Breaking Waves: Ocean News

10/29/2024 - 05:00
Researchers found 38,000 fewer people – 10 times number of murders – would have died if atmosphere was not clogged with greenhouse pollutants Climate breakdown caused more than half of the 68,000 heat deaths during the scorching European summer of 2022, a study has found. Researchers from the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) found 38,000 fewer people would have died from heat if humans had not clogged the atmosphere with pollutants that act like a greenhouse and bake the planet. The death toll is about 10 times greater than the number of people murdered in Europe that year. Continue reading...
10/29/2024 - 02:06
If unchecked, pest species would burden health system with 650,000 more appointments and more than $2bn in costs each year, expert says Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast The federal government’s response to a Senate inquiry into the spread of invasive fire ants has been labelled inadequate with experts saying Labor has “essentially pressed the pause button”. An April upper house report contained 10 recommendations. The Albanese government on Monday said it supported three in their entirety and three in principle – including calls for funding reviews, more transparency and improved council collaboration. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading...
10/29/2024 - 02:00
Thousands more people than expected are at the biodiversity summit in Cali, Colombia, and hotels are full – leading the city’s council to press less orthodox accommodation into service Robert Baluku, a Ugandan delegate to the UN’s biodiversity summit in Colombia, found himself between a rock and hard place when his team’s accommodation was abruptly cancelled, leaving them stranded before the start of Cop16 in Cali. The city’s hotels were packed to capacity with thousands of country leaders, scientists, government ministers and UN negotiators, and Baluku was left scrambling for options – until the Motel Deseos (Desires) came to the rescue. Continue reading...
10/29/2024 - 01:00
Exclusive: Linked accounts on X push petrostate’s posts about climate summit and drown out criticism Scores of apparently fake social media accounts are boosting Azerbaijan’s hosting of the Cop29 climate summit, an investigation has revealed. The accounts were mostly set up after July, at which time seven of the top 10 most engaged posts using the hashtags #COP29 and #COP29Azerbaijan were critical of Azerbaijan’s role in the conflict with Armenia, using hashtags such as #stopgreenwashgenocide. By September this had changed, with all of the top 10 most engaged posts coming from the official Cop29 Azerbaijan account. Continue reading...
10/28/2024 - 20:43
It seems reasonable to call the Coalition’s policy what it primarily is: a proposal to expand fossil fuels Some news you may not have clocked last week while the focus was on important things like a royal tour: 44 of the world’s top climate scientists, including four decorated Australian professors, released an open letter warning that ocean circulation in the Atlantic is at serious risk of collapse sooner than was previously understood. They said a string of studies suggested the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a body backed by nearly 200 countries, had greatly underestimated the possibility that the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation – or Amoc, a system of ocean currents that brings heat into the northern Atlantic west of Britain and Ireland – could in the next few decades reach a point at which its breakdown was inevitable. The cause? Rising greenhouse gas emissions. Continue reading...
10/28/2024 - 15:43
Amid growing pressure to report on nature-related risks and impacts, an open-source footprinting tool offers a scientific and transparent approach.
10/28/2024 - 15:42
A new study reveals that invasive plants are reshaping soil microbial communities across the U.S., making them more uniform and altering how ecosystems function.
10/28/2024 - 14:56
This blog is now closed Boy, 11, dies and four other children injured after car crashes into Melbourne school Australia’s pandemic plans were ‘grossly inadequate’, an inquiry has found. What lessons can be learned? Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Bowen derides Coalition’s ‘nuclear fantasy’ Chris Bowen, minister for climate change and energy, is speaking on ABC Radio National this morning. If I was the energy minister of another country, I would consider the opportunities that I had in that country – but a country saying to Australia, with our excellent renewable resources, that we should go down the nuclear road when we have no nuclear industry, no nuclear expertise of the scale that we would need for a nuclear power industry, is like us going to Finland or Scandinavia and saying, “Listen, we know [you have] a lot of snow, but you should really try beach surfing.” It just doesn’t make any sense. We have to play to our strengths in Australia, and we have the best renewable resources in the world, and the opposition wants to stop us using them, and in turn, keep coal in the system for longer. They’re quite explicit about that while we wait for this nuclear fantasy to come on board. That would be terrible for emissions and fatal for energy reliability. Continue reading...
10/28/2024 - 12:31
Escaped blue-throated macaws, named Lily and Margot, were tracked down after numerous sightings London zoo’s “critically endangered” missing parrots have been found 60 miles away behind afamily’s garden in Cambridgeshire. The escaped birds were tracked down after numerous sightings from local residents, and were eventually found in the back garden of a family in Buckden. They flew away once more before being traced to a field and public footpath in nearby Brampton. Continue reading...
10/28/2024 - 12:23
Once abundant, the massive, colorful clam is now locally extinct in many regions, with a critical drop in population due to overfishing and climate change.