Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Lauren Mason decided to take action after witnessing huge amounts of camping gear abandoned at festivals When Lauren Mason volunteered to help with the cleanup at a festival two years ago, she had no idea it would change the course of her life. She’d heard about the tents being dumped and left behind. Her mother, she says, is “an amazing seamstress”, so Mason thought she might be able to use some of the material to make clothes. “I originally went to clean up with the idea to make my own jacket. But that’s when I realised the problem was bigger than we thought.” Continue reading...

Exclusive: Trade unions and human rights organisations fear environment and human rights being pushed aside The UK is on the brink of signing a £1.6bn trade agreement with Gulf states, amid warnings from rights groups that the deal makes no concrete provisions on human rights, modern slavery or the environment. The deal with the Gulf Cooperation Council – which includes the countries Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – is within touching distance, making it a fourth trading agreement by Keir Starmer after pacts were struck with the US, India and the EU. Continue reading...

Two weeks before the spending review, the housing ombudsman has issued an important warning about a deepening crisis and growing human misery The most obvious social housing problem in Britain is the lack of it. The failure to build enough homes to keep up with need, and replace those sold off under the right-to-buy scheme, has adversely affected millions of lives. In parts of England, the wait for family-size homes has reached 100 years, with long waiting lists also in Scotland and Wales. Charities rightly call this a national scandal. While the slowdown dates back decades, the 60% cut in the affordable housing budget in 2010 made the situation far worse. The resulting shortages mean millions of people are stuck in privately rented accommodation with no prospect of buying their own. Hundreds of thousands of others are officially homeless, and trapped in overcrowded temporary flats and rooms. Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

The 8-0 ruling overturns lower court’s decision that halted the project intended to transport crude oil The US supreme court on Thursday backed a multibillion-dollar oil railroad expansion in Utah, endorsing a scaled-back interpretation of a key environmental law that could pave the way for faster fossil fuel expansion. In a unanimous ruling, the supreme court justices overturned a lower court’s decision that had halted the fossil fuel project on the grounds that an environmental impact assessment by a federal agency had been too limited in scope. Continue reading...