It’s time to rethink how climate action succeeds. The key is to acknowledge that it’s never the sole force driving political decisions
We are witnessing the most devastating climate disasters on record: wildfires ravaging Los Angeles, deadly floods in North Carolina, and global temperature records shattered month after month. We have officially surpassed 1.5C (2.7F) of warming, a critical threshold scientists have long warned against. At the same time, the US is scaling back policies, freezing critical programs and shifting priorities away from climate action.
But now isn’t the time to give up on climate action. Instead, it is high time to rethink how it succeeds.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
02/26/2025 - 06:00
02/26/2025 - 05:27
CEO Murray Auchincloss says ‘fundamental reset’ will mean cut of more than £4bn to low-carbon investment plan
BP has abandoned its green ambitions in favour of ramping up fossil fuel production as its boss claimed that optimism over the pace of the green transition had been “misplaced”.
In a major strategy shift, the energy company will increase its investment in oil and gas to $10bn (£7.9bn) a year while slashing more than $5bn from its previous green investment plan.
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02/26/2025 - 01:00
Thousands of seafarers are left on board their vessels in foreign waters, unpaid, with scant supplies – and no way of getting home
When Vihaan* set off from his home in Tamil Nadu, south India, to work on a vessel crossing the Bay of Bengal into neighbouring Bangladesh, he told his family he would be gone a few months. After delivering his cargo of stone to Bangladesh’s Kutubdia Island, the marine engineer was due to head home in March 2024 to disembark at Thoothukudi port, India.
But that month, the rusting tug, the Navimar 3, which was being operated by Middle East Marine (MEM), was detained by the authorities in Bangladesh due to unpaid fees. For almost a year, Vihaan has become a virtual prisoner on board, he says, forced to work without pay to keep the vessel safe, amid strong currents where it is anchored off the island in the cyclone-prone bay. His passport and certification documents are being held by a local agent for the Dubai-based company. With no means of getting home, no visa to disembark and without supplies, he has to rely on food and water from charities and unions.
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02/25/2025 - 21:06
Boat tour captures video of Northern right whale dolphins, Pacific white-sided dolphins and light grey baby calves
More than 2,000 dolphins gathered off the California coast to form a “superpod”, gliding and breaching the clear, aquamarine waters off Monterey Bay.
The superpod included Northern right whale dolphins and Pacific white-sided dolphins, as well as light grey baby calves. Evan Brodsky, a captain and videographer with the private boat tour company Monterey Bay Whale Watch, captured a video of the dolphins, and his company shared it on Facebook, calling the spectacle “mind-blowing”.
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02/25/2025 - 19:01
Volklec aims to start making batteries at part-government-funded site near Coventry before building its own factory
A startup has said it has learned from Britain’s faltering attempts to manufacture batteries for electric vehicles, as it signed a deal to license technology from an established Chinese firm.
Coventry-based Volklec plans to manufacture batteries for cars, boats, construction vehicles and aircraft using technology from China’s Far East Battery (FEB), a maker of batteries mainly for electric bikes.
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02/25/2025 - 17:57
Beaches in southern California littered with timber, twisted metals, charred silt and urban runoff from Palisades fire
Los Angeles county beaches are contending with the aftermath of recent wildfires and winter storms as debris from the Palisades fire and urban runoff are carried to the shoreline.
After last week’s major rainstorm, beaches in southern California have been littered with timber, twisted metals, construction materials and charred silt and sediment originating from the Palisades fire in January. That blaze, along with the Eaton fire, killed at least 29 people.
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02/25/2025 - 12:23
A study shows birds worldwide make strategic decisions about how they live based on their environmental conditions. Some live fast, die young, and leave as many chicks as possible. Others live long and prosper by not breeding much.
02/23/2025 - 00:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 23 February 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-024-00090-6
Scaling biocultural initiatives can support nature, food, and culture from summit to sea
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 | director@thew2o.net +12077011069
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