Breaking Waves: Ocean News

05/31/2024 - 13:32
Bright hue of Clear Lake, state’s largest freshwater basin, may have been caused by cyanobacteria and other phytoplankton California’s largest freshwater lake has turned bright green due to algae blooms so intense they are visible from space, Nasa has announced, sharing satellite images from mid-May. The photographs showed that “bright green swirls were visible across most of the lake’s area”, the space agency said, and may have been caused by cyanobacteria, commonly known as blue-green algae, as well as other kinds of phytoplankton. Continue reading...
05/31/2024 - 12:47
Climate Superfund Act compels oil companies to pay potentially billions of dollars for climate impacts caused by their emissions Vermont has become the first state to enact a law holding oil firms financially responsible for climate damages, after the Republican governor, Phil Scott, allowed it to pass without his signature late on Thursday. Modeled after the Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund program, the Climate Superfund Act directs the state to charge major fossil fuel companies potentially billions of dollars to pay for climate impacts to which their emissions have contributed. It is expected to face legal challenges from the industry. Continue reading...
05/31/2024 - 11:14
Western Texas briefly looked like a ‘winter wonderland’ amid dramatic temperature drop and hailstorm Just as people start bringing out their shorts for the start of summer, one Texas town had to reach for something rarely seen in late May: a snowplough. Parts of the state saw a dramatic 50F temperature drop on Wednesday thanks to a giant dump of hail, some “DVD-sized”. The storm made western Texas look, briefly, like a winter wonderland. Continue reading...
05/31/2024 - 07:08
Labour leader says it was ‘most efficient form of transport’ from Wales and party has offset the carbon Keir Starmer has admitted he used a private jet to travel to a campaign rally in Scotland where he promised to create “tens of thousands” of clean energy jobs with a new publicly owned energy company in the country. Responding to media questions after speaking to activists in Greenock, Inverclyde, Starmer said: “We did use a private jet because we did need to get very quickly to Scotland from Wales yesterday and it was the most efficient form of transport in the middle of a very busy general election campaign.” Continue reading...
05/31/2024 - 07:00
Rules target contaminants such as mercury, benzene and lead released by coke ovens used by facilities to burn coal New Environmental Protection Agency rules aim to crack down on toxic air pollution from US steelmakers by limiting pollutants such as mercury, benzene and lead that have long poisoned the air in neighborhoods surrounding the plants. The rules target contaminants released by steel facilities’ coke ovens. Gas from the ovens creates an individual cancer risk in the air around steel plants of 50 in 1,000,000, which public health advocates say is dangerous for children and people with underlying health problems. Continue reading...
05/31/2024 - 06:16
RHS fears non-native fungi could alter microbiology of soil when grown in gardens or disposed of in compost heaps A boom in the popularity of mushroom-growing at home could lead to a biodiversity disaster, UK garden experts have warned. There has been a rise in the number of people growing mushrooms in their gardens, and this year, the RHS Chelsea flower show’s plant of the year award included a mushroom – the tarragon oyster mushroom, thought to be found only in the British Isles – in its shortlist for the first time, despite it being a fungus, not a plant. Continue reading...
05/31/2024 - 04:14
Zoo welcomes 11 Humboldt chicks, its highest number in a decade, including Thistle and Daffodil In previous years Chester zoo’s new penguin chicks have been named after crisps – Frazzle, Wotsit – and local football club owners – Ryan, Rob – but the names p … p … p … picked this year are notably less frivolous. “We’ve decided to go with plants,” said Zoe Sweetman, the penguins and parrots team manager at the zoo. Two of the spikier new arrivals have been named Nettle and Thistle while two others with “colourful personalities” have been named Daffodil and Tulip. Continue reading...
05/31/2024 - 03:10
EPA says proposal to keep Hunter Valley Operations mines going to 2050 would release almost 30m tonnes of CO2 Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast The New South Wales environment watchdog says a plan to extend the life of a Hunter Valley coal-mining complex to 2050 is the “largest coal-mining proposal ever put forward” in the state. Plans by Yancoal and Glencore to keep its joint-venture Hunter Valley Operations (HVO) mines in the Upper Hunter region going would see almost 30m tonnes of CO2 released, the EPA said in a letter to the state’s planning department. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup Continue reading...
05/31/2024 - 02:00
The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world Continue reading...
05/31/2024 - 01:00
Negative scientific and press reports on the efficacy of carbon credit projects has led to a ‘direct pullback in buyer investment’ The market for carbon offsets shrank dramatically last year, falling from $1.9bn (£1.5bn) in 2022 to $723m in 2023, a new report has found. The drop came after a series of scientific and media reports found many offsetting schemes do nothing to mitigate the climate crisis and biodiversity loss. The research by Ecosystem Marketplace, a nonprofit initiative that collects data about the carbon market from brokers and traders, found the market had shrunk 61%. Continue reading...