Sun-dimming risks putting the planet’s thermostat under Donald Trump’s control. Better to adopt the precautionary principle with high-stakes science
It is fitting that this week’s UN environment talks are in Nairobi, with Africa shaping the global climate conversation. The continent’s diplomats are dealing with the vexed question of whether it is wise to try to cool the planet by dimming the sun’s rays. While not on the formal summit agenda, on the sidelines they are arguing that it’s time to stop promoting solar geoengineering technology as a solution to global heating. It’s hard to disagree.
African nations have acted because they don’t want their continent to become a test bed for unproven schemes to spray particles into the high atmosphere to reflect sunlight away from Earth for a small, uncertain cooling gain. They point to environmental, ethical and geopolitical risks. That’s why the continent is pushing for a global “non-use” agreement that would rule out public funding, outdoor experiments, patenting and official promotion of these technologies.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
12/08/2025 - 13:08
12/08/2025 - 13:05
Leader John Swinney says independence could cut household energy bills by a third in the long term
The future of Scottish renewables will underpin the Scottish National party’s Holyrood election campaign, the party leader, John Swinney, has said, as he claimed independence could cut household energy bills by a third in the long term.
At what was billed as the first campaign event before next May’s elections to the Scottish parliament, Swinney declared: “It’s Scotland’s energy” – mirroring the famous 1970s slogan “It’s Scotland’s oil”, which bolstered the SNP’s first Westminster breakthrough.
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12/08/2025 - 12:30
Charity worker had joined 40 demonstrators ‘bearing witness’ to the loss of three lime trees in Falmouth
A charity worker suffered a head injury when police tried to remove her from a protest against trees being felled in a Cornish seaside town.
Debs Newman, 60, was “bearing witness” to the loss of three mature lime trees in Falmouth when she was seized by officers.
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12/08/2025 - 09:00
Blazes in NSW and Tasmania have already led to a firefighter losing his life and close to 40 homes being destroyed as an ominous fire season begins
Australians should “expect the unexpected” this bushfire season amid dangerous conditions, experts have warned, after a severe start that saw a firefighter killed and homes destroyed in several states.
Bushfires at Koolewong and Bulahdelah in New South Wales destroyed 20 homes and a natural disaster has been declared in several local government areas, while wind-driven fires at Dolphin Sands in eastern Tasmania razed 19 houses and damaged dozens more.
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12/08/2025 - 09:00
Species extinct as breeding birds in Britain since 1416 to be reintroduced in Barking and Dagenham as part of rewilding effort
Above the roar of traffic, the rumble of the tube and the juddering construction noise of a towering new datacentre in Dagenham, east London, will soon rise a beautiful and unlikely melody: the bill-clattering of white storks.
The birds will next year make a historic return to the UK capital as part of an ambitious rewilding effort to bring charismatic nature into busy city communities.
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12/08/2025 - 08:00
At a time when the UK and other countries are finally taking bold steps for climate, Canada is preparing a new oil pipeline
Last week, the United Kingdom did something all too rare: it chose leadership by backing science and prioritizing public safety. The Labour government announced it would ban new oil and gas licences in the North Sea, strengthen a windfall tax and accelerate phasing out of fossil-fuel subsidies.
These are not symbolic gestures. They are an acknowledgment that the global energy system is shifting and that mature economies must shift with it.
Tzeporah Berman is a Canadian environmental activist, campaigner and writer
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12/08/2025 - 07:00
Exclusive: Congress urged to act against energy-hungry facilities blamed for increasing bills and worsening climate crisis
A coalition of more than 230 environmental groups has demanded a national moratorium on new datacenters in the US, the latest salvo in a growing backlash to a booming artificial intelligence industry that has been blamed for escalating electricity bills and worsening the climate crisis.
The green groups, including Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Food & Water Watch and dozens of local organizations, have urged members of Congress to halt the proliferation of energy-hungry datacenters, accusing them of causing planet-heating emissions, sucking up vast amounts of water and exacerbating electricity bill increases that have hit Americans this year.
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12/08/2025 - 01:00
Backlog delaying ‘shovel-ready’ ventures will be cleared with aim of building virtually zero-carbon power system by 2030
Britain’s energy system operator is pulling the plug on hundreds of electricity generation projects to clear a huge backlog that is stopping “shovel-ready” schemes from connecting to the power grid.
Developers will be told on Monday whether their plans will be dismissed by the National Energy System Operator (Neso) – or whether they will be prioritised to connect by either the end of the decade or 2035.
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12/08/2025 - 00:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 08 December 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00174-x
Perceived fairness of conservation decision-making more strongly influenced by absence than presence of procedural equity criteria
12/07/2025 - 11:00
In Voices from the Kitchen, Marc Meyer pulls the curtain back on the harrowing journeys of the people who run his restaurants
Throughout his lifetime, the celebrated chef and author Anthony Bourdain was unequivocal in his belief that the restaurant industry in the US could not function without immigrant labor. These indispensable workers, Bourdain argued, were not only willing to do the jobs that most US-born citizens would look down upon, but also they did them better and faster.
“People have differing opinions on what we should do about immigration in the future,” Bourdain told the Houston Press in 2007. “But let’s be honest, at least, about who is cooking in America now. Who we rely on – have relied on – for decades. The bald fact is that the entire restaurant industry in America would close down overnight, would never recover, if current immigration laws were enforced quickly and thoroughly across the board.”
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