Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Finance secretary says ‘tough decisions’ are needed to fill £1bn hole in the budget Scottish ministers have raided a £460m green energy fund to help pay for higher than inflation pay deals that the government did not budget for. Shona Robison, the Scottish finance secretary, said she needed to use the fund while also cutting non-essential spending by £500m to fill a £1bn hole in this year’s government finances. Continue reading...

Heatwaves and lack of rainfall have led to receding water levels in the Mornos reservoir, which submerged Kallio in the 1970s No place is more indicative of plummeting rainfall levels in Greece than the Mornos reservoir. And no settlement is more indicative of how serious this year’s drought has been than Kallio, a village submerged by the artificial lake in the late 1970s. Nearly five decades after Kallio was deliberately flooded as part of the construction of a dam to ensure water supply for Athens, people living nearby have watched in disbelief as reserves have receded to the point that the village has reappeared. Continue reading...

Bella Nilsson’s company Think Pink accused of dumping at least 200,000 tonnes of waste Eleven people, including an entrepreneur who once called herself the “queen of trash”, have gone on trial in Sweden accused of illegally dumping toxic waste in the country’s biggest ever environmental crime case. The closely watched trial at Attunda district court in Sollentuna, near Stockholm, centres on the recycling company Think Pink, its former chief executive Bella Nilsson, who has since changed her name, and her ex-husband Thomas Nilsson. Continue reading...

Most of the time safety divers do not need to step in, but our presence gives athletes the security needed for their remarkable underwater feats • Photography and videos by Piko Studios and Jack Lawes for the Guardian Things started to go wrong as Gary McGrath was coming up from 95 metres below the surface, a feat managed entirely on one breath. McGrath, who holds the British freediving record of 112 metres, was met on his ascent by a team of safety divers who quickly noticed he was struggling as his movements started to slow. Then he stopped rising. Protocols designed for such emergencies instantly came into play. One diver sealed Gary’s airways while another grabbed his hips, bringing him to the surface together, all while holding their breaths, too. Gary McGrath in Dahab, on Egypt’s Sinai peninsula. He holds the British record after freediving to 112 metres Continue reading...