Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Interior department move affects five projects under construction in latest blow to industry targeted by Trump The Trump administration has said it is immediately pausing all leases for offshore wind farms already under construction, in the heaviest blow yet to an industry that the administration has relentlessly targeted throughout the year. Trump’s Department of the Interior said that it was halting the building of five wind projects due to “national security risks”. The department said it would work with the US Department of Defense to mitigate the risk of the wind turbine towers creating radar interference called “clutter” that could in some way hamper the US military. Continue reading...

Mass of congealed fat, oil and grease 100 metres in length found blocking sewers in Whitechapel area of capital A “fatberg” weighing an estimated 100 tonnes has been discovered blocking sewers in east London, officials have said. The mass of congealed fats, oils and grease measures about 100 metres long (328ft) and weighs about a third more than the heaviest of the British army’s battle tanks. It has been called the grandchild of the 2017 Whitechapel fatberg, which weighed 130 tonnes and stretched for more than 250 metres (820ft). Continue reading...

Rich Stockdale says model of ‘regenerative capitalism’ would maximise profits by planting trees, restoring peatlands, and installing windfarms across its estates The founder of an investment firm buying large estates across Britain to restore woods and peatland has said it is “unashamedly and proudly” capitalist, and plans to make tens of millions of pounds in profit. Rich Stockdale, the chief executive of Oxygen Conservation, said his model of “regenerative capitalism” was a “force for good” because it would offer investors significant profits by planting trees, restoring peatlands, operating solar farms and holiday homes and installing new windfarms across its estates. Continue reading...

This is the latest in the relentless purge of climate researchers who refuse to be co-opted by the fossil fuel industry The Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin would no doubt have understood and even appreciated the latest attack by the Trump administration on climate researchers and their work. The National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, is to be dismantled after more than 50 years at the forefront of global research on climate science and monitoring. Professor Michael Mann is the presidential distinguished professor and director of the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media at the University of Pennsylvania, and co-author with Peter Hotez of Science Under Siege; Bob Ward is policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science Continue reading...