Common Wealth thinktank warns that communities and taxpayer may have to pick up pieces when production ends
North Sea oil and gas must be brought under greater public control to avoid a cliff-edge collapse of the industry and secure a sustainable future for workers and communities, according to a report.
Under the current private ownership model the inevitable end of North Sea oil and gas production – whether through government action or the lack of viable oilfields – will lead to private companies abruptly abandoning the basin, leaving frontline communities and the state to deal with the social and economic consequences, the authors predict.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
01/11/2025 - 06:36
01/11/2025 - 06:00
Every barrel of oil, every cubic meter of gas, and every ton of coal burned brings us closer to environmental catastrophe
Apocalyptic flames and smoke are raging through southern California in the worst fire in Los Angeles county’s history. At least seven people have died. Thousands of structures have been destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes. The private forecaster AccuWeather estimates initial damage and economic loss at more than $50bn and has the potential to be the costliest wildfire disaster in American history. The impacts of the disruption and loss faced by community members is incalculable.
While some media outlets are discussing the link between the Los Angeles fires and the climate crisis, the president-elect Donald Trump and rightwing media are using this devastating event to foster misinformation including denying the role of climate crisis.
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01/10/2025 - 15:26
Firefighters battle on as people across Los Angeles struggle to find a way forward on Friday
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01/10/2025 - 13:21
Noaa says last year was the warmest since records began in 1850 and Nasa concurs: ‘The long-term trends are very clear’
It was the hottest year ever recorded for the world’s lands and oceans in 2024, US government scientists have confirmed, providing yet another measure of how the climate crisis is pushing humanity into temperatures we have previously never experienced.
Last year was the hottest in global temperature records stretching back to 1850, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa announced, with the worldwide average 1.46C (2.6F) warmer than the era prior to humans burning huge volumes of planet-heating fossil fuels.
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01/10/2025 - 13:06
Events in California reveal how political obstruction is deepening a climate crisis that needs urgent action to prevent it becoming an irreversible disaster
The wildfires ravaging Los Angeles have killed at least 10 people, displaced 180,000 and scorched about 40 square miles – an inferno driven by fierce winds and severe drought in what should be California’s wet season. It is a sobering reminder that the climate crisis is driving wildfires to become more frequent, intense and destructive – leaving ruined lives, homes and livelihoods in their wake. The US president Joe Biden responded by mobilising federal aid. By contrast the president-elect, Donald Trump, a convicted felon who was criminally sentenced on Friday, used the disaster to spread disinformation and stoke political division.
The climate crisis knows no national borders. Deadly floods in Spain, Hawaii’s fires and east Africa’s devastating drought show nowhere is safe from its effects. Countries must work toward the global common interest and beyond their narrow national interests. The scale of the climate emergency is such that there is a case to view all crises through a green lens. Instead Mr Trump’s denialism works to foment distrust about the science. He’s not just aiming to delay the onset of truth. He wants to demolish it. It’s a familiar playbook: the fossil fuel industry knows the reality of the climate emergency but chooses profit over responsibility, effectively deceiving the public while the planet burns.
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01/10/2025 - 13:00
New Zealand garden takes first prize in global competition designed to promote water conservation
A sun-scorched patch of lawn near Christchurch, in New Zealand, has been crowned the ugliest lawn in the world.
Now in its second year, the World’s Ugliest Lawn competition rewards lawn owners for not watering their parched yellow grass and patchy flowerbeds.
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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.
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01/10/2025 - 08:51
Strong winds and low humidity continue as five fires rage across Los Angeles area, with death toll expected to rise
Los Angeles fires: the damage in maps, video and images
Weather forecasters in Los Angeles were expecting fast, dry winds to return towards the end of the weekend, threatening to fuel wildfires that have already destroyed 10,000 structures and killed 16 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.
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01/10/2025 - 05:55
Second pair of illegally released animals safely captured in Cairngorms after they were spotted on camera traps
Two more lynx abandoned in the Cairngorms have been safely captured, the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland said on Friday.
Two of the illegally released animals were captured on Thursday after being sighted in the Dell of Killiehuntly near Kingussie in the Scottish Highlands.
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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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