Breaking Waves: Ocean News

09/11/2024 - 09:34
Ekkapol Chantawong, who spent nearly three weeks underground in 2018, forced to spend night on roof of home The coach of the young Thai footballers who captured the world’s attention when they spent nearly three weeks trapped in a cave has found himself in another watery predicament – stuck on his roof by flash floods. Ekkapol Chantawong said he was drawing on his 2018 experience with the Wild Boars team to get through the situation at his home in the northern Thai district of Mae Sai. Continue reading...
09/11/2024 - 09:00
Exclusive: Environment Agency warned about ‘forever chemicals' 20 years before it started to regulate them The Environment Agency was warned about the “chronic threat” that firefighting foams containing PFAS “forever chemicals” pose to the environment in 2003, 20 years before it started the process of regulating the chemicals, it can be revealed. In a 200-page report obtained by the Ends Report via a freedom of information request and shared with the Guardian, consultants commissioned by the Environment Agency conducted an environmental review of firefighting foams with a “particular emphasis on their fluorosurfactant content”. Continue reading...
09/11/2024 - 08:31
Pen-chan defies expectations to be reunited with keeper safe and sound after swimming 30 miles in open sea A fugitive penguin in Japan has been found safe and sound two weeks after escaping into the sea and paddling for miles in what her keeper called a miracle. Pen-chan, a female Cape penguin born and raised in captivity, who had never swum in the open sea before or fended for herself, absconded from an event in the central Aichi region on 25 August. Continue reading...
09/11/2024 - 05:00
I do not think it is a leap to see our exploitive relationship with Earth as part of a centuries-long war against the environment Standing on the edge of Utah’s terminal Great Salt Lake is to witness the religion of over water-consumption in the desert. Our inland sea is disappearing in climate chaos evidenced by extreme heat and a megadrought not seen in 2,500 years. Ten million migrating birds depend on this water body for food, rest and breeding. Flocks of Wilson’s phalaropes, small and handsome shorebirds, spin in saline waters creating water columns alive with brine shrimp and flies and resulting in a feeding frenzy. American avocets and black-necked stilts stand stoically in the shallows. Thousands of ducks are sprinkled on the lake like pepper. Water and sky merge as one. There is no horizon. All appears well in this serene landscape of pastel blues animated by birds. It is not. The health of the Great Salt Lake is only as strong as the health of the human community that surrounds it. And vice versa. If the 2 million people living within the Great Salt Lake watershed with Salt Lake City at its center do not mobilize to put more water in the lake, the death of the Great Salt Lake will be their own. This will also be the demise of millions of migrating birds. Terry Tempest Williams is a writer, naturalist and activist Continue reading...
09/11/2024 - 02:00
In the north-east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, forests have been cleared for mines and the roads that service them. Large companies take what they can and move on, leaving abandoned ponds, toxic rivers and scraps of precious metal left in the ground Words and photographs by Guerchom Ndebo in Moku with support from the National Geographic Society Continue reading...
09/11/2024 - 00:56
Shadow minister for Indigenous Australians says Albanese government ‘turning a blind eye’ to alleged ‘weaponisation’ of identity Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has claimed “opportunists” are making “false claims” to membership of Indigenous groups to scuttle resource projects seeking environmental approval. The shadow minister for Indigenous Australians made the claim on Wednesday while defending a Coalition plan to designate which Indigenous groups would need to be consulted by project proponents, as revealed by the shadow resources minister, Susan McDonald, at a Minerals Week event. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading...
09/10/2024 - 23:00
Conservationists and botanists express concern over plans for Qatari-funded upscale resort on Assomption Island The habitat of the largest giant tortoise population in the world is threatened by a Qatari-funded hotel development that aims to bring luxury yachts, private jets and well-heeled tourists to a remote island in the Indian Ocean, conservationists have warned. Plans for an upscale resort on Assomption, which is part of the Aldabra island group, are currently under discussion by the Seychelles authorities, and construction is already finished on an airport expansion that would allow bigger aircraft to land on the 11.6-sq-km (4.5-sq-mile) coral island. Continue reading...
09/10/2024 - 22:07
Legislation before Australian parliament covers the way the country’s nuclear-powered submarine program will be regulated Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast The Albanese government has bowed to pressure to close an Aukus loophole, insisting that the newly revealed changes will ensure Australia will not become a dumping ground for nuclear waste from US and UK submarines. The Greens argued the government’s latest amendments did not go far enough and it was becoming increasingly clear the Aukus security pact was “sinking”. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading...
09/10/2024 - 16:30
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva says Amazonia suffering its worst drought in more than 40 years Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has flown into the Amazon amid growing alarm over the droughts and wildfires sweeping the rainforest region and others parts of Brazil. Speaking during a visit to a riverside community near the city of Tefé, the Brazilian president said Amazonia was suffering its worst drought in more than 40 years. He said he had come to discover “what is going on with these mighty rivers” that in some places now resemble deserts. Continue reading...
09/10/2024 - 12:34
This year, the USDA put some limits on added sugars for the first time. But changes face robust resistance Continue reading...