Burying our heads in the sand won’t stop the climate crisis or pandemics. We’re taking action to preserve government tools
United States science has propelled the country into its current position as a powerhouse of biomedical advancements, technological innovation and scientific research. The data US government agencies produce is a crown jewel – it helps us track how the climate is changing, visualize air pollution in our communities, identify challenges to our health and provide a panoply of other essential uses. Climate change, pandemics and novel risks are coming for all of us – whether we bury our heads in the sand or not – and government data is critical to our understanding of the risks these challenges bring and how to address them.
Much of this data remains out of sight to those who don’t use it, even though they benefit us all. Over the past few months, the Trump administration has brazenly attacked our scientific establishment through agency firings, censorship and funding cuts, and it has explicitly targeted data the American taxpayers have paid for. They’re stealing from us and putting our health and wellbeing in danger – so now we must advocate for these federal resources.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
04/21/2025 - 09:00
04/21/2025 - 05:30
Island country deals with drought and hurricane damage as it pushes for reparations from countries that benefited from slavery
When category 4 Hurricane Beryl hit the Caribbean last June, the three-island nation of Grenada bore the brunt of its wrath. At the time, the country’s prime minister, Dickon Mitchell, described the destruction as “almost Armageddon-like”. On the small island of Carriacou, it was estimated by officials that more than 90% of the buildings were damaged or destroyed. Agriculture and infrastructure for electricity and communication were almost completely wiped out.
Nearly a year on, there are some signs of recovery and rebuilding, but hollowed-out buildings, roofless houses and charred, dying mangroves tell the story of a community that is still coming to grips with the devastation.
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04/21/2025 - 05:00
Organizers team up with pro-democracy groups for flurry of actions to demand right to free, healthy lives
Hundreds of marches, pickets and cleanup events are taking place across the US in the run-up to Earth Day on Tuesday, as environmental and climate groups step up resistance to the Trump administration’s authoritarianism and its “war on the planet”.
A fortnight after the “Hands Off” mobilization brought millions to the streets, national and grassroots organizers are teaming up with pro-democracy groups for “All Out on Earth Day” – a wave of actions to demand the right to live free, healthy lives.
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04/21/2025 - 02:30
Mari Luz Canaquiri Murayari led a successful legal battle to protect the Marañon River in the Peruvian Amazon
Prize recognises seven activists fighting corporate power
An Indigenous campaigner and women’s leader from the Peruvian Amazon has been awarded the prestigious Goldman prize for environmental activists, after leading a successful legal campaign that led to the river where her people, the Kukama, live being granted legal personhood.
Mari Luz Canaquiri Murayari, 57, from the village of Shapajila on the Marañon River, led the Huaynakana Kamatahuara Kana (HKK) women’s association, supported by lawyers from Peru’s Legal Defence Institute, in a campaign to protect the river. After three years, judges in Loreto, Peru’s largest Amazon region, ruled in March 2024 that the Marañon had the right to be free-flowing and free of contamination, respecting an Indigenous worldview that regards a river as a living entity.
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04/21/2025 - 02:30
Seven winners of environmental prize include Amazonian river campaigner and Tunisian who fought against organised waste trafficking
Indigenous river campaigner from Peru honoured
Grassroots activists who helped jail corrupt officials and obtain personhood rights for a sacred Amazonian river are among this year’s winners of the world’s most prestigious environmental prize.
The community campaigns led by the seven 2025 Goldman prize winners underscore the courage and tenacity of local activists willing to confront the toxic mix of corporate power, regulatory failures and political corruption that is fuelling biodiversity collapse, water shortages, deadly air pollution and the climate emergency.
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04/20/2025 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 21 April 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00117-6
The contributions of coastal small-scale fisheries toward the sustainable development goals: a Kenyan Case Study
04/20/2025 - 09:00
Numbers have plummeted in recent years, but the problem is no one really knows why nesting pairs fail to rear young
Reaching the vantage point is a tricky business.
First, there’s a hop across a fence into Scratch Arse quarry – the stone workers used to find it such a cramped space to work in that their backsides would bump into the rock face. Then, a tiptoe through the slopes of early spider orchids and wild cabbage before a dizzying scramble down to the edge of the cliff.
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04/20/2025 - 07:00
Cuts to science, environmental and safety agencies are a rejection of hard-won knowledge gained from studying the disaster that occurred 15 years ago
Last month, I joined nearly 500 former and current employees of National Geographic, where I was executive vice-president and chief science and exploration officer for 17 years, urging the institution to take a public stance against the Trump administration’s reckless attacks on science. Our letter pointed out that the programs being dismantled are “imperative for the success of our country’s economy and are the foundation of our progress and wellbeing. They make us safer, stronger and more prosperous.” We warned that gutting them is a recipe for disaster.
In the face of this danger, none of us can remain silent.
Terry Garcia was National Geographic’s executive vice-president and chief science and exploration officer for 17 years. He also served as the assistant secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and deputy administrator of Noaa, as well as its general counsel
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04/20/2025 - 03:30
Lack of investment and vision has dogged UK industry, while China has literally forged ahead
The fate of incoming Labour business and industry secretaries seems to be to launch emergency rescue packages for industries that would otherwise face imminent closure.
Witness Jonathan Reynolds at last Saturday’s extraordinary parliamentary recall arguing for the legal right to take over the running of British Steel from its Chinese owner, Jingye, in order to save up to 3,500 jobs and Britain’s strategic capacity to make steel. And witness Tony Benn, in 1974, offering a financial lifeline to 3,000 workers forming a cooperative to save motorcycle manufacture at the failed BSA plant in Meriden, near Coventry.
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04/19/2025 - 13:05
The energy secretary has accused Reform UK’s leader of peddling dangerous falsehoods about renewable power• Tories and Reform use the steel crisis to knock clean energy. They’re wrong: it will secure all our futures
Ed Miliband has torn into Nigel Farage and the Tories for peddling dangerous “nonsense and lies” by suggesting the UK’s net zero target is responsible for destroying Britain’s businesses, including its steel industry.
Cabinet ministers are determined to fight back against the way Reform UK and the Conservatives have unceremoniously lambasted the climate crisis agenda for what they believe are nakedly political reasons before important local elections next month.
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