Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Oil has empowered capitalism, and some of the world’s most exploitative regimes. Move away from it and we can solve some of the key issues we face I realise this is a serious breach of etiquette. But could we perhaps abandon good manners and contextualise Donald Trump’s attack on Iran? The intense western interest in the Middle East and west and central Asia, sustained for more than a century, and the endless attempts by foreign governments to shape and control these regions, are not random political tics. They are somewhat connected to certain fuel sources situated beneath the ground. Trump’s war aims are typically incoherent: apparently incomprehensible even to himself. But Iran would not be treated as an “enemy of the west” were it not for what happened in 1953, when Winston Churchill’s government persuaded the CIA to launch a coup against the popular democratic government of Mohammad Mossadegh. The UK did so because Mossadegh sought to nationalise the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company: to stop a foreign power from stealing the nation’s wealth. The US, with UK support, tried twice to overthrow him, and succeeded on the second attempt, with the help of some opportunistic ayatollahs. It reinstated the shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. In 1954, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company became British Petroleum, later BP. George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

A possum surprised Hobart airport staff after wandering into a departures gift shop, where it settled among plush toys on Wednesday. A spokesperson said the animal appeared calm, and was safely escorted out of the terminal without incident Continue reading...

Government’s first published land use framework maps how land is used and how it can be adapted to meet changing needs About 7% of England’s land – an area roughly two-and-a-half times the size of Cornwall – will need to be given over to nature, forests and renewable energy, to meet the UK’s environmental targets, new data shows. But there will still be enough land to grow the food needed, and to house a growing population, according to the government’s first land use framework, published on Wednesday. Placing a high priority on restoring peatland, all but 13% of which is degraded across England, but this will not include an outright ban on development such as wind or solar farms. Encouraging the “multi-use” of land, for instance with livestock grazing alongside wind and solar farms, and wildlife protection and nature restoration on arable land. Encouraging local authorities to put nature reserves in urban areas as well as in the countryside. Grouse moors to come under closer scrutiny and tighter regulation, which will go further than EU rules. No new “right to roam” is included in the framework, but there will be a consultation on “making landowner liability more proportionate”, which could open up areas for public access. A national soil map will be published. A new land use unit will be established. Government planning for changes to the UK’s landscape under global heating of 2C above preindustrial levels, and of much higher heating of 4C. Continue reading...

Trillions of insects embark, largely unnoticed, on epic journeys every year across mountain ranges, deserts and seas, and it is only now, as their numbers suffer huge declines, that scientists are tracking their movements On a cloudless sunny day in October 1950, ornithologists Elizabeth and David Lack stood on a mountain pass in the Pyrenees and observed a once-in-a-lifetime spectacle – clouds of migrating insects. Up to 500 butterflies were fluttering past them every hour through the 2,200m-high Puerto de Bujaruelo mountain pass on the French-Spanish border. By mid-afternoon dragonflies were skimming through, outnumbering the butterflies by 10 to one. The spaces between were filled with thousands of tiny flies. Continue reading...