Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Trump promised to cut consumers’ energy costs within his first year in office but gas price is up 4% on average Americans using gas stoves to cook during the holidays, or any other meal in the near future, are set for persistently higher bills, with the price of gas expected to keep rising into next year. US households will pay 4% more for gas power this year, on average, compared with 2024, with the industrial and power plant sectors experiencing a much higher price rise, a recent analysis from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) has found. Continue reading...

The case of a planned Cumbrian coalmine shows how governments around the world are being threatened by litigation in shadowy offshore courts How do you reckon our political system works? Perhaps something like this. We elect MPs. They vote on bills. If a majority is achieved, the bills becomes law. The law is upheld by the courts. End of story. Well, that’s how it used to work. No longer. Today, foreign corporations, or the oligarchs who own them, can sue governments for the laws they pass, at offshore tribunals composed of corporate lawyers. The cases are held in secret. Unlike our courts, these tribunals allow no right of appeal or judicial review. You or I cannot take a case to them, nor can our government, or even businesses based in this country. They are open only to corporations based overseas. George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

River Action says use of issuance tied to environmental benefits is ‘corporate greenwash on steroids’ Water companies have issued a fifth of the UK’s “green bonds” since 2017, despite a consistently poor record of sewage pollution during that time, research has shown. Privately owned water companies in England have together issued £10.5bn in bonds tied to projects that offer “environmental benefits”, according to analysis of financial market data by Unearthed, which is part of Greenpeace UK. Continue reading...

Use of 8m pounds of antibiotics and antifungals a year leads to superbugs and damages human health, lawsuit claims A new legal petition filed by a dozen public health and farm worker groups demands the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) stop allowing farms to spray antibiotics on food crops in the US because they are probably causing superbugs to flourish and sickening farm workers. The agricultural industry sprays about 8m pounds of antibiotic and antifungal pesticides on US food crops annually, many of which are banned in other countries. Continue reading...