’s Kairos Power, with the first due to be completed by 2030 and the remainder by 2035.
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10/15/2024 - 01:00
As he travels along the Iranian coast, Khashayar Javanmardi photographs rusting ships, blazing wetland fires – and humans struggling to stay alive
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10/15/2024 - 01:00
Countries promised to save 30% of land and sea for nature - but as their deadline approaches, only 24 have followed through with a plan
More than 80% of countries have failed to submit plans to meet a UN agreement to halt the destruction of Earth’s ecosystems, new analysis has found.
Nearly two years ago, the world struck a once-in-a-decade deal in Montreal, Canada, that included targets to protect 30% of land and sea for nature, reform billions of dollars on environmentally harmful subsidies and slash pesticide usage. Countries committed to submit their plans for meeting the agreement before the biodiversity Cop16 in Cali, Colombia, which begins this month – but only 25 countries have done so.
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10/14/2024 - 23:00
Natural sinks of forests and peat were key to Finland’s ambitious target to be carbon neutral by 2035. But now, the land has started emitting more greenhouse gases than it stores
Read more: Trees and land absorbed almost no CO2 last year. Is nature’s carbon sink failing?
Tiina Sanila-Aikio cannot remember a summer this warm. The months of midnight sun around Inari, in Finnish Lapland, have been hot and dry. Conifer needles on the branch-tips are orange when they should be a deep green. The moss on the forest floor, usually swollen with water, has withered.
“I have spoken with many old reindeer herders who have never experienced the heat that we’ve had this summer. The sun keeps shining and it never rains,” says Sanila-Aikio, former president of the Finnish Sami parliament.
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10/14/2024 - 18:01
Energy crisis panel warns country is ‘dangerously unprepared’ and must shift away from gas quickly
Britain is at risk of experiencing a repeat of the sharp increase in energy costs which has fuelled the continuing cost of living crisis because it relies too heavily on gas, according to an expert panel of industry leaders.
The Energy Crisis Commission has warned that the UK is still “dangerously underprepared” for another crisis because it continues to rely on gas for its power plants and home heating.
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10/14/2024 - 17:36
A US study estimates the total climate pollution from LNG was 33% greater than that from coal over a 20-year period. This should have major ramifications for emissions policy
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The claim that Australian gas exports are “clean” and needed to drive the transition to net zero greenhouse gas emissions has become an article of faith for significant parts of the country’s industry, media and political classes – often repeated, only occasionally challenged.
It has buttressed a massive expansion of the liquified natural gas (LNG) industry in the north of the continent over the past decade, with major new developments in Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory.
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10/14/2024 - 10:28
Poorly maintained and uninsured vessels transporting up to 70% of country’s seaborne oil, says report
Russia’s shadow fleet of oil tankers is expanding, according to research, transporting up to 70% of the country’s seaborne oil despite western efforts to curb Moscow’s wartime energy revenues.
The volume of Russian oil being transported by poorly maintained and underinsured tankers has almost doubled in a year to 4.1m barrels a day by June, according to a report published on Monday by the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE).
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10/14/2024 - 09:00
We’ve all been there. We’ve all felt like a badly made-up, odd-limbed, irritable floor-dwelling mess
As you contemplate the wonders of evolution, and how a creature can be born with something weird and new, and that thing can either help it get ahead or not hurt its chances, and it can then reproduce and make another one like it, spare a thought for the red-lipped batfish.
A real animal, it has the kind of mouth that, as a kid, you may have made from Babybel cheese wax, to go with your red wax fake nails. It has a beard of white whiskers. It has fins that bend backwards, like a person’s arms at yoga when they are about to do upward dog. Before your eyes, it sprouts a new limb from its nostril. Its nose – technically a snout – is long, at the top of its head, and hook-shaped. It cannot swim, only crawl. Its crawl is more like a waddle.
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