Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Global heating means atmosphere can drive both extreme droughts and floods with rapid switches Climate “whiplash” between extremely wet and dry conditions, which spurred catastrophic fires in Los Angeles, is increasing exponentially around the world because of global heating, analysis has found. Climate whiplash is a rapid swing between very wet or dry conditions and can cause far more harm to people than individual extreme events alone. In recent years, whiplash events have been linked to disastrous floods in east Africa, Pakistan and Australia and to worsening heatwaves in Europe and China. Continue reading...

Luke Evans, whose work has been called ‘breathtakingly new’, says he has lost experimental data and all equipment A scientist in Liverpool has lost more than a decade of work after the prefabricated building that served as his research lab was destroyed in a suspected arson attack. Luke Evans, the chief executive of Scintilla CME and a PhD student at the University of Liverpool, was due to submit his work in March. His research centres on advanced fuel cell technology that converts organic waste into clean energy, and could be crucial in the transition away from fossil fuels. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Newly uncovered documents reveal chemicals giant was aware ‘environmentally neutral’ products did not biodegrade The multibillion-dollar chemicals company 3M told customers its firefighting foams were harmless and biodegradable when it knew they contained toxic substances so persistent they are now known as “forever chemicals” and banned in many countries including the UK, newly uncovered documents show. From the 1960s until 2003, 3M made foams containing PFOS and PFOA (perfluorooctane sulfonate and perfluorooctanoic acid), synthetic chemicals that can take tens of thousands of years to degrade in the environment and have been linked to cancers and a range of other health problems such as thyroid disease, high cholesterol, hormonal problems and fertility issues. Continue reading...

The scope of the Cop26 net zero banking alliance may have been limited, but the exodus of six US banks signifies a seismic political shift Last week, as flames began tearing through greater Los Angeles, claiming multiple lives and forcing more than 100,000 people to evacuate, JP Morgan became the sixth major US bank to quit the Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA) since the start of December. A smaller story, certainly, but the departure of top US banks from the NZBA in the weeks since Donald Trump’s re-election nonetheless speaks to a seismic political shift prompting major financial institutions to turn away from the climate-related commitments they made in the optimistic years after the Paris agreement. The NZBA is a voluntary network of global banks committed to “align lending and investment portfolios with net zero emissions by 2050”. It is part of the umbrella Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), which counts among its membership dozens of “alliances” covering the various segments of global finance. For its part, the NZBA requires new members to submit science-aligned targets within 18 months of joining, alongside disclosing plans for and status updates on meeting them. Adrienne Buller is director of The Break Down and the author of The Value of a Whale: on the illusions of green capitalism Continue reading...