Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Artist punches holes in UN climate report six hours a day for Dutch installation

admin — Sat, 13 Jul 2024 14:28:28 +0000

Johannes-Harm Hovinga has to take painkillers to complete the 20-day artistic protest at Museum Arnhem

Every day for the last two weeks, Johannes-Harm Hovinga has sat at a raised table in Museum Arnhem, using a two-hole page puncher to systematically perforate the 7,705-page sixth assessment report produced by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

He has printed it out on coloured paper and the result is a vibrant heap piling up at the artist’s feet.

After Hurricane Beryl’s destruction, climate scientists fear for what’s next

admin — Sat, 13 Jul 2024 14:00:23 +0000

Experts say devastating hurricane so early in season is ‘big wake-up call’ – and predict even more powerful storms

The poignancy was unmistakable: prognosticators at Colorado State University amended their already miserable seasonal tropical cyclone forecast on Monday precisely as Hurricane Beryl was filling Houston’s streets with floodwater and knocking out power to more than 2m homes and businesses.

London’s Science Museum forced to cut ties with oil giant – and faces pressure over other sponsors

admin — Sat, 13 Jul 2024 12:28:42 +0000

Campaigners welcome ‘seismic shift’ and urge museum bosses to review links with other fossil fuel sponsors

The Science Museum has been forced to cut ties with oil giant Equinor over its sponsor’s environmental record, the Observer can reveal.

Equinor has sponsored the museum’s interactive “WonderLab” since 2016, but the relationship is now coming to close, a move that will be seen as a major victory for climate change campaigners.

£1.2bn plan to turn sewage waste into drinking water branded a ‘white elephant’

admin — Sat, 13 Jul 2024 09:00:16 +0000

Southern Water says it wants to protect rare chalk streams, but campaigners say it could pollute the Solent

A proposed £1.2bn scheme to recycle effluent from the sewage system and turn it in to drinking water has been criticised as a threat to the environment and a potential costly “white elephant”.

Footage shows snail on the brink of extinction giving birth through its neck - video

admin — Sat, 13 Jul 2024 00:00:05 +0000

The Campbell’s keeled glass-snail was officially extinct until March 2020, when a local citizen scientist found it on the remote Norfolk Island. 40 of the thumbnail-sized snails were taken to a dedicated and quarantined captive breeding facility in Taronga zoo. 40 baby snails were born in the last fortnight, after initially struggling to reproduce in captivity

Houston swelters in punishing heat as 800,000 without power after Beryl

admin — Fri, 12 Jul 2024 20:32:24 +0000

Residents suffer sleepless nights without air-conditioning as energy company blames fallen trees for outages

Nearly 800,000 Houston residents remain without electricity five days after the category-1 Hurricane Beryl downed power lines across the city. The outages come as the city is under heat advisory, with heat index values over 100F (37.8C).

Residents have described insufferable heat, sleepless nights, and fear for the wellbeing of elderly parents, young children and disabled relatives amid scorching temperatures.

Unprecedented warming threatens Earth's lakes and their ecosystems

admin — Fri, 12 Jul 2024 16:41:22 +0000

Lakes, with their rich biodiversity and important ecological services, face a concerning trend: rapidly increasing temperatures. A recent study by limnologists and climate modelers reveals that if current anthropogenic warming continues until the end of this century, lakes worldwide will likely experience pervasive and unprecedented surface and subsurface warming, far outside the range of what they have encountered before.

Wildlife rescue group Wires faces crunch vote amid volunteer discontent over funds raised after bushfires

admin — Fri, 12 Jul 2024 15:00:59 +0000

Donations grew dramatically after Australia’s black summer but animal carers say they didn’t receive enough

National Trust celebrates birth of baby beaver one year after reintroduction

admin — Fri, 12 Jul 2024 14:14:51 +0000

Four animals released in Wallington estate in Northumberland last year have transformed the landscape

The first beavers in Northumberland for more than 400 years have been stupendously busy. There are new dam systems, as well as canals and burrows, new wildlife-rich wetlands and, thrillingly, a baby beaver.

Whether it is male or female remains to be seen. “Beavers don’t have external genitalia,” said Heather Devey, an expert. “They are really hard to sex. It’s really only through their anal glands that you can tell.”

Floods fuelled 19% drop in income from farming in England in 2023

admin — Fri, 12 Jul 2024 12:49:07 +0000

Low yields combined with low prices for some crops also led to a 13% drop in farm output compared with 2022

Income from farming in England plummeted by 19% last year after floods meant harvesting many crops was impossible.