A new study shows that wildlife underpass tunnels dramatically reduce deaths of frog, salamanders, and other amphibians migrating across roads.
Breaking Waves: Ocean News
05/29/2025 - 11:44
05/29/2025 - 09:00
Former army and navy leaders urge government to think beyond military capability in advance of key defence review
Former military leaders are urging the UK government to widen its definition of national security to include climate, food and energy measures in advance of a planned multibillion-pound boost in defence spending.
Earlier this year Keir Starmer announced the biggest increase in defence spending in the UK since the end of the cold war, with the budget rising to 2.5% of GDP by 2027 – three years earlier than planned – and an ambition to reach 3%.
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05/29/2025 - 08:23
Hosepipe ban could follow, says Environment Agency, after England had driest February-April period on record
A drought has been declared in north-west England as reservoir levels dwindle.
Hosepipe bans could follow, the Environment Agency said, though this is a matter for water companies, which have been directed to follow their drought plans.
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05/29/2025 - 08:13
Twenty-two plaintiffs between ages seven and 25 allege government is engaging in unlawful executive overreach
Twenty-two young Americans have filed a new lawsuit against the Trump administration over its anti-environment executive orders. By intentionally boosting oil and gas production and stymying carbon-free energy, federal officials are violating their constitutional rights to life and liberty, alleges the lawsuit, filed on Thursday.
The federal government is engaging in unlawful executive overreach by breaching congressional mandates to protect ecosystems and public health, argue the plaintiffs, who are between the ages of seven and 25 and hail from the heavily climate-impacted states of Montana, Hawaii, Oregon, California and Florida. They also say officials’ emissions-increasing and science-suppressing orders have violated the state-created danger doctrine, a legal principle meant to prevent government actors from inflicting injury upon their citizens.
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05/29/2025 - 07:00
The new executive order allows political appointees to undermine research they oppose, paving the way for state-controlled science
Science is under siege.
On Friday evening, the White House released an executive order called Restoring Gold Standard Science. At face value, this order promises a commitment to federally funded research that is “transparent, rigorous, and impactful” and policy that is informed by “the most credible, reliable, and impartial scientific evidence available”. But hidden beneath the scientific rhetoric is a plan that would destroy scientific independence in the US by giving political appointees the latitude to dismiss entire bodies of research and punish researchers who fail to fall in line with the current administration’s objectives. In other words: this is Fool’s-Gold Standard Science.
Colette Delawalla is a PhD candidate at Emory University and executive director of Stand Up for Science. Victor Ambros is a 2024 Nobel laureate in physiology or medicine at the Chan Medical School, University of Massachusetts. Carl Bergstrom is professor of biology at the University of Washington. Carol Greider is a 2009 Nobel laureate in medicine and distinguished professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Michael Mann is the presidential distinguished professor of earth and environmental science and director of the Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media at the University of Pennsylvania. Brian Nosek is executive director of the Center for Open Science and professor of psychology at the University of Virginia
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05/29/2025 - 06:30
Geologists race to collect perishable data as Kentucky residents ‘scared to death’ over floods amid Trump cuts
The abandoned homes and razed lots along the meandering Troublesome Creek in rural eastern Kentucky is a constant reminder of the 2022 catastrophic floods that killed dozens of people and displaced thousands more.
Among the hardest hit was Fisty, a tiny community where eight homes, two shops and nine people including a woman who uses a wheelchair, her husband and two children, were swept away by the rising creek. Some residents dismissed cellphone alerts of potential flooding due to mistrust and warning fatigue, while for others it was already too late to escape. Landslides trapped the survivors and the deceased for several days.
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05/29/2025 - 05:00
Exclusive: researchers say defence spending boosts across world will worsen climate crisis which in turn will cause more conflict
A global military buildup poses an existential threat to climate goals, according to researchers who say the rearmament planned by Nato alone could increase greenhouse gas emissions by almost 200m tonnes a year.
With the world embroiled in the highest number of armed conflicts since the second world war, countries have embarked on military spending sprees, collectively totalling a record $2.46tn in 2023.
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05/29/2025 - 03:15
‘Nationally significant’ status granted to reservoirs in East Anglia and Lincolnshire with seven more planned by 2050
The government has ordered the building of two reservoirs, the first to be built in England for more than 30 years.
The lack of reservoir capacity, combined with a rising population and drier summers caused by climate breakdown, has put the country at risk of water shortages. The government warned in recent weeks of an impending drought if there was not significant rainfall soon, and reservoirs have been reaching worryingly low levels.
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05/29/2025 - 02:45
BoM prediction follows much wetter than average autumn for northern and eastern Australia, and much drier one for south
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Australia’s winter will be warmer and wetter this year, with higher than average day and night temperatures, and above-average rainfall likely in central and interior parts of the country.
The Bureau of Meteorology’s long-range forecast said parts of the tropical north, south-east and south-west could expect typical winter rainfall, including coastal areas of New South Wales affected by the May floods, and parts of South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania where there have been prolonged dry conditions.
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05/29/2025 - 02:20
‘The target is ambitious, but it’s achievable,’ expert says of Labor’s 2030 renewables goal
Australia news live: latest politics updates
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Investment in big batteries hit $2.4bn in the first three months of 2025, making it the second strongest quarter for energy storage on record in Australia.
The latest data from the Clean Energy Council found six new storage projects – totalling 1.5 gigawatts capacity – reached financial close (the financial commitment that means the project is likely to be built) and a level of investment last seen in the final quarter of 2023 with a record $2.8bn.
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