Large parts of islands could be uninhabitable by 2050, federal court told in first climate class action taken by Australian First Nations people
Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates
Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast
Torres Strait Islanders could be forced to leave their homes within the next 30 years if urgent action is not taken on the climate crisis.
This would mean a loss of country, sacred sites and culture, the federal court has been told.
Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup
Continue reading...
Breaking Waves: Ocean News
04/29/2024 - 01:52
04/29/2024 - 01:00
From an eagle to Elton John, the Played and Remade project enables artists to ‘make something magical’ from free materials
The task of loading once-loved but now unwanted pianos into a van and carting them off to the recycling centre is a disheartening and melancholy one. So a music shop in Bath that scraps as many as 300 redundant and unfixable pianos a year has launched a project to repurpose the thousands of parts that make up each instrument into pieces of art.
The Piano Shop Bath is inviting artists to take their pick for free from the varied materials that make up each piano – wood, cast iron, brass, felt, copper, steel wires and so on – and turn them into pieces that can then be hung in its showroom.
Continue reading...
04/29/2024 - 00:00
Chelsea flower show to focus on water reuse as gardeners prepare for shortages caused by climate crisis
Rain gardens and bathwater are becoming gardening trends, the Royal Horticultural Society has said, as gardeners battle predicted water shortages caused by climate breakdown.
At the Chelsea flower show this year, many of the gardens will be focused on reducing water usage. Rain gardens will be on show, including in the Water Aid garden, which includes a rainwater harvesting pavilion designed to slow its flow, collecting and storing it for irrigation of the garden and filtering it for use as drinking water.
Continue reading...
04/28/2024 - 23:00
Analysts say impact on wheat, barley, oats and oilseed rape harvests means price rises on beer, bread and biscuits and more food imported
UK harvests of important crops could be down by nearly a fifth this year due to the unprecedented wet weather farmers have faced, increasing the likelihood that the prices of bread, beer and biscuits will rise.
Analysis by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) has estimated that the amount of wheat, barley, oats and oilseed rape could drop by 4m tonnes this year, a reduction of 17.5% compared with 2023.
Continue reading...
04/28/2024 - 18:01
Levy on oil and gas majors in richest countries would help worst-affected nations tackle climate crisis, says report
A new tax on fossil fuel companies based in the world’s richest countries could raise hundreds of billions of dollars to help the most vulnerable nations cope with the escalating climate crisis, according to a report.
The Climate Damages Tax report, published on Monday, calculates that an additional tax on fossil fuel majors based in the wealthiest Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries could raise $720bn (£580bn) by the end of the decade.
Continue reading...
04/28/2024 - 07:00
A new approach aims to restore fish levels in the Yukon River but some feel it unfairly targets traditional practices while failing to tackle huge losses to industrial fishing in the ocean
Earlier this month Alaska officials announced a new plan they say could revive the Yukon River’s struggling salmon population. The 2,000-mile waterway that runs from Canada’s Yukon Territory to the Bering Sea has seen sharp declines in its Chinook, or king salmon, in recent years.
The new strategy aims to restore the number of fish that reach their northern spawning areas near the Canadian border to 71,000, up from about 15,000 that reached the Canadian border in 2023, by suspending commercial, sport, domestic and personal use fisheries in the Yukon River until 2030. Previously, fishing closures were revisited each year.
Continue reading...
04/28/2024 - 01:00
People want more seafood than the oceans can sustainably supply, so a German firm aims to plug that gap with cultivated fish – but are consumers ready to buy it?
The redbrick offices, just north of Hamburg’s River Elbe and a few floors below Carlsberg’s German headquarters, are an unexpectedly low-key setting for a food team gearing up to produce Europe’s first tonne of lab-grown fish.
But inside Bluu Seafood, past the slick open-plan coffee and cake bar, the rooms are dominated by gleaming white tiles, people bustling about in lab coats, rows of broad-bottomed beakers and pieces of equipment more at home in a science-fiction thriller. A 50-litre tank (a bioreactor) is filled with what looks like a cherry-coloured energy drink. The liquid, known as “growth medium”, is rich with sugars, minerals, amino acids and proteins designed to give the fish cells that are added to it the boost they need to multiply by the million.
Continue reading...
04/27/2024 - 12:30
Investigation finds groups hosting Islamophobic attacks on London mayor Sadiq Khan, white supremacist slogans and antisemitic conspiracy theories
Conservative party staff and activists are secretly operating a network of Facebook groups that have become a hotbed of racism, misinformation and support for criminal damage.
An investigation has identified 36 groups that appear to be separate grassroots movements opposing the expansion of ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) schemes to reduce air pollution. They do not say they were set up by the Conservatives as part of a coordinated political campaign.
Continue reading...
04/27/2024 - 09:35
Total deaths reach 76 and more than 130,000 displaced as weeks of flooding also affects east African neighbours
Seventy-six people in Kenya have died because of flooding triggered by torrential downpours since March, the government has said, warning residents “to brace for even heavier rainfall”.
Kenya and its east African neighbours have been battered by stronger than usual rain in recent weeks, compounded by the El Niño weather system.
Continue reading...
04/27/2024 - 09:21
Boy discovers octopus figurine that fell from cargo ship along with 5m other Lego pieces during storm
A 13-year-old boy has discovered a “holy grail” Lego octopus which spilled into the sea from a shipping container in the 1990s.
The octopus is one of nearly 5m Lego pieces that fell into the sea in 1997 when a storm hit a cargo ship 20 miles off Land’s End, Cornwall. While 352,000 pairs of flippers, 97,500 scuba tanks, and 92,400 swords went overboard, the octopuses are considered the most prized finds as only 4,200 were onboard.
Continue reading...
