Breaking Waves: Ocean News

A conservation market could incentivize global ocean protection

admin — Thu, 13 Jun 2024 20:12:01 +0000

Thirty-by-thirty: protect 30% of the planet by 2030. While conservation is popular in principle, the costs of actually enacting it often stall even the most earnest efforts. Researchers have now proposed a market-based approach to achieving the 30x30 targets in the ocean.

Clean v green: ‘disgust wins out’ over eco ideals when doing laundry, study finds

admin — Thu, 13 Jun 2024 18:00:28 +0000

Fear of being seen as unclean drives overwashing of clothes at expense of environment, Swedish scientists say

How often should you wash your clothes? Doctors don’t really know, but the decision is more cultural than medical, anyway. Worried about leaving the house in sweaty shirts or stained shorts, people often chuck clean clothes in the laundry basket after wearing them just once.

Unexpected number of whales currently swimming off the coast of New England

admin — Thu, 13 Jun 2024 17:13:59 +0000

Researchers made 161 sightings of whales – some of them endangered – south of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket

An unexpected number of whales is visiting the waters off New England, including an unusually high number of an endangered species, said scientists who study the animals.

Native American tribe wins right to hunt gray whales off Washington coast

admin — Thu, 13 Jun 2024 17:01:27 +0000

Makah people, whose right to hunt whales is noted in treaty, granted waiver by US government to kill two or three a year

After facing decades of legal and bureaucratic hurdles, the Makah Tribe in Washington has won approval from the US to resume whale hunting for the first time in 25 years.

Environmental groups apply to take Tanya Plibersek to high court over coalmine approvals

admin — Thu, 13 Jun 2024 15:00:26 +0000

Minister should have assessed climate damage that would be caused by two large developments, advocates say

‘Out of sight and out of mind’: conservationists alarmed as NT land-clearing threatens endangered ghost bat habitat

admin — Thu, 13 Jun 2024 15:00:24 +0000

Conservationists urge Tanya Plibersek to call in Daly River pastoral clearing application for assessment under commonwealth nature laws

Kelp help? How Scotland’s seaweed growers are aiming to revolutionise what we buy

admin — Thu, 13 Jun 2024 12:00:20 +0000

Farmed kelp could produce plastic substitutes, beauty products and food supplements. Just steer clear of seaweed chocolate

Rare cancers, full-body rashes, death: did fracking make their kids sick?

admin — Thu, 13 Jun 2024 10:00:19 +0000

Pennsylvania families worry about rising cases of rare cancer with well pads near homes and stalled House bills

One evening in 2019, Janice Blanock was scrolling through Facebook when she heard a stranger mention her son in a video on her feed. Luke, an outgoing high school athlete, had died three years earlier at age 19 from Ewing’s sarcoma, a rare bone cancer.

Blanock had come across a live stream of a community meeting to discuss rare cancers that were occurring with alarming frequency in south-western Pennsylvania, where she lives.

Brazil’s devastating floods hit its ‘Black population on the periphery’ the hardest

admin — Thu, 13 Jun 2024 10:00:19 +0000

Porto Alegre’s poorest neighborhoods, often closest to rivers and with the worst infrastructure, bore brunt of crisis

It had been raining for nearly a week when the floodwaters first reached Marcelo Moreira Ferreira’s home in Porto Alegre, the capital of Brazil’s southernmost state, Rio Grande do Sul.

His wife and their four children left to seek shelter with relatives, but Ferreira, 51, wanted to stay: his father had built the modest one-story structure and he had lived there his entire life.

‘They’re not like puppy dogs. They should be respected’: how to swim with sharks in British waters

admin — Thu, 13 Jun 2024 07:00:21 +0000

Diving with marine life such as blue sharks is growing in popularity in the UK, spurred by footage of encounters on social media

We have only been waiting in the grey Atlantic swell a few moments when the first flash of metallic blue appears in the water. A blue shark, a few miles from the coast of Penzance in Cornwall, emerges from the depths. It is time to get in the water – but part of my brain rebels.