Conservation groups are asking for the decision to allow Hvalur to hunt to be put on hold until after election
A coalition of conservation and animal welfare groups are urging Iceland’s president to step in and stop any plans the prime minister has to issue a whaling licence to Europe’s last whaler before the Icelandic election at the end of the month.
Earlier this year, the country granted a one-year licence to Hvalur to kill more than 100 fin whales this hunting season, despite hopes the practice may have been stopped after concerns about cruelty led to a temporary suspension in 2023.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
11/07/2024 - 00:00
11/07/2024 - 00:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 07 November 2024; doi:10.1038/s44183-024-00094-2
Urbanizing river deltas are highly susceptible to sea level rise and extreme weather events such as floods and droughts. Water-related disasters are already happening more often due to climate change, rapid urbanization, unsustainable land use and aging infrastructure threatening a large fraction of human and natural environments in these low lying and sinking areas around the globe. As stress levels of climate change are accelerating, societal and physical transformations are essential for adapting our deltas to climate change. In the Netherlands, imagination and evidence by design in the form of a long-term spatial vision, played a pivotal role in the past century to set, share and accomplish a new direction to overcome flood disasters by altering the coastlines and riverbeds of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta. The unprecedented rainfall in July 2021 and the storm in December 2021 which hit Western Europe revealed the effectiveness of this new direction. We therefore plea for a prominent role of design in climate science and delta management to imagine, analyse and communicate future perspectives for climate adaptation in urbanizing deltas.
11/06/2024 - 22:22
Protest plan involves activists paddling out on kayaks and rafts to stop fossil fuel exports
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Climate protesters have vowed to stick to their plan to blockade the Port of Newcastle, despite the New South Wales police winning a legal challenge in their attempt to stop it.
“The [protest] will go ahead,” Rising Tide’s organiser, Zach Schofield, told reporters on Thursday. “We do have a right to assemble on public land and water, and we will be exercising that right, because it is critical for democracy.”
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11/06/2024 - 20:02
Balls that washed ashore and closed string of famous beaches contained scores of different materials ‘consistent with contamination from sewage’
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Thousands of mystery balls that washed up on Sydney beaches last month were gunk globules made of products such as motor oil, hair, food waste, animal matter and wastewater bacteria – but their source is yet to be traced.
A statement from the New South Wales Environment Protection Authority on Wednesday confirmed the balls comprised fatty acids, petroleum hydrocarbons and other organic and inorganic materials – and were not tar balls as previously theorised.
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11/06/2024 - 19:10
PM fully briefed on ‘potential outcomes’ of US election and says Australia is prepared for Trump’s policies on security, economic and other issues
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Australia will advocate for free trade and climate action – despite Donald Trump’s agenda against both – and persist with the Aukus alliance including nuclear submarine acquisition, the Albanese government has indicated.
Under fire from conservative media about his comments in 2017 that Trump “scares the shit” out of him, the prime minster, Anthony Albanese, was asked if he owed an apology to the president-elect.
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11/06/2024 - 17:34
How damaging this presidency is to the planet depends very much on how other countries react. There’s no time to waste
US election 2024 live: latest news and updates
US election results 2024: live map and tracker
Donald Trump’s re-election to the White House is a major setback for climate action but ultimately it’s the US that could end up losing out, as the rest of the world will move forward without it.
The US is the world’s biggest economy and its second biggest emitter. Positive US engagement on climate has been crucial to landmark leaps forward, like getting the Paris agreement over the line, and just last year committing to transitioning away from fossil fuels.
The US missing in action in the latter half of this critical decade for climate action is nobody’s idea of a good outcome.
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11/06/2024 - 09:00
Overblown concerns about potential dangers of a common chemical threaten to undermine scientific evidence to the contrary
Because of his job as a dermatologist, Dr Deshan Sebaratnam frequently gets asked questions by friends, family and strangers about skin treatments. But lately, he says, he has been confronted by “a lot of myths around sunscreens”, especially on his social media feed.
Among the most frequent is “that sunscreen can actually cause skin cancer”, says Sebaratnam, a conjoint associate professor at the University of New South Wales.
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11/06/2024 - 09:00
The Murrumbidgee River had 55% less water in 2018 than it did in 1988, with the Lowbidgee flood plain hardest hit
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A section of one of Australia’s longest rivers, the Murrumbidgee, lost more than half of its water over a 30-year period due to dams and other diversions, according to new research.
Scientists at the University of New South Wales examined the impacts of dam infrastructure and irrigation on natural water flows in the lower Murrumbidgee River since 1890.
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11/06/2024 - 09:00
Millionaire points to Broken Hill’s blackout to attack the energy transition but experts say he should look at South Australia and Europe
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For 15 minutes on Sunday morning, ABC local radio listeners were treated to a rant from Dick Smith as the millionaire attacked Australia’s transition away from fossil fuels, claiming renewables would make electricity unaffordable and cause sweeping blackouts.
“It seems we have been sold a pup and we are not getting the full truth all the time,” responded Ian McNamara, the host of Australia All Over. “There are lots of people who will back you up.”
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11/06/2024 - 08:33
Westminster plan for UK’s biggest heat network could involve parliament warmed by waste and low-carbon heat
About 1,000 London buildings including the Houses of Parliament and the National Gallery could soon be warmed by low-carbon heat sourced from the River Thames, London Underground and sewer networks.
Plans to develop the UK’s biggest heat network to supply decarbonised heat to buildings across Westminster were set out on Wednesday by the government as part of its pledge to back seven heat network zones with more than £5m of public funding.
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