Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Fish swam further and dispersed more widely after exposure to environmental levels of drug and main metabolite Traces of cocaine that pollute rivers and lakes may accumulate in the brains of salmon and disrupt their behaviour, according to researchers who warn of unknown consequences for fish populations. Juvenile Atlantic salmon that were artificially exposed to the drug and its main breakdown product swam further and dispersed more widely across a lake, suggesting the substances can affect where the fish go, what they eat and how vulnerable they are to predators. Continue reading...

Climate leaders say Democrats need to extol clean energy as a way to cut costs for Americans as war roils oil markets Democrats should get louder in championing clean energy’s affordability and resilience from global shocks, according to some of the party’s leading voices on the climate. As the Iran war roils economies by raising the cost of oil and gas, countries are aiming to accelerate their shift to cleaner energy. But in the US, Donald Trump has sought to kill off any alternative to fossil fuels while opposing Democrats have been reluctant to tie the conflict to any action on the climate crisis. Continue reading...

Research casts doubt on plans by UK government to offer subsidies for carbon capture attached to the power source Burning wood for power generation can be worse for the climate than burning gas, even when the resulting carbon dioxide emissions are captured and stored, new research has shown. The findings cast doubt on plans by several governments, including the UK, to offer subsidies or other financial support for carbon capture attached to wood-burning power. Continue reading...

Sarah Finch is among six recipients of the Goldman Environmental prize, awarded to honour grassroots activists around the world The woman whose campaigning set a legal precedent in the UK that stopped thousands of tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions has been awarded one of the world’s most prestigious environmental prizes alongside five other women from around the globe. A supreme court ruling in a case brought by Sarah Finch has been cited in decisions against new oil concessions in the North Sea, the UK’s first new deep coalmine for 30 years and even plans for new large-scale factory farms. Iroro Tanshi, a Nigerian conservation ecologist who launched a successful, community-led campaign to protect endangered bats from human induced wildfires; Borim Kim, a South Korean activist who won the continent’s first successful youth-led climate litigation, finding her government’s climate policy to be in violation of the rights of future generations; Alannah Acaq Hurley, a leader of the Yup’ik Indigenous people led a campaign that stopped what would have been the continent’s largest open-pit mine, in Alaska’s Bristol Bay region; Yuvelis Morales Blanco, a youth activist who mobilised others in her Afro-descendant community in Puerto Wilches against two drilling projects, preventing the introduction of commercial fracking into Colombia; Theonila Roka Matbob, of Papua New Guinea, whose campaign forced Rio Tinto, the world’s second-largest mining company, to sign an agreement to address devastation caused by its Panguna mine. Continue reading...