Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Committee urges ministers to set out measures to reduce carbon emissions before work starts on new runways Airport expansion plans backed by the government are putting the UK’s net zero target in “serious jeopardy”, MPs have warned. Without new safeguards, proposals to enlarge airports including Heathrow and Gatwick could push the UK over its carbon budgets, according to a report from the cross-party Commons environmental audit committee. Continue reading...

Local non-profits and schools are helping students explore traditional practices paired with modern science to make food sovereignty a reality The Blackfeet Nation is a remote and rugged landscape on the windswept plains of northern Montana. While rich in resources, the remote location and management by the federal government have made food access a challenge here. Only four grocery stores serve the entire reservation. Fresh, healthy produce and meat options are often limited at these stores, and prices are higher than in neighboring communities, making access difficult for low–income families. Instead, highly processed foods, rich in sugars, carbohydrates and fat make up the bulk of the food choices. Continue reading...

French multinational is ordered to remove its website messages about aiming for carbon neutrality Business live – latest updates A French oil company engaged in “misleading commercial practices” about the scope of its environmental commitments, a court has ruled. TotalEnergies, which this month said it aimed to “ramp up production of gas”, was found on Thursday to have probably misled consumers with claims about its climate policies. The civil court in Paris ordered the company to remove messages from its website that said it wanted to reach carbon neutrality by 2050 and be a big player in the energy transition. Continue reading...

Humans have been selectively breeding animals for millennia. If we can help species survive by tweaking their DNA in a lab, I say bring it on Do you think we should genetically modify wildlife? What if we could make seabirds resistant to the flu that has been exterminating them en masse, just by tweaking their DNA a smidgen? Or make fish that can shrug off pollution, or coral that can survive warming waters? Engineer in the sorts of change that could occur naturally, given enough time, if only the wildlife would stop dying already. Thanks to newly emerging methods, such as Crispr, these feats are within reach. Recently, conservationists met at the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) 2025 World Conservation Congress where they debated GM wildlife and voted on a proposed moratorium that would stymie their release into the wild. Ahead of the meeting, a group of more than 90 NGOs issued a press release urging the IUCN to “say no to engineered wild species.” But humans have been altering the DNA of other species for millennia. Helen Pilcher is a science writer and the author of Bring Back the King: The New Science of De-Extinction Continue reading...