Seals have been biting people in the first big outbreak of the disease in marine mammals, writes Nick Dall in Cape Town
It’s happened to me dozens of times: I’m riding a wave when, out of the corner of my eye, I see a black shape coming up beneath me. Being in Cape Town – a great white shark hotspot – it’s hard not to assume the worst. But fear soon gives into relief when it becomes clear that I’m sharing the wave with a Cape fur seal. Sometimes, they get so close you can see the bubbles on their whiskers.
Now, nine seals have tested positive for rabies – the world’s first significant outbreak of the disease in marine mammals – and people like me are watching the water along this 400-mile (600km) coastline for a different reason.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
07/10/2024 - 23:00
07/10/2024 - 23:00
Country on track reach 1,200GW of installed wind and solar capacity by end of 2024 – six years ahead of Beijing’s target
The amount of wind and solar power under construction in China is now nearly twice as much as the rest of the world combined, a report has found.
Research published on Thursday by Global Energy Monitor (GEM), an NGO, found that China has 180 gigawatts (GW) of utility-scale solar power under construction and 15GW of wind power. That brings the total of wind and solar power under construction to 339GW, well ahead of the 40GW under construction in the US.
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07/10/2024 - 10:45
Exclusive: Letter from senators, led by Elizabeth Warren, says JPMorgan may have misled investors and public
JPMorgan Chase, the world’s biggest investor in fossil fuels, may have misled investors and the public by backtracking on its already weak climate and environmental commitments, six US senators have warned in a letter to the CEO Jamie Dimon.
Although a climate-disrupted world demands stronger action by the financial sector to reduce emissions and protect nature, the Wall Street firm is heading in the opposite direction, say the upper chamber legislators, who include Senate banking committee member Elizabeth Warren.
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07/10/2024 - 10:33
City hits all-time high of 120F as officials set up emergency cooling centers at community centers across south Nevada
Las Vegas set a new record on Wednesday as it marked a fifth consecutive day over 115F (46C), amid a lingering hot spell that will continue scorching much of the US into the weekend.
The blazing hot temperatures climbed to 115F shortly after 1pm at Harry Reid international airport, breaking the old mark of four consecutive days above 115F set in July 2005.
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07/10/2024 - 10:15
Miskito and other groups face a dire challenge as illegal deforestation threatens their ancestral lands and culture
Avilés Morphy pulled out his mobile phone and swiped through the photos until he reached a shot showing fallen trees in what looked like the aftermath of a hurricane. “That was a big forest and look how it is now: everything’s been destroyed,” he says. “And these are the coordinates.”
Then he played a video. The camera focused on a startled man wearing a red track-and-field shirt, resting his back against a post as he responded to questioning.
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07/10/2024 - 08:00
After decades of bags lining the streets, the mayor has proudly wheeled out a McKinsey-approved trash can
The revolution will not be televised. Unless it’s Mayor Eric Adams’s Trash Revolution, of course. In which case a press conference will be held, music blasted, and every camera crew in the five boroughs invited.
On Monday the mayor of New York, with Jessica Tisch, the sanitation commissioner, by his side, unveiled New York City’s first official trash bin. The mayor wheeled the new NYC Bin down Gracie Mansion’s driveway and, with his characteristic swagger, demonstrated how the innovative new technology works: you open the lid and you put the rubbish in. It’s highly intuitive technology.
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07/10/2024 - 07:06
Exclusive: Fears customers will end up paying twice for work needed in order to comply with legal pollution limits
Thames Water has failed to complete more than 100 upgrades to ageing sewage treatment works to meet legal pollution limits, the Guardian can reveal.
The schemes costing £1.1bn were supposed to cut pollution into rivers by increasing the capacity at sewage works, adding phosphorus removal to the treatment process, and installing new storm tanks. The upgrades, which were promised in 2018, are being paid for by customers as part of a five-year spending round to 2025 but will not be delivered within that timeframe.
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07/10/2024 - 05:00
Nearly 34 million people in those cities, or 15% of the US population, experiencing temperatures higher than in surrounding areas
Almost 34 million people in 65 major US cities, or 15% of the country’s population, are experiencing temperatures that are 8F higher than their surrounding areas, according to a new analysis from Climate Central, a non-profit research group.
That is largely due to built environments like parking lots and asphalt sidewalks, and a lack of trees, that contribute to what’s known as the urban heat island effect.
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07/10/2024 - 01:00
A rising number of lawsuits in courts around the world are holding governments and corporations to account for their treatment of the seas and those who rely on them
A few years ago, Anna von Rebay gave up her lucrative job in a corporate law firm specialising in art law to concentrate on her passion for the ocean. “All threats to the sea come from humans, who behave as though nature is nothing more than a resource,” says Von Rebay, who works in Germany and Indonesia. “But the ocean can’t stand up for itself.”
Inspired by a rising wave of lawsuits seeking to hold governments and companies to account for climate action, she set up Ocean Vision Legal, a law firm with a unique remit: to litigate on the ocean’s behalf.
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07/09/2024 - 18:01
Advert trumpeting storm overflow plans should have disclosed past environmental harms, says ASA
A Wessex Water TV advert about its plans to tackle storm overflows has been banned as misleading because it omitted key information about its record on sewage pollution.
The Advertising Standards Authority investigated after receiving a complaint about the ad for the supplier, which provides water to 1.4 million customers and sewerage services to 2.9 million people in the south-west of England.
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