Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Rangers and scientists and a white cartoonist converge for the night parrot but where is the night parrot??? Greetings from Paruku. I’m here at the Species of the Desert Festival having a lovely time. We are 12 hours drive eastish from Broome on the shores of (currently empty) Lake Gregory (Paruku) near the community of Mulan. It is very in the middle. This festival is a gathering of Indigenous rangers who live and work on country and also sometimes get together at events like this to share knowledge, do some organising and have a friendly chat. For a humble and very white cartoonist from rural Tasmania it is another world and I am feeling very lucky to be here and thoroughly enjoying myself – although the red dust gets into literally everything, even one’s undies (sorry TMI but it really does). Continue reading...

Trump VP resists direct questioning in CNN interview EPA moved this week to roll back Obama Clean Power Plan At the end of a week in which the Trump administration rolled back Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan, Mike Pence declined repeated invitations to say the human-induced climate crisis is a threat to US national security. Related: Arrests at protest over New York Times' 'unacceptable' climate coverage Continue reading...

Event organisers have already gone to war on plastic bottles and diesel generators, with the full support of music fans When Chris Johnson first started putting on outdoor parties with his mates, they were small, impromptu and shambolic – or “really good fun”, as he puts it. Seventeen years later and he and the same four university friends are still pioneering in their field of partying, albeit Shambala is now a four-day festival in rural Northamptonshire with 15,000 people that has set an industry standard for its eco-credentials. “We’re a purpose-led organisation, the point of it existing is to contribute something to the world,” says Johnson, “and the environment is an important part of our outlook; we have a responsibility – but also an opportunity to experiment.” Continue reading...

The government stands accused of failing to protect workers as it sold off projects to EDF and other foreign firms In the renewables sector, the Scottish government has been perfecting a form of political alchemy over the last decade. In this, Nicola Sturgeon and her ministers have succeeded in spinning mere optimism into hard political currency. The title of its manifesto for the 2011 Holyrood election asked voters to “Re-elect a Scottish Government Working For Scotland” and claimed that developing the low-carbon economy would create “around 130,000 jobs”. At the current growth rate of real jobs in this sector, you wouldn’t bet on that figure of 130,000 being reached before that big asteroid with Earth’s name on it finds its bearings. Continue reading...