Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Adopting organic free-range model in UK could lead to greenhouse emissions equivalent to 2,316,000 tonnes of CO2, study suggests Organic eggs are twice as bad for the climate as eggs from chickens living in cages, research suggests. According to the study, switching the UK’s entire egg production to an organic free-range model would lead to greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 2,316,000 tonnes of CO2 (tCO2e), while production through a fully caged system would emit 1,184,000 tCO2e. Continue reading...

New research linking the issue to Parkinson’s disease adds to the evidence of serious health repercussions from traffic volume and other sources The roar of late-night traffic is not just annoying for those trying to sleep. It can also have profound effects on their health. A pioneering new study, published this month, has found a clear link between road noise and Parkinson’s disease. The research, which followed more than 3 million Danish participants, found a modest but consistent effect: for every 11.5dB rise in noise level, the risk of the degenerative disorder rose by 3% over the 18-year study. The study adds to the growing body of evidence that auditory nuisance is associated with serious physical consequences. The European Environment Agency reported last year that more than 110 million people across the continent suffer high levels of health-damaging noise pollution, with physiological stress and sleep disturbance leading to 66,000 early deaths annually as well as heart disease, diabetes and depression. It found that the harm caused was greater than from secondhand tobacco smoke exposure. Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

Return of winds and extreme heat threaten firefighters’ attempts to bring blazes under control Nearly 4,000 people have been evacuated from tourist sites on France’s Atlantic coast as the return of winds and extreme heat jeopardises firefighters’ battles to contain wildfires raging in France and Spain. The precautionary evacuation order in France, which covers campsites, holiday villages and other tourist accommodation around the resort of Lacanau to the west of Bordeaux, exacerbated a wildfire emergency described by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, as the “toughest” situation the country had dealt with since the second world war. Continue reading...

Matthew Myerscough’s remarkable find is one of many detailed in his new book. But his journey into fossil hunting began years earlier, when he was caught in an avalanche When Matthew Myerscough walks along a beach, he cannot help hunting for fossils. “I think my fossil radar is always on – even if I’m not looking, it’s hard sometimes to not see things,” says the 40-year-old civil engineer, who has discovered thousands of fossils on British beaches. It was while he was “not looking” on Lavernock beach near Penarth, south Wales, that he recently stumbled across the fossilised bone of an early type of plesiosaur, a marine reptile that roamed the oceans while dinosaurs stalked the land during the early Jurassic period. Continue reading...