Campaigners say Ofwat ‘subservient to industry and its rampaging pursuit of profit’ after illegal sewage discharges
South West Water has agreed to pay a £24m penalty for illegal sewage discharges into the environment from its treatment works.
The regulator for the water and wastewater sector in England and Wales, Ofwat, says the company, which has 1.8 million customers in Cornwall, Devon, the Isles of Scilly and parts of Dorset and Somerset, is being penalised for dumping sewage in breach of its legal permit conditions.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
07/10/2025 - 08:00
Scottish Water boss says average Scot uses 40% more water than people in Yorkshire partly due to mistaken belief water is abundant in Scotland
Scottish households are being urged to cut back heavily on their water use and instead treat it as a precious resource due to the growing threat to supplies from climate heating.
Alex Plant, the chief executive of Scottish Water, said the average Scot used 40% more water than consumers in Yorkshire, partly because there was a widespread but mistaken assumption that water was abundant in Scotland.
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07/10/2025 - 08:00
Guardian makes legally mandated gold standard report widely available after administration deleted website
The future of the US government’s premier climate crisis report is perilously uncertain after the Trump administration deleted the website that housed the periodic, legally mandated assessments that have been produced by scientists over the past two decades.
Five national climate assessments have been compiled since 2000 by researchers across a dozen US government agencies and outside scientists, providing a gold standard report to city and state officials, as well as the general public, of global heating and its impacts upon human health, agriculture, water supplies, air pollution and other aspects of American life.
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07/10/2025 - 07:47
Terms like ‘deglobalisation’ have become commonplace, but what we need is true multilateralism. Erecting walls won’t bring us peace and prosperity
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is the president of Brazil
The year 2025 should be a time of celebration, marking eight decades of the United Nations’ existence. But it risks going down in history as the year when the international order built since 1945 collapsed.
The cracks had long been visible. Since the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, the intervention in Libya and the war in Ukraine, some permanent members of the security council have trivialised the illegal use of force. The failure to act vis-a-vis the genocide in Gaza represents a denial of the most basic values of humanity. The inability to overcome differences is fuelling a new escalation of violence in the Middle East, the latest chapter of which includes the attack on Iran.
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is the president of Brazil
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07/10/2025 - 06:59
Dr Christina Propst apologized after Blue Fish Pediatrics said she was ‘no longer an employee’ because of post
A pediatrician who is no longer working for a chain of clinics affiliated with a prominent Houston hospital system after a social media post that wished voters in a Donald Trump-supporting county of central Texas “get what they voted for” amid flash flooding that killed nearly 120 – including many children – has publicly apologized.
“I speak to you as a mother, a neighbor, a pediatrician, and a human being who is deeply sorry,” Dr Christina Propst wrote after Blue Fish Pediatrics announced on Sunday she was no longer an employee there because of a social media post that the clinic said did “not reflect the value, standards or mission” of the chain. “I take full responsibility for a social media comment I made before we knew that so many precious lives were lost to the terrible tragedy in central Texas.
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07/10/2025 - 06:00
High levels of Pfas stemming from the base have tainted water, damaged crops and poisoned cows in the area
The state of New Mexico is suing the US air force over its refusal to comply with orders to address extremely high levels of Pfas pollution stemming from its base, which has tainted drinking water for tens of thousands of people, damaged crops and poisoned dairy cows.
Though the military acknowledges Pfas-laden firefighting foam from Cannon air force base is the source of a four mile chemical plume in the aquifer below Clovis, New Mexico, it has refused to comply with most state orders to address the issue.
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07/10/2025 - 05:44
Critics say change in biodiversity protections would harm environmental recovery and make scheme ineffective
Plans to weaken environmental regulations for small housebuilders would allow developers in England to build on an area the size of the Yorkshire Dales in the next 10 years without replacing the nature they destroy, according to analysis.
Labour wants to remove the requirement for small housebuilders – those whose sites are under a hectare (2.5 acres) – to replace the nature they destroy under existing rules known as biodiversity net gain.
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07/09/2025 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 10 July 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00141-6
The rise and flows of blue carbon credits advance global climate and biodiversity goals
07/08/2025 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 09 July 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00139-0
Human-wildlife coexistence through the lens of fishermen’s knowledge and lived experience
07/08/2025 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 09 July 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00145-2
The rapidly expanding offshore wind energy industry presents an unprecedented opportunity to collect valuable data on protected marine species, particularly the endangered North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis), through required Protected Species Observer (PSO) programs. PSO data, gathered during industry activities by trained biologists in often remote and challenging offshore environments, can fill critical knowledge gaps regarding species distribution, occurrence, and interactions with development, informing conservation and management strategies. While challenges remain regarding data accessibility, standardization, and integration, ongoing initiatives by agencies like the US National Marine Fisheries Service and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management coupled with existing data-sharing efforts and open-source platforms, offer pathways to maximize the value of PSO data. Realizing this potential requires collaborative partnerships between industry, agencies, researchers, and other stakeholders to establish centralized, publicly accessible databases with standardized protocols and adequate funding for data management. Successfully leveraging PSO data will significantly enhance our understanding of marine species and contribute to their conservation in the face of increasing offshore development.
