Breaking Waves: Ocean News

02/08/2025 - 14:00
The party’s agenda is about energy security, lower bills, economic growth and good jobs Ed Miliband is the Labour MP for Doncaster North and secretary of state for energy security and net zero During four years in opposition and in the seven months since this government came to office, we have been clear: smart climate policy means not only protecting future generations from the biggest existential threat we face, but fighting to make working people better off today, growing our economy and confronting the economic injustices we face. In a world where climate policy is being questioned, this government’s message to those in the Tory and Reform parties who say that we should go backwards on climate is simple: you are wrong, and this government is going to speed up, not slow down, the clean energy transition, because that is how to grow our economy and fight for working people through our Plan for Change. Ed Miliband is the Labour MP for Doncaster North and secretary of state for energy security and net zero Continue reading...
02/08/2025 - 13:00
Inquiry uncovered health problems in neighborhood near Monterrey-area plant that processes US hazardous waste Mexican environmental regulators say they have discovered 30,000 tons of improperly stored material with “hazardous characteristics” in the yard of a Mexican plant that is recycling toxic waste shipped from the US. The authorities ordered “urgent measures” to get the materials into proper storage as part of inspections they are conducting in response to an investigation from the Guardian and Quinto Elemento Lab, which raised questions about contamination around the plant, located in the Monterrey metro area. Continue reading...
02/08/2025 - 12:00
On 10 January, as fires raged across Los Angeles, local portrait artist Asher Bingham made an offer via an Instagram reel: “ To anyone that has lost a home in the #LAfires I will draw [it] for free.” She had already drawn the house of a close friend that had burned down; by offering her services more widely, she hoped to help others grieve for what they’d lost. She wasn’t prepared for the response. So many people sent in photos – 1,300 and counting – that she had to recruit volunteers to keep up with demand. For Bingham, it’s all about the small details: wind chimes, potted plants. “Anywhere I can see people put love into their home, I draw it,” she says. “I’m trying to recreate a memory that only lives in their minds of the beautiful time they lived there.” See more on instagram.com/asherbingham.fineart Continue reading...
02/08/2025 - 11:00
Scotland’s botanic gardens suffer ‘unimaginable’ loss of rare specimens For more than a century, whenever winter came to Scotland, they stood tall against the wind and rain and snow. But last month, battered by Storm Éowyn, hundreds of rare and historic trees in the living collection of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh were lost. The charity has four sites in Scotland. Its tallest tree in Edinburgh, a 166-year-old Himalayan cedar, fell during Éowyn’s gusts of up to 80mph, while Benmore Botanic Garden on the west coast has suffered “unimaginable” devastation. Continue reading...
02/08/2025 - 11:00
The Siċaŋġu Nation in South Dakota is building community and climate resilience through traditional foods On a Wednesday summer evening on the Rosebud Reservation, members of the Siċaŋġu Nation arrange 12 tables to form a U in the parking lot of a South Dakota Boys & Girls Club. The tables at the Siċaŋġu Harvest Market are laden with homemade foods for sale: tortillas, cooked beans, pickles and fresh-squeezed lemonade. The market is one of many ways the non-profit increases access to traditional and healthful foods that also happen to come with a low climate impact. The Lakota, of which Siċaŋġu is one of seven nations, were traditionally hunters and gatherers, but today, the Siċaŋġu Co non-profit is building on both new and old traditions to fulfill its mission. Continue reading...
02/08/2025 - 10:41
President said he will sign an executive order next week despite global plastics crisis Donald Trump has said that he will reverse Joe Biden’s plan to phase out plastic straws across the US government, complaining that paper alternatives don’t work and that a move is needed to go “BACK TO PLASTIC!” Trump said in a Truth Social post that he will sign an executive order next week “ending the ridiculous Biden push for Paper Straws, which don’t work. BACK TO PLASTIC!” The US president added in a separate post that Biden’s “mandate” for paper straws was now dead: “Enjoy your next drink without a straw that disgustingly dissolves in your mouth!!!” Continue reading...
02/08/2025 - 10:41
Nine in ten traditional orchards in England have been lost since the second world war. Farmers and cider makers are now fighting for their survival They are a symbol of the bucolic English countryside and a staple of the West Country landscape, but since the second world war, 90% of traditional orchards have disappeared. Defined as a collection of five or more fruit trees planted in permanent grassland and managed in a non-intensive way, traditional orchards have suffered from neglect, been razed for development and converted to intensive bush orchards or alternative crops. Continue reading...
02/08/2025 - 03:00
Developing countries urge biggest polluters to act as Trump’s return to the White House heightens geopolitical turmoil The vast majority of governments are likely to miss a looming deadline to file vital plans that will determine whether or not the world has a chance of avoiding the worst ravages of climate breakdown. Despite the urgency of the crisis, the UN is relatively relaxed at the prospect of the missed date. Officials are urging countries instead to take time to work harder on their targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions and divest from fossil fuels. Continue reading...
02/08/2025 - 00:00
Exclusive: Analysis suggests development in flood regions result of Labour push for 1.5m new homes in five years More than 100,000 new homes will be built on the highest-risk flood zones in England in the next five years as part of the government’s push for 1.5m extra properties by the end of this parliament, Guardian analysis suggests. Building on areas with the highest risk of serious flooding is supposed to be discouraged. Experts say development should be avoided unless absolutely necessary because there is a significant chance of regular deluges, which will flood the properties, cause hundreds of millions of pounds of economic damage and make homes uninsurable. Continue reading...
02/07/2025 - 15:27
A scientist has discovered a hopping treasure trove -- 16 new species of grasshoppers living in the thorny scrubs of U.S. and Mexican deserts.