Breaking Waves: Ocean News

09/16/2024 - 12:33
Prisoners fled when the walls of their jail collapsed in the country’s worst flooding in two decades More than 200 inmates escaped from a prison in north-east Nigeria in the aftermath of the worst flooding there in over two decades, authorities have announced. There have been 37 deaths in Borno state after parts of its capital Maiduguri were overrun by water on 9 September following the collapse of a dam, according to the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA). As many as 200,000 others have been displaced. Residents of the city said some areas were still flooded on Monday when President Bola Tinubu visited. Continue reading...
09/16/2024 - 10:54
Canopy gaps in a mixed floodplain forest have a direct effect on forest soil temperature and moisture, but only have a minor impact on soil biological activity.
09/16/2024 - 10:53
Cities such as Zurich and Dublin found to have key services accessible within 15 minutes for more than 95% of residents When Luke Harris takes his daughter to the doctor, he strolls down well-kept streets with “smooth sidewalks and curb cuts [ramps] for strollers at every intersection”. If the weather looks rough or he feels a little lazy, he hops on a tram for a couple of stops. Harris’s trips to the paediatrician are pretty unremarkable for fellow residents of Zurich, Switzerland; most Europeans are used to being able to walk from one place to another in their cities. But it will probably sound like fantasy to those living in San Antonio, Texas. That’s because, according to new research, 99.2% of Zurich residents live within a 15-minute walk of essential services such as healthcare and education, while just 2.5% of San Antonio residents do. Continue reading...
09/16/2024 - 10:00
Cultural protection order has been framed as a push to curry favour with inner-city seats, ignoring grassroots campaigns from Indigenous and non-Indigenous locals Sign up for the Rural Network email newsletter Join the Rural Network group on Facebook to be part of the community Among the concerns listed by the 2,000 farmers who converged on the lawns of Parliament House in Canberra last week was the protection of prime agricultural land from renewable energy developments. It has become a common refrain. The National party leader, David Littleproud, warned at the party’s annual federal council on Friday of the risk to prime agricultural land from energy transition projects. The mining magnate Gina Rinehart took to the stage at a business event last year to warn that one-third of Australia’s prime agricultural land could be “taken over” by renewable energy projects. In almost every campaign against a proposed development in the bush, the potential impact on prime agricultural land is raised as a key concern. Sign up to receive Guardian Australia’s fortnightly Rural Network email newsletter Continue reading...
09/16/2024 - 10:00
There have been moments of modest progress but the Albanese government has not lived up to its early rhetoric Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Back in the heady new government days of July 2022, Tanya Plibersek told the National Press Club that change was coming for environmental protection in Australia after a decade of disaster and neglect. Releasing the five-yearly state of the environment report, which the previous Coalition government had received months earlier but put in a drawer until it was turfed from office, the new environment minister said it told a “story of crisis and decline in Australia’s environment”. Continue reading...
09/16/2024 - 10:00
Birds practising kleptoparasitism – harassing each other until they drop their saliva-covered food – seen as ‘plausible pathway’ for arrival of H5N1 Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Scientists have identified a new way for an aggressive strain of bird flu to enter Australia, via the habit of some migratory birds of harassing other birds and stealing their food and potentially their viruses. Australia is the only continent to have so far escaped a virulent H5N1 strain of avian flu – known as 2.3.4.4b and discovered in Europe in 2021– that has devastated bird populations in other parts of the world. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading...
09/16/2024 - 07:28
Czech Republic, Poland and Austria fear worst may yet be to come as thousands are evacuated to higher ground The death toll from torrential rain and flooding in central and eastern Europe has risen to at least 16, with several more people missing, as authorities reported deaths in the Czech Republic, Poland and Austria and warned the worst may be to come. The number of victims in Poland rose to five after a surgeon returning from work drowned in the south-western town of Nysa, where the hospital was evacuated and patients rescued by raft. Four more people had died in the southern towns of Bielsko-Biała and Lądek-Zdrój, firefighters said. Continue reading...
09/16/2024 - 07:00
North Carolina, New Jersey and New Mexico petitioned regulators to classify some PFAS as hazardous air pollutants Three US states are formally demanding that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) begin regulating PFAS “forever chemical” air emissions, as the toxic threat that the pollution poses to the environment and human health comes into sharper focus. So far, federal regulators have focused on water pollution, but state environmental agencies in North Carolina, New Mexico and New Jersey last week filed a petition calling for the EPA to categorize four types of PFAS compounds as hazardous air pollutants and to begin regulating them under the Clean Air Act. Continue reading...
09/16/2024 - 05:23
Storm Boris has caused several deaths, and thousands have been evacuated from their homes across Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia Europe floods – latest updates ‘Dramatic’ flooding in central Europe continues Continue reading...
09/16/2024 - 05:00
Locals called it a ‘miracle’ when the steel plant in JD Vance’s home town got $500m for an upgrade. But Trump’s running mate calls shifting the US to cleaner energy a ‘green scam’ A hulking steel plant in Middletown, Ohio, is the city’s economic heartbeat as well as a keystone origin story of JD Vance, the hometown senator now running to be Donald Trump’s vice-president. Its future, however, may hinge upon $500m in funding from landmark climate legislation that Vance has called a “scam” and is a Trump target for demolition. Continue reading...