Breaking Waves: Ocean News

06/23/2024 - 17:20
This blog is now closed. Medicinal vapes to be sold over the counter at pharmacies after Labor and Greens reach deal Watch: Shadow minister Ted O’Brien ejected from parliament during energy debate Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast David Pocock also spoke to the ABC about his private member’s bill that would see housing treated as a human right. He said it was needed because: There’s no overarching national plan and this would legislate that these are the objectives, we want to see housing affordable, we want to reduce homelessness and then it would be up to the government to actually work out – how are we going to do that? What are the policies that we think will address this? One of my heroes Desmond Tutu used to say ‘don’t raise your voice, improve your argument’. It’s pretty tragic the major parties tear the opposition down rather than improving their argument and making their plans stand on their own two feet. Continue reading...
06/23/2024 - 10:00
Exclusive: French survey of 26 countries finds fewer Australians than global average agree that climate change is the greatest health threat facing humanity Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast Australians are among the most sceptical around the world that climate disruption is being caused by humans and that the costs of tackling it will be less than that of its impacts, according to polling across 26 countries. Just 60% of Australians accept that climate disruption is human-caused, a fall of six percentage points from the previous poll 18 months earlier and well behind the global average of 73%, according to the results from French polling company Elabe. Continue reading...
06/23/2024 - 02:00
Rachel Cooke traces the long history of the UK’s resorts through nostalgia, deprivation and revival Read more in this series Anyone who has read him will know that the historian Nikolas Pevsner was not a man much given to excessive praise. But even he was inclined to sigh at the sight of the Grand Hotel in Scarborough. In his series of architectural guides, The Buildings of England, he describes the hotel, which was completed in 1867, as wondrous, a “High Victorian gesture of assertion and confidence”. Believing no other building in Britain had as much to say about a certain kind of 19th-century ambition, in his perambulation of the Yorkshire town, he instructed readers on no account to miss the magnificent view of the hotel from the harbour. And it’s true. Stand on the beach below and look up – perhaps while eating a choc ice – and the Grand really does look marvellous: a gigantic confection of towers and balconies that recalls a French chateau. From this vantage point, it isn’t hard to imagine the poet Edith Sitwell drinking cocktails in its ballroom (the Sitwells owned a holiday villa in Scarborough); to picture Winston Churchill, who once stayed in one of its suites, lighting a cigar at the bar. Continue reading...
06/22/2024 - 19:00
The volunteer environment network says lack of money is stifling the growth of local groups despite an increase in interest on the ground Sign up for the Rural Network email newsletter Join the Rural Network group on Facebook to be part of the community Lyn Heenan’s involvement with Landcare began almost 40 years ago, when her late father, Paul, joined the new movement in the 1980s to get rid of rabbits that had been eating their way through the Pyrenees region in western Victoria. It was shortly after then conservation minister Joan Kirner had launched the initiative alongside the Victorian Farmers Federation at the tiny locality of Winjallock in 1986. Continue reading...
06/22/2024 - 15:31
Water companies have logged five sewage spills a day, every day, for a decade, analysis by the Observer shows Water companies in England and Wales have averaged five serious sewage spills into rivers or seas every day over the past decade, the Observer can reveal. Analysis of Environment Agency data has found that the 10 firms recorded 19,484 category 1-3 pollution incidents between 2013 and 2022, the most recent year recorded, an average of one every four and a half hours. Continue reading...
06/22/2024 - 15:00
Coalition proposal would cost a minimum $116bn – the same as Labor’s plan for almost 100% renewables grid by 2050, industry organisation says Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast The Coalition’s pledge to build seven nuclear reactors as part of its controversial energy plan could cost taxpayers as much as $600bn while supplying just 3.7% of Australia’s energy mix by 2050, according to the Smart Energy Council. The analysis found the plan would cost a minimum of $116bn – the same cost as delivering the Albanese government’s plan for 82% renewables by 2030, and an almost 100% renewable energy mix by 2050. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup Continue reading...
