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Wally the Walrus: Fears for safety as Tenby tourists get 'too close'
Canada's herring facing ‘biological decimation’, say First Nations and activists
Herring off western coast will ‘teeter on edge of complete collapse’ if commercial fishing continues at current level, says report
First Nations and conservationists are warning that Pacific herring populations are “collapsing” off Canada’s western coast, and are appealing for a moratorium on commercial fishing until the critical species can rebuild.
Emmie Page, a marine campaigner with the organization Pacific Wild, said in the past, five large commercial herring fisheries opened each year on the coast.
Continue reading...Early bloom of cherry blossoms in Washington DC point to climate crisis
Unusually warm weather accelerated the bloom cycle of the mall’s 3,800 cherry trees, causing them to pop days ahead of schedule
Spring has sprung in America’s capital, bringing with it a resplendent bloom of white and pink cherry blossoms that is one of the city’s grandest annual traditions.
But this year, as Washington DC’s residents embrace a relative return to normal after a tumultuous year marked by the coronavirus and civil unrest, the earlier-than-anticipated bloom may point to yet another looming crisis: climate change.
Continue reading...China sandstorms highlight threat of climate crisis
Experts say extreme weather including droughts will become more common as planet heats
Recent sandstorms that shrouded Beijing in a post-apocalyptic orange haze and intensive droughts in other parts of the country are bringing into stark relief the challenges China faces from rising temperatures induced by the climate crisis.
The widespread sandstorms that pelted the capital and spread as far as central China for several days in mid-March and again at the end of the month were brought on by lower than average snow cover and precipitation, as well as higher than normal temperatures and winds across Mongolia and northern China.
Continue reading...World’s largest ocean monitoring system BRUVS launched
Mustard gas among toxic waste in Wales' old landfill sites
Court extends timeline for US DOJ challenge to California-Quebec cap-and-trade linkage
Farmed fish suffer pain and stress, says report that criticises welfare failings
Instead of Atlantic salmon and trout, study says the industry should focus on cultivating species with less complex needs
Those who care about the welfare of fish and seafood should opt for clams, mussels or seaweed, according to a new report, which says popular fish, including farmed Atlantic salmon and trout, have more complex welfare needs and are more likely to experience pain and suffering.
There is no scientific evidence of the behavioural and environmental needs of nearly 80% of aquatic species, an analysis of more than 400 species farmed around the world found.
Continue reading...Dinosaur-killing asteroid strike gave rise to Amazon rainforest
There's another pandemic under our noses, and it kills 8.7m people a year | Rebecca Solnit
While Covid ravaged across the world, air pollution killed about three times as many people. We must fight the climate crisis with the same urgency with which we confronted coronavirus
It is undeniably horrific that more than 2.8 million people have died of Covid-19 in the past 15 months. In roughly the same period, however, more than three times as many likely died of air pollution. This should disturb us for two reasons. One is the sheer number of air pollution deaths – 8.7 million a year, according to a recent study – and another is how invisible those deaths are, how accepted, how unquestioned. The coronavirus was a terrifying and novel threat, which made its dangers something much of the world rallied to try to limit. It was unacceptable – though by shades and degrees, many places came to accept it, by deciding to let the poor and marginalized take the brunt of sickness and death and displacement and to let medical workers get crushed by the workload.
We have learned to ignore other forms of death and destruction, by which I mean we have normalized them as a kind of moral background noise. This is, as much as anything, the obstacle to addressing chronic problems, from gender violence to climate change. What if we treated those 8.7 million annual deaths from air pollution as an emergency and a crisis – and recognized that respiratory impact from particulates is only a small part of the devastating impact of burning fossil fuels? For the pandemic we succeeded in immobilizing large populations, radically reducing air traffic, and changing the way many of us live, as well as releasing vast sums of money as aid to people financially devastated by the crisis. We could do that for climate change, and we must – but the first obstacle is the lack of a sense of urgency, the second making people understand that things could be different.
Continue reading...USS Johnston: Sub dives to deepest-known shipwreck
Climate-concerned gardeners demand UK ban on peat compost
Exclusive: voluntary approach to ‘environmental travesty’ is an abject failure, say Alan Titchmarsh and others
The UK government must ban the sales of peat compost this year after its goal of a voluntary phaseout by 2020 proved an “abject failure”, according to a group of gardening experts, conservationists and scientists.
Peat bogs store huge amounts of carbon and must be retained to help tackle the climate crisis. In a letter to the environment secretary, George Eustice, seen by the Guardian, the group say the UK as host of the UN climate summit talks this year should show leadership on the issue.
Continue reading...Give seals space during Easter break, public told
Campaign urges caution near vulnerable mammals, which have come further inshore during lockdowns
The public are being urged to give seals space in order to protect them from human disturbance before the Easter weekend.
As lockdown measures ease, the government-backed campaign by the Seal Alliance is asking people to show special caution as seals have ventured further inshore on beaches and coastlines that have become quieter as a result of lockdown.
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