Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Surrey council’s designs for mini-parks aim to demonstrate the benefits of less car-focused public spaces Mini-gardens that fit inside a parking space have been presented by a council at Hampton Court flower show as part of a drive to make public spaces less car-focused. Three gardens created by Surrey county council are on display at the show to demonstrate that areas used as parking spaces can give far more benefit to the community if they are thoughtfully designed as mini-parks. Continue reading...

Aberdeen chair says some asset managers may have put themselves at legal risk by exaggerating ESG role Business live – latest updates Pension funds and institutional investors made a “huge mistake” and exaggerated their role in environmental, social and government (ESG) issues to promote their products, the outgoing chair of Aberdeen Group, Douglas Flint, has said. Flint, who has chaired the recently rebranded fund manager since 2019, said “ridiculously extravagant claims” had been made by some companies, which were driven by a mindset that their job was “not really about investing money: we’re just jolly good people and we’re saving the world”. Continue reading...

Public health warnings as heatwave raises concerns about impact of climate change What you need to know about heatwaves The French prime minister François Bayrou, who attended a government crisis meeting over the heatwave, was asked about the great difficulty of French schools to handle the heatwave. More than 1,350 schools across France were fully or partially closed on Tuesday as classrooms proved dangerously hot for children and teachers, amid anger from teaching unions. Continue reading...

Forever chemicals have polluted the water supply of 60,000 people, threatening human health, wildlife and the wider ecosystem. But activists say this is just the tip of the Pfas iceberg One quiet Saturday night, Sandra Wiedemann was curled up on the sofa when a story broke on TV news: the water coming from her tap could be poisoning her. The 36-year-old, who is breastfeeding her six-month-old son Côme, lives in the quiet French commune of Buschwiller in Saint-Louis, near the Swiss city of Basel. Perched on a hill not far from the Swiss and German borders, it feels like a safe place to raise a child – spacious houses are surrounded by manicured gardens, framed by the wild Jura mountains. But as she watched the news, this safety felt threatened: Wiedemann and her family use tap water every day, for drinking, brushing her teeth, showering, cooking and washing vegetables. Now, she learned that chemicals she had never heard of were lurking in her body, on her skin, potentially harming her son. “I find it scary,” she says. “Even if we stop drinking it we will be exposed to it and we can’t really do anything.” Continue reading...