Breaking Waves: Ocean News

‘This bill protects our precious waters’: how a Florida environmental group scored a win against big oil

admin — Sat, 05 Jul 2025 12:00:09 +0000

Following the destruction from 2010’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill, an anti-drilling coalition took action with HB 1143 – and got it signed by DeSantis

The giant and catastrophic Deepwater Horizon oil spill, also known as the BP oil spill, didn’t reach Apalachicola Bay in 2010, but the threat of oil reaching this beautiful and environmentally valuable stretch of northern Florida’s Gulf coast was still enough to devastate the region’s economy.

Summer without cherry pie? Michigan’s signature crop faces battery of threats

admin — Sat, 05 Jul 2025 11:00:09 +0000

Climate change, development, labor shortages and tariffs are making life the pits for the state’s cherry farmers

Nearly 100 years ago, north-west Michigan cherry farmers and Traverse City community leaders started a festival to promote the city and their region’s tart cherry crop as a tourist destination.

Texas flooding latest: desperate search for girls swept away at summer camp after dozens killed in floods

admin — Sat, 05 Jul 2025 08:15:59 +0000

At least 27 people have died and 27 girls who were at a Christian summer camp are missing

We have more from the Associated Press on Camp Mystic, the all-girls Christian summer camp from which up to 25 people are missing.

Chloe Crane, a teacher and former Camp Mystic counsellor, said her heart broke when a fellow teacher shared an email from the camp about the missing girls.

How a £1.5bn ‘wildlife-boosting’ bypass became an environmental disaster

admin — Sat, 05 Jul 2025 07:00:04 +0000

A14 in Cambridgeshire promised biodiversity net gain of 11.5%, but most of the 860,000 trees planted are dead. What went wrong?

Lorries thunder over the A14 bridge north of Cambridge, above steep roadside embankments covered in plastic shrouds containing the desiccated remains of trees.

Occasionally the barren landscape is punctuated by a flash of green where a young hawthorn or a fledgling honeysuckle has emerged apparently against the odds, but their shock of life is an exception in the treeless landscape.

Rare butterfly hits purple patch at Sussex rewilding project

admin — Fri, 04 Jul 2025 16:00:44 +0000

Ecologists say 283 purple emperor recordings on one day at Knepp signal higher numbers nationwide

A conservation project in West Sussex has had its best day on record for rare purple emperor butterfly sighting, and ecologists say they are confident the species is doing well nationally.

These women are raising endangered butterfly larvae from prison: ‘They reconnect with their own brilliance’

admin — Fri, 04 Jul 2025 15:00:45 +0000

The women are raising larvae of the endangered Taylor’s checkerspot for release into the wild

Trista Egli was standing in a greenhouse, tearing up strips of plantain and preparing to feed them to butterfly larvae.

Of the many things the team here has tried to tempt larvae of the Taylor’s checkerspot – a native of the Pacific north-west – with, it is the invasive English plantain they seem to love the most.

‘Peaceful trespass’ planned at Dorset beauty spot after new owners shut path

admin — Fri, 04 Jul 2025 13:00:40 +0000

Loss of access to lake and waterfall in Thomas Hardy country prompts action at Bridehead estate

Heaven only knows what Thomas Hardy would have made of it. On Saturday, protesters will arrive at the Bridehead estate in Dorset, hop across a low stone wall and take part in a “peaceful trespass” to express their anger and sadness at the loss of access to a spot in the sort of landscape Hardy wrote about so evocatively.

Canada races to build icebreakers amid melting ice and geopolitical tensions

admin — Fri, 04 Jul 2025 12:00:40 +0000

In an Arctic reshaped by the climate crisis, less ice really means more as countries face risks in push for more ships

For millennia, a mass of sea ice in the high Arctic has changed with the seasons, casting off its outer layer in summer and expanding in winter as it spins between Russia, Canada and Alaska. Known as the Beaufort Gyre, this fluke of geography and oceanography was once a proving ground for ice to “mature” into thick sheets.

Landmark US study reveals sewage sludge and wastewater plants tied to Pfas pollution

admin — Fri, 04 Jul 2025 11:00:38 +0000

New study finds troubling levels of Pfas near wastewater plants and sludge sites in 19 states

Sewage sludge and wastewater treatment plants are major sources of Pfas water pollution, new research finds, raising questions about whether the US is safely managing its waste.

‘Slapp addict’ Italian oil firm accused of trying to silence green activists

admin — Fri, 04 Jul 2025 08:00:13 +0000

Eni has filed at least six defamation suits against journalists and NGOs since 2019 in what critics say is intimidation campaign

‘Legal bullying’: global protest rights on line in Dutch court case, say activists