Claims that power plants are gaming the system to charge huge sums to switch on in the UK’s cold weather
No 10 insists UK has sufficient energy supply
A rise in electricity costs this week has raised fears that officials operating Great Britain’s power market could be held to “ransom” by owners of gas power plants during cold, windless days in order to keep the lights on. Here, we look why costs have increased sharply, the trading rules for plants and the implications for Labour’s clean power ambitions.
Continue reading...
Breaking Waves: Ocean News
01/10/2025 - 11:17
01/10/2025 - 10:56
Environmentalists condemn unauthorised releases as ‘reckless’ and ‘highly irresponsible’
For a brief moment this week, lynx have been roaming the Scottish Highlands once again. But this was not the way conservationists had hoped to end their 1,000-year absence.
On Wednesday, Police Scotland received reports of two lynx in a forest in the Cairngorms national park, sparking a frantic search. That episode ended in less than a day. Both animals were quickly captured by experts from the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) and taken to quarantine facilities at Highland wildlife park.
Continue reading...
01/10/2025 - 09:49
To solve the climate crisis, power must flow away from the billionaire class
When I feel uncertain, I find it’s helpful to write down things I know to be true. Fossil fuels are causing irreversible planetary overheating. Overheating threatens essentially all life on Earth. Oil and gas executives knew this but they chose to systematically lie and block a climate transition. They continue to make this choice.
I choose to focus my energy on the climate crisis because a habitable planet is a prerequisite for everything worth fighting for, and because the prospect of losing a planet feels horrific and sad to me in a primal way that I can’t express with words. I’m also simply in love with the Earth. But planetary overheating is really just the most geophysical symptom of extractive colonial capitalism – “billionairism” – a system designed to pump wealth from the poor to the rich, creating billionaires, the healthcare crisis, the housing crisis, genocide, hierarchies like racism and patriarchy, and a great deal of suffering.
Peter Kalmus is a climate scientist and author of Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution
Continue reading...
01/10/2025 - 09:37
Scientist says case is warning for farmers to reduce reliance on controversial and common herbicide
Scientists have identified a glyphosate-resistant weed on a farm in the UK for the first time, raising concerns about the controversial herbicide.
Scientists at the agricultural consultancy ADAS, said that, after reports from agronomists and screening of seed samples from a farm in Kent, they had confirmed glyphosate resistance in Italian ryegrass, an annual grass weed that particularly affects wheat fields in the UK. This is the first time glyphosate resistance in weeds has been detected in the UK.
Continue reading...
01/10/2025 - 09:00
At least 45 whales were entangled by fishing ropes and line on the east coast in 2024. 'There’s a lot of times when we’ll get out to an entanglement where we just think, this animal should just probably be put to sleep,' says Sea World’s head of marine sciences, Wayne Phillips.
The constant drag of rope and floats slowly causes a whale to succumb to exhaustion. 'It’s probably the worst way of dying for any marine … animal,' marine scientist Olaf Meynecke, says. 'It takes weeks to several months until they actually die'
Continue reading...
01/10/2025 - 09:00
Exclusive: The kaputar slug, which can grow longer than a human hand, was almost wiped out in the black summer bushfires of 2019-20
Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast
A giant, fluorescent pink slug’s comeback on Mount Kaputar has been mapped by eager citizen scientists.
The kaputar slug grows up to 20cm long – outstripping the average human hand – and 6cm wide. The only place it exists in the entire world is on an extinct volcano in NSW’s Mount Kaputar national park.
Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email
Continue reading...
01/10/2025 - 09:00
Experts recorded 45 entanglements off Australia’s east coast in 2024 – but believe that’s ‘the tip of the iceberg’
Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast
At least 45 whales were entangled by fishing ropes and line on the east coast in 2024, and experts are calling for better management of fishing gear in Australia to prevent marine suffering.
Dr Olaf Meynecke, a marine scientist at Griffith University, said the issue of preventing whale entanglements was “largely ignored in Australia”.
Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email
Continue reading...
01/10/2025 - 08:51
Moderate to strong wind and low humidity continues as five fires rage across Los Angeles area, already killing 10 people
California wildfires – live
Before and after satellite images of California fires show devastation
Weather forecasters in Los Angeles expect fast, dry winds to return towards the end of the weekend, threatening to fuel wildfires that have already destroyed 10,000 structures and killed 10 people.
Urgent “red flag” alerts – meaning critical fire weather conditions – announced by the US National Weather Service (NWS) said moderate to strong wind and low humidity would continue on Friday morning, as five fires raged across the metropolis.
Continue reading...
01/10/2025 - 06:00
A similar campaign of rumors and lies was seen after the North Carolina hurricane, with DEI a primary target
As Los Angeles firefighters battle ongoing blazes, prominent rightwing figures are spreading bigoted criticism of the response and lies about who is to blame, including that the fire is raging because of diversity within the fire department.
The misinformation echoes the claims that plagued the North Carolina hurricane response. Both disasters led to outrage, which partisan actors seized upon to advance their political goals, muddying the already confusing information ecosystem that accompanies a fast-moving news event.
Continue reading...
01/10/2025 - 05:55
Police urge public not to approach illegally released animals understood to have been spotted by cameras in Cairngorms
Two more lynx have been seen in the Scottish Highlands, close to the site where two of the illegally released animals were captured on Thursday.
It is understood the pair were spotted on camera traps set by staff from the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) in woods near Kingussie, in the Cairngorms, close to where the first two were trapped.
Continue reading...
