Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Newcastle funnel-web spider’s last shared common ancestor with the Sydney funnel-web was 17 million years ago, experts say Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Kane Christensen’s passion is an arachnophobe’s nightmare. For two decades, he worked with deadly spiders at the Australian Reptile Park, a zoo located 80km north of Sydney – paying such close attention to the eight-legged predators that he helped scientists discover two new species. He began there as a volunteer in 2003, milking venom from the fangs of Sydney funnel-web spiders. The park takes donations of captured male spiders from the public, using their venom to create life-saving antivenom. “Funnel-webs for me are just the pinnacle,” Christensen says. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading...

High court had ruled government was not meeting legal duty to clean up Costa Beck near Pickering The UK environment secretary, Steve Reed, is pursuing legal action against a group of anglers who are trying to restore the ecosystem of a river. Lawyers for Reed will argue on Tuesday in the court of appeal that cleaning up individual rivers and streams devastated by pollution is administratively unworkable. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Costs of UK cleanup will reach £9.9bn a year in UK if emissions of ‘forever chemicals’ remain uncontrolled Industry using ‘tobacco playbook’ to fend off ‘forever chemicals’ regulation The cost of cleaning up toxic forever chemical pollution could reach more than £1.6tn across the UK and Europe over a 20-year period, an annual bill of £84bn, research has found. The number of British pollution hotspots is also on the rise. If emissions remain unrestricted and uncontrolled, the costs of cleanup will reach £9.9bn a year in the UK, according to the findings of a year-long investigation by the Forever Lobbying Project, a cross-border investigation involving 46 journalists and 18 experts across 16 countries. Continue reading...

This blog is now closed. You can read our latest story here Tell us about the financial consequences you are facing due to the California fires Weather forecasters are predicting that the dry season in Los Angeles is likely to get worse in the coming weeks and that the drought which intensified last week across southern California will continue to worsen into March. Meteorologist Eric Holthaus has written for the Guardian and says the rain forecast for the next three weeks in Los Angeles means the city’s record-dry start to its rainy season will keep getting worse. This year’s rainy season is running at just 2% of normal for Los Angeles, which has only seen 0.16in of rain so far. Weather models increasingly indicate that southern California will receive no rain at all during the rest of January, and potentially no rain during the first week or two of February as well. Continue reading...