Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Where the heart is: the artist memorialising homes lost in the LA fires – in pictures

admin — Sat, 08 Feb 2025 17:00:26 +0000

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.

Kew’s rescue mission: arborists head to Scotland after hundreds of trees and plants felled by Storm Éowyn

admin — Sat, 08 Feb 2025 16:00:28 +0000

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.

Western food was unhealthy and costly. So they turned back to bison and mushrooms

admin — Sat, 08 Feb 2025 16:00:24 +0000

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.

Trump to reverse Biden’s plan to phase out plastic straws across US government

admin — Sat, 08 Feb 2025 15:41:16 +0000

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!”

Save our cider: apple growers and producers call on government to protect traditional ‘native wine of England’

admin — Sat, 08 Feb 2025 15:41:07 +0000

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.

‘Backsliding’: most countries to miss vital climate deadline as Cop30 nears

admin — Sat, 08 Feb 2025 08:00:17 +0000

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.

More than 100,000 homes in England could be built in highest-risk flood zones

admin — Sat, 08 Feb 2025 05:00:12 +0000

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.

Scientist discovers 16 new grasshopper species, champions desert biodiversity

admin — Fri, 07 Feb 2025 20:27:08 +0000

A scientist has discovered a hopping treasure trove -- 16 new species of grasshoppers living in the thorny scrubs of U.S. and Mexican deserts.

Trump administration suspends $5bn electric vehicle charging program

admin — Fri, 07 Feb 2025 19:00:23 +0000

Highway agency ordered states to no longer spend funds allocated under Biden’s EV charging station program

The Trump administration has ordered US states to suspend a $5bn electric vehicle charging station program in a further blow to the environmental movement since the president’s return to the White House.

DNA barcodes and citizen science images map spread of biocontrol agent for control of major invasive shrub

admin — Fri, 07 Feb 2025 17:26:24 +0000

New research using publicly-shared DNA barcodes and citizen science images have provided new evidence on the establishment and spread of a biological control agent used for the control of the major invasive shrub Lantana camara.