06/22/2024 - 15:00
Communities in the Latrobe Valley – and those in six other locations around Australia – are on a new energy frontline. On Wednesday, the Coalition promised that, if elected to government, a part of the Loy Yang power station would be one of seven sites to host a nuclear reactor. But what do residents think of Peter Dutton's nuclear plan for their area? The Coalition's decision seems to have split opinions Confusion reigns about the Coalition’s nuclear proposal. Here’s how the rhetoric has shifted There is no shortage of Coalition U-turns on nuclear. But this Aukus example might be the most remarkable Continue reading...
06/22/2024 - 15:00
Exclusive: State department official urges politicians to do ‘the right thing’, citing ‘collective responsibility’ Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast A senior US official has urged Australia and other countries not to back away from their 2030 climate commitments, insisting that “we all have a collective responsibility for the planet we live in”. The message from Australia’s top security ally contrasts with rhetoric from the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, who claimed on Saturday the Labor government was “appeasing the international climate lobby” and “global climate activists”. Continue reading...
06/18/2024 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 19 June 2024; doi:10.1038/s44183-024-00070-w Gender differences in the perceived impacts of coastal management and conservation
World Ocean Explorer Wins Gold Medal Serious Simulation Award from Serious Play Annual International Competition
10/26/2023 - 14:35
For Immediate Release October 19, 2023 Sedgwick, Maine USA World Ocean Explorer, a 3D virtual aquarium and educational simulation, was recently cited for excellence, winning a Gold Medal Award in the 2023 International Serious Play Awards Program. World Ocean Explorer is an innovative 3D virtual aquarium designed for educational exploration of the world’s oceans. With interactive exhibits and a lobby space, visitors can immerse themselves in realistic marine environments, including a DEEP SEA exhibit funded by Schmidt Ocean Institute, showcasing unprecedented deep-sea discoveries off Australia. Targeted at 3rd graders and beyond, this immersive experience offers a range of perspectives on the ocean environment and can be explored through guided tours or user-controlled interfaces. Visit DEEP SEA at worldoceanexplorer.org/deep-sea-aquarium.html. Serious Play Conference brings together professionals who are exploring the use of game-based learning, sharing their experience, and working together to shape the future of training and education. For more information on Serious Play Award Program visit seriousplayconf.com/international-serious-play-award-programs. World Ocean Explorer is a transformative virtual aquarium designed to deepen understanding of the world ocean and amplify connection for young people worldwide. Organized around the principles of Ocean Literacy and the Next Gen Science Standards, World Ocean Explorer brings the wonder and knowledge of ocean species and systems to students in formal and informal classrooms, absolutely free to anyone with a good Internet connection. As an advocate for the ocean through communications, World Ocean Observatory believes there is no better investment in the future of the sustainable ocean than through a new approach to educational engagement that excites, informs, and motivates students to explore the wonders of our marine world and to understand the pervasive connection and implication for our future, inherent in the protection and conservation of all aspects of our ocean world. World Ocean Explorer presents an astonishing 3-dimensional simulated aquarium visit, organized to reveal the wonders of undersea life, with layers of detailed data and information to augment the emotional connection made to the astonishing beauty and complexity of the dynamic ocean. Within each of the virtual exhibits, students visit exemplary theme-based sites with myriad opportunities to understand the larger perspectives of scientific knowledge as organized and visualized to dramatize the impact and change on ocean life as a result of natural and human-generated events. Through immersion among displays, mixed media and 3D models, the experience of an aquarium visit will be brought into classrooms or home school environments as a free, accessible, always available opportunity for teaching and learning. All of this will be available to a world audience without physical limitation or cost. World Ocean Explorer, a project of the World Ocean Observatory, receives support from the Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Foundation, Visual Solutions Lab, the Climate Change Institute, the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, and The Fram Museum Oslo. To learn more about the current and future exhibits of World Ocean Explorer, visit worldoceanexplorer.org. media contact Trisha Badger, Managing Director, World Ocean Observatory   |   director@thew2o.net +12077011069
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