The UK state is dumping its responsibilities on our doorsteps, while green-lighting policies that lead us closer to crisis
Would you mind fixing the NHS? And while you’re at it, could you please build an anti-missile system in your garden? Then regulate the banks, replace the water mains, tax the very rich and use the proceeds to rebuild our schools. Well, come on people: what are you waiting for?
I exaggerate, but this isn’t very far from the approach taken by the government’s Prepare campaign. Crucial functions, way beyond the scope of individual action, are dumped on our doorsteps while those in power fail to act. As a result, our national resilience is arguably lower than at any time since the second world war. At the Labour conference last week, Andy Burnham promised “a Britain where people feel the country has got their back again”. To make good on that pledge, he will have to change almost everything.
George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
10/08/2026 - 00:00
10/07/2026 - 23:00
Four native species selected after consultation, but which one adorns which note is yet to be decided
Bees, barn owls, puffins and hedgehogs have been picked to feature on the next generation of banknotes, the Bank of England has announced.
The quartet of creatures were selected after a large-scale consultation settled on wild animals as the theme, with members of the public then asked to pick their favourites out of 18 options divided into three categories.
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10/07/2026 - 23:00
The Norwegian government has given a permit to a mining company to release waste into Førde fjord despite a 17-year battle by campaigners and a supreme court ruling against it
Shortly after the Norwegian stock market closed on 17 June 2026, a few dozen local people from the small west coast town of Vevring crowded around a laptop in a school. Surrounded by children’s drawings and windows looking out over Førde fjord, they listened as news arrived from Oslo. Norway’s supreme court had ruled against its government: a permit to release mining waste directly into the fjord two miles upstream was illegal, the court said.
The moment marked the end of a 17-year fight, one of Norway’s most protracted environmental battles in living memory. In Oslo, Ingvild Fonn Asmervik, the project leader for Naturvernforbundet (Friends of the Earth Norway), compared the joy she felt to giving birth to her child. For Anne-Line Thingnes Førsund, a third-generation fisher living on the banks of the fjord in Vevring and a volunteer for the charity’s local branch, it was more of a relief. Like a mountain lifting off her shoulders, she said.
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10/07/2026 - 22:54
NGOs in Indonesian Borneo file class action lawsuit calling for government to better manage annual fires and
The Indonesian government has been accused of “gross negligence” in a class action lawsuit over its handling of wildfires that have cloaked large parts of South-east Asia in a toxic haze, shuttered schools and caused a spike in respiratory illnesses.
The lawsuit, filed by indigenous and civil society groups in the Indonesian part of Borneo, named President Prabowo Subianto and the governor of West Kalimantan among 10 defendants. The case seeks comprehensive recovery and rehabilitation measures that would include covering the healthcare costs of residents.
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10/07/2026 - 18:01
Hundred-and-fifty-year-old Wych elm in Newcastle, Co Down has grown sideways owing to strong winds
The “astonishing and bizarre” Bendy Tree in Northern Ireland has been crowned the winner of this year’s tree of the year competition.
The wych elm tree, located in Newcastle, County Down, owes its name to its near horizontal trunk, which has grown sideways owing to the strong seaside winds coming off the Irish Sea.
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10/07/2026 - 18:01
A landmark report reveals that the world must change the way it produces food to avoid a biodiversity collapse
Conservation comebacks for wild tigers, tuna and green sea turtles prove that global nature loss can be reversed, scientists have said. But a report warns food production must be the next “positive tipping point” if the world is to avert biodiversity collapse.
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) analysed nearly 36,000 animal populations and more than 5,000 species, producing the largest ever database of vertebrate wildlife. Scientists found populations had declined by an average of 73% since 1970, showing that “nature continues to be degraded at an alarming scale”, with “no sign of losses slowing”.
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10/06/2026 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 07 October 2026; doi:10.1038/s44183-026-00251-9
Regulatory language limits satellite-based enforcement in marine protected areas
10/06/2026 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 07 October 2026; doi:10.1038/s44183-026-00245-7
Distant water fishing and its effects on domestic food security
10/05/2026 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 06 October 2026; doi:10.1038/s44183-026-00250-w
Environmental preferences and jurisdictional distribution of juvenile loggerheads in the eastern North Pacific
World Ocean Explorer Wins Gold Medal Serious Simulation Award from Serious Play Annual International Competition
10/26/2023 - 14:35
For Immediate Release October 19, 2023
Sedgwick, Maine USA World Ocean Explorer, a 3D virtual aquarium and educational simulation, was recently cited for excellence, winning a Gold Medal Award in the 2023 International Serious Play Awards Program.
World Ocean Explorer is an innovative 3D virtual aquarium designed for educational exploration of the world’s oceans. With interactive exhibits and a lobby space, visitors can immerse themselves in realistic marine environments, including a DEEP SEA exhibit funded by Schmidt Ocean Institute, showcasing unprecedented deep-sea discoveries off Australia. Targeted at 3rd graders and beyond, this immersive experience offers a range of perspectives on the ocean environment and can be explored through guided tours or user-controlled interfaces. Visit DEEP SEA at worldoceanexplorer.org/deep-sea-aquarium.html.
Serious Play Conference brings together professionals who are exploring the use of game-based learning, sharing their experience, and working together to shape the future of training and education. For more information on Serious Play Award Program visit seriousplayconf.com/international-serious-play-award-programs.
World Ocean Explorer is a transformative virtual aquarium designed to deepen understanding of the world ocean and amplify connection for young people worldwide. Organized around the principles of Ocean Literacy and the Next Gen Science Standards, World Ocean Explorer brings the wonder and knowledge of ocean species and systems to students in formal and informal classrooms, absolutely free to anyone with a good Internet connection. As an advocate for the ocean through communications, World Ocean Observatory believes there is no better investment in the future of the sustainable ocean than through a new approach to educational engagement that excites, informs, and motivates students to explore the wonders of our marine world and to understand the pervasive connection and implication for our future, inherent in the protection and conservation of all aspects of our ocean world.
World Ocean Explorer presents an astonishing 3-dimensional simulated aquarium visit, organized to reveal the wonders of undersea life, with layers of detailed data and information to augment the emotional connection made to the astonishing beauty and complexity of the dynamic ocean. Within each of the virtual exhibits, students visit exemplary theme-based sites with myriad opportunities to understand the larger perspectives of scientific knowledge as organized and visualized to dramatize the impact and change on ocean life as a result of natural and human-generated events. Through immersion among displays, mixed media and 3D models, the experience of an aquarium visit will be brought into classrooms or home school environments as a free, accessible, always available opportunity for teaching and learning. All of this will be available to a world audience without physical limitation or cost. World Ocean Explorer, a project of the World Ocean Observatory, receives support from the Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Foundation, Visual Solutions Lab, the Climate Change Institute, the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, and The Fram Museum Oslo. To learn more about the current and future exhibits of World Ocean Explorer, visit worldoceanexplorer.org.
media contact
Trisha Badger, Managing Director, World Ocean Observatory | director@thew2o.net +12077011069
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