Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Heat caused 2,300 deaths across 12 cities, of which 1,500 were down to climate crisis, scientists say Planet-heating pollution tripled the death toll from the “quietly devastating” heatwave that seared Europe at the end of June, early analysis covering a dozen cities has found, as experts warned of a worsening health crisis that is being overlooked. Scientists estimate that high heat killed 2,300 people across 12 major cities as temperatures soared across Europe between 23 June and 2 July. They attributed 1,500 of the deaths to climate breakdown, which has heated the planet and made the worst extremes even hotter. Continue reading...

At least 27 people died at Camp Mystic, but survivors credit coast guard swimmer and young staff with saving lives A US coast guard rescue swimmer on his first rescue mission as well as teenage counselors who helped shepherd cold and wet young campers to safety have been credited with saving dozens of lives at a flood-ravaged Christian summer camp on the banks of Texas’s Guadalupe River. Their stories of heroism and fortitude – including the counselors’ writing young campers’ names on their arms and legs with Sharpies so that authorities could identify them if necessary – are among the first to emerge recounting the grim reality of the torrent of water that surged Friday through the all-girls Camp Mystic, where at least 27 campers and counselors are known to have died. Continue reading...

UK ministers should update the public on the outlook for bills as the price of overhauling the system is adding up The government’s decision on zonal pricing for electricity – the issue that divides the energy industry like no other – is due any day. Whichever way ministers jump, it would be a good moment to update consumers on the outlook for their bills in the “sprint” to decarbonise the UK’s electricity system by 2030. Does the government still think cleaner energy means cheaper energy? If so, when and how? It deserves an answer for two reasons. First, because the costs of turning down gas-fired generation in favour of renewables are clearer than a year ago – and current trends, sadly, are not encouraging. Second, because promising consumers “up to £300” off their bills by 2030 via clean energy, as Keir Starmer and the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, have done, risks handing a political gift to anti-net zero opponents if the savings do not materialise. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Defra warned three years ago of farmland contamination by water firms’ sewage-derived product Government ministers have ignored Environment Agency pleas to tighten rules on the use of sludge fertiliser for three years, despite the regulator having said that water company attitudes towards the substance are “akin to fly-tipping on to agricultural land”, it can be revealed. Sludge, sometimes referred to as biosolids, is a byproduct of the sewage treatment process that is sold by water companies to farmers as a low-cost fertiliser. Continue reading...