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Fish levels fall by 7.2% with as little as 0.1C of warming per decade, northern hemisphere research shows
Chronic ocean heating is fuelling a “staggering and deeply concerning” loss of marine life, a study has found, with fish levels falling by 7.2% from as little as 0.1C of warming per decade.
Researchers examined the year-to-year change of 33,000 populations in the northern hemisphere between 1993 and 2021, and isolated the effect of the decadal rate of seabed warming from short shifts such as marine heatwaves. They found the drop in biomass from chronic heating to be as high as 19.8% in a single year.
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Researchers say solitary bottlenose has adapted well to city waters, but tighter controls on boat traffic and human behaviour are needed
Italian scientists monitoring the movements of a dolphin in the Venice lagoon have said humans are the ones who need managing, rather than wildlife.
Known as Mimmo, the bottlenose dolphin has been spotted on several occasions since it made its first appearance in June last year, prompting a research team from the University of Padova to spring into action.
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UK Climate Change Committee voices concern over Scotland’s progress on decarbonising buildings and reliance on unproved technologies
Scotland has finally produced realistic short-term plans on cutting its climate emissions, but there is “real concern” about the credibility of its overall strategy, the UK’s climate policy watchdog has found.
Nigel Topping, the chair of the UK Climate Change Committee, said there were “flashing amber lights” about the quality and seriousness of some of the Scottish government’s medium- and long-term proposals to reach net zero by 2045.
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Walthamstow Wetlands, London: They’re professional skulkers, loud but highly elusive. And yet there one is, out of the reeds, to be remembered for ever
It’s weather you’d emigrate to avoid. Gloomy and cold – Tupperware sky and drizzle in the air. But tranquil, at least. Small mercies. Walthamstow Wetlands – a 211-hectare nature reserve centred on 10 reservoirs in north-east London. Jewel in the Lee Valley’s crown, and as good a place for waterbirds as any in the capital.
Six tufted ducks drift across – a posse of monochrome floaters on a mission to nowhere. A little grebe – floating powder puff – does its trademark jump-and-dive, surfacing 30 seconds later, 25 yards to the left of where I expected. Extreme peace descends on me. Birdfulness, the best way to be.
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Gene-altering chemicals found in humpback dolphins and finless porpoises, raising alarm they may end up in human food chain
Toxic e-waste chemicals from television, computer and smartphone screens have been found in the brains and bodies of endangered dolphins and porpoises in the South China Sea.
Research published in Environmental Science & Technology detected significant levels of gene-altering liquid crystal monomers (LCMs) in Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins and finless porpoises.
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Thousands more people across Devon and Cornwall could join case against water firm
A group legal claim against South West Water alleging sewage pollution into coastal waters is harming businesses and individuals has been expanded across Devon and Cornwall.
Thousands more individuals could now join the first environmental community group legal action against a water company over the impact of sewage pollution.
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Coalition government agrees to remove parts of controversial law and allow homes to rely on fossil fuels
Germany’s coalition government has been accused of abandoning its climate targets after agreeing to scrap parts of a contentious heating law mandating the use of renewables in favour of a draft law allowing homeowners to rely on fossil fuels.
While the previous law required most newly installed heating systems to use at least 65% renewable energy, often with a heat pump, the amended legislation will allow households to keep using oil and gas.
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He was at the heart of 1960s counterculture, then paved the way for the libertarian mindset of Silicon Valley. At 87, Brand is still keen to ensure the world is maintained properly – not just today, but for the next 10,000 years
Stewart Brand thinks big and long. He thinks on a planetary scale – as suggested by the title of his celebrated Whole Earth Catalog – and on the longest of timeframes, as with his Long Now Foundation, which looks forward to the next 10,000 years of human civilisation. He has had a lifelong fascination with the future, and anything that could get us there faster, from space travel to psychedelic drugs to computing. In fact, he was arguably the bridge between the San Francisco counterculture of the 60s and present-day Silicon Valley: in his commencement speech at Stanford University in 2005, Steve Jobs eulogised the Whole Earth Catalog and Brand’s philosophy, and echoed its farewell mantra: “Stay hungry. Stay foolish.”
You could say that Brand has also lived big and long. He is now 87 years old, in the final chapters of an eventful and adventurous life that has crossed paths with some of the most consequential events and figures of his era. He has been a writer, an editor, a publisher, a soldier, a photojournalist, an LSD evangelist, an events organiser, a future-planning consultant, even a government adviser (to the California governor Jerry Brown in the late 70s). “There was a time when people asked me, ‘What do you do?’ I said, ‘I find things and I found things,’” says Brand, as in he is a founder. He is speaking from a library where he likes to work in Petaluma, California, not far from his houseboat in Sausalito. “I’m always searching for good stuff to recommend, and good people.”
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Armed groups and a state-owned refinery’s oil leaks have displaced Barrancabermeja’s fishing community and poisoned a paradise once full of manatees and jaguars
Standing on her wooden canoe, a machete in her hand, Yuly Velásquez hacks away at reeds matted with blackened sludge. Close by, a burst oil pipe has released a slick of crude into the San Silvestre wetlands in Barrancabermeja, Colombia’s oil city, choking the water and its wildlife.
“The destruction is immense,” says Velásquez, president of Fedepesan, a sustainable fishing organisation. “For the fish, the animals and flora, it means immediate death.”
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The Belgian ceremony attracts beekeepers from the Netherlands, France and Germany keen to boost dark bee numbers and stop the spread of the hybrid honeybee
Every summer, 1,000 virgin queens descend on the Belgian town of Chimay. During the “wedding flight”, a male attaches to the female. His endophallus (penis equivalent) is torn off and he falls to the ground and dies. Mission accomplished.
Beekeepers come and pick up their fertilised queens in small colourful hives, driving them back home, sometimes more than 300km away. They will use the genetic material gathered in south Belgium to build new colonies in the Netherlands, France and Germany.
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