Breaking Waves: Ocean News

07/14/2024 - 00:00
Campaigners warn of same ‘tragic events’ as in River Wye if planners ignore pollution risks of intensive production The chicken industry is facing calls to halt the expansion of intensive production in the River Severn catchment, with campaigners warning that the river is at risk from the same pollution that has blighted the River Wye. An outcry over the ecological plight of the Wye has effectively halted the proliferation of intensive poultry units across the catchment. Campaigners say that the pollution threat is being transported “from one catchment to the other”. Continue reading...
07/13/2024 - 15:00
Letter urges environment minister to investigate alleged breaches at Doongmabulla Springs Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast There is growing concern that a culturally significant and nationally important wetland is under threat from Adani’s controversial coalmine in Queensland, with an Indigenous group demanding the government investigate alleged breaches of the conditions that protect the site. Scientists say drops in water levels in bores around the Doongmabulla Springs have been detected hundreds of times since mining started, and allege hydrocarbons associated with coal have been found in bores and the springs themselves. Continue reading...
07/13/2024 - 13:14
Ed Miliband sets new rules on solar panels and approves three giant solar farms as Labour seeks to end years of Tory inaction Keir Starmer’s Labour government unveils plans for a “rooftop revolution” today that will see millions more homes fitted with solar panels in order to bring down domestic energy bills and tackle the climate crisis. The energy secretary, Ed Miliband, also took the hugely controversial decision this weekend to approve three massive solar farms in the east of England that had been blocked by Tory ministers. Continue reading...
07/13/2024 - 09:28
Johannes-Harm Hovinga has to take painkillers to complete 20-day artistic protest at Museum Arnhem Every day for the last two weeks, Johannes-Harm Hovinga has sat at a raised table in Museum Arnhem, using a two-hole page puncher to systematically perforate the 7,705-page sixth assessment report produced by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He has printed it out on coloured paper and the result is a vibrant heap piling up at the artist’s feet. Continue reading...
07/13/2024 - 09:00
Experts say devastating hurricane so early in season is ‘big wake-up call’ – and predict even more powerful storms The poignancy was unmistakable: prognosticators at Colorado State University amended their already miserable seasonal tropical cyclone forecast on Monday precisely as Hurricane Beryl was filling Houston’s streets with floodwater and knocking out power to more than 2m homes and businesses. “A likely harbinger of a hyperactive season” was how CSU researchers characterized Beryl, which set numerous records on the way to its Texas landfall, including the earliest category 5 hurricane, strongest ever June storm, and most powerful to strike the southern Windward Islands. Continue reading...
07/13/2024 - 07:28
Campaigners welcome ‘seismic shift’ and urge museum bosses to review links with other fossil fuel sponsors The Science Museum has been forced to cut ties with oil giant Equinor over its sponsor’s environmental record, the Observer can reveal. Equinor has sponsored the museum’s interactive “WonderLab” since 2016, but the relationship is now coming to close, a move that will be seen as a major victory for climate change campaigners. Continue reading...
07/13/2024 - 04:00
Southern Water says it wants to protect rare chalk streams, but campaigners say it could pollute the Solent A proposed £1.2bn scheme to recycle effluent from the sewage system and turn it in to drinking water has been criticised as a threat to the environment and a potential costly “white elephant”. Southern Water wants to treat effluent – wastewater from the sewage system – at a plant at Havant in Hampshire and pipe it into a nearby spring-fed reservoir to boost water supplies during droughts. The scheme would ensure less water is extracted from two rare chalk streams: the Rivers Test and Itchen. Continue reading...
07/12/2024 - 21:21
Tree-planting campaigns have been underway in the United States, especially in cities, as part of climate mitigation efforts given the many environmental benefits of urban forests. But a new study finds that some areas within urban forests in the U.S., may be more capable than trees growing around city home lawns in adapting to a warmer climate.
07/12/2024 - 19:00
The Campbell’s keeled glass-snail was officially extinct until March 2020, when a local citizen scientist found it on the remote Norfolk Island. 40 of the thumbnail-sized snails were taken to a dedicated and quarantined captive breeding facility in Taronga zoo. 40 baby snails were born in the last fortnight, after initially struggling to reproduce in captivity Lion brothers make record-breaking 1.5km swim in hope of finding mates - video Continue reading...
World Ocean Explorer Wins Gold Medal Serious Simulation Award from Serious Play Annual International Competition
10/26/2023 - 14:35
For Immediate Release October 19, 2023 Sedgwick, Maine USA World Ocean Explorer, a 3D virtual aquarium and educational simulation, was recently cited for excellence, winning a Gold Medal Award in the 2023 International Serious Play Awards Program. World Ocean Explorer is an innovative 3D virtual aquarium designed for educational exploration of the world’s oceans. With interactive exhibits and a lobby space, visitors can immerse themselves in realistic marine environments, including a DEEP SEA exhibit funded by Schmidt Ocean Institute, showcasing unprecedented deep-sea discoveries off Australia. Targeted at 3rd graders and beyond, this immersive experience offers a range of perspectives on the ocean environment and can be explored through guided tours or user-controlled interfaces. Visit DEEP SEA at worldoceanexplorer.org/deep-sea-aquarium.html. Serious Play Conference brings together professionals who are exploring the use of game-based learning, sharing their experience, and working together to shape the future of training and education. For more information on Serious Play Award Program visit seriousplayconf.com/international-serious-play-award-programs. World Ocean Explorer is a transformative virtual aquarium designed to deepen understanding of the world ocean and amplify connection for young people worldwide. Organized around the principles of Ocean Literacy and the Next Gen Science Standards, World Ocean Explorer brings the wonder and knowledge of ocean species and systems to students in formal and informal classrooms, absolutely free to anyone with a good Internet connection. As an advocate for the ocean through communications, World Ocean Observatory believes there is no better investment in the future of the sustainable ocean than through a new approach to educational engagement that excites, informs, and motivates students to explore the wonders of our marine world and to understand the pervasive connection and implication for our future, inherent in the protection and conservation of all aspects of our ocean world. World Ocean Explorer presents an astonishing 3-dimensional simulated aquarium visit, organized to reveal the wonders of undersea life, with layers of detailed data and information to augment the emotional connection made to the astonishing beauty and complexity of the dynamic ocean. Within each of the virtual exhibits, students visit exemplary theme-based sites with myriad opportunities to understand the larger perspectives of scientific knowledge as organized and visualized to dramatize the impact and change on ocean life as a result of natural and human-generated events. Through immersion among displays, mixed media and 3D models, the experience of an aquarium visit will be brought into classrooms or home school environments as a free, accessible, always available opportunity for teaching and learning. All of this will be available to a world audience without physical limitation or cost. World Ocean Explorer, a project of the World Ocean Observatory, receives support from the Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Foundation, Visual Solutions Lab, the Climate Change Institute, the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, and The Fram Museum Oslo. To learn more about the current and future exhibits of World Ocean Explorer, visit worldoceanexplorer.org. media contact Trisha Badger, Managing Director, World Ocean Observatory   |   [email protected] +12077011069
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