Police and military personnel were seen helping people evacuate the highway connecting Jerusalem to Tel Aviv as wildfires raged. Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, declared the situation a national emergency as the fire threatened to reach the city. Israel’s Magen David Adom (MDA) rescue agency said they treated about 23 people, 13 of whom were taken to hospital
Israel facing ‘national emergency’ as it battles worst fires in a decade, says Netanyahu
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
05/01/2025 - 04:18
05/01/2025 - 03:17
Government to press ahead with net zero plans as Keir Starmer rejects Tony Blair’s criticisms of climate policy
Almost all new homes in England will be fitted with solar panels during construction within two years, the government will announce after Keir Starmer rejected Tony Blair’s criticism of net zero policies.
Housebuilders will be legally required to install solar panels on the roofs of new properties by 2027 under the plans.
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05/01/2025 - 02:14
Only one in two Liberal party voters are in favour of lifting the national ban, according to the National Climate Action Survey
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Support for Australia’s ongoing ban on nuclear energy has risen sharply since Peter Dutton made the issue a central plank of Coalition energy policy, according to the country’s largest independent survey on climate change and energy.
The survey also found fewer people thought any benefits of nuclear power outweighed the risks compared with the previous year.
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05/01/2025 - 01:30
A warming tundra has seen unexpected shifts, raising the alarm about fragile ecosystems and those who rely on them
Scientists studying Arctic plants say the ecosystems that host life in some of the most inhospitable reaches of the planet are changing in unexpected ways in an “early warning sign” for a region upended by climate change.
In four decades, 54 researchers tracked more than 2,000 plant communities across 45 sites from the Canadian high Arctic to Alaska and Scandinavia. They discovered dramatic shifts in temperatures and growing seasons produced no clear winners or losers. Some regions witnessed large increases in shrubs and grasses and declines in flowering plants – which struggle to grow under the shade created by taller plants.
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05/01/2025 - 01:00
The celebrated presenter warns of ‘modern day colonialism at sea’ as he highlights the destruction caused by overfishing and bottom trawling
When David Attenborough’s Blue Planet II documentary aired eight years ago, its impact was so strong it was credited with bringing about a revolution in the way people use plastics. Now film-makers are hoping he can do the same for other destructive environmental practices that the world’s best-known living naturalist describes as “draining the life from our oceans”.
The industrial fishing method of bottom trawling is the focus of a large part of Attenborough’s latest film, Ocean, which airs in cinemas from 8 May, the naturalist’s 99th birthday. In a remarkably no-holds-barred narrative, he says these vessels tear the seabed with such force “the trails of destruction can be seen from space”. He also condemns what he calls “modern day colonialism at sea”, where huge trawlers, operating off the coasts of countries reliant on fish for food and livelihoods, are blamed for dwindling local catches.
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05/01/2025 - 00:00
The broadcaster behaves like Starmer’s government: suppress the left, cave to your critics, and undermine your own survival
It’s no longer even pretending. Last week, the BBC, already the UK’s most prolific censor, instructed the presenter Evan Davis to drop the podcast he hosted in his own time about heat pumps. It was a gentle, wry look at the machines, with no obvious political content. But the BBC, Davis says, saw it as “steering into areas of public controversy”. It should cease forthwith.
So are BBC presenters banned from saying anything controversial? Far from it. Take an article published earlier this year by Justin Webb in the Times. It praised the “political genius” of Donald Trump, suggested that Democrats are now seen as the extremists, and claimed that Trump is widely regarded as “making [America] normal again”. The BBC was fine with that, and complaints about it were rejected.
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04/30/2025 - 13:27
Trees, parks, wetlands and green roofs can no longer be seen as a 'nice-to-have' aesthetic enhancement but a vital component for creating climate-resilient, healthier and more equitable cities, according to an international paper.
Deciphering the migratory behavior and connectivity of Mediterranean and Atlantic Cory's shearwaters
04/30/2025 - 13:25
A good wildlife management plan must include information on their migratory processes if the conservation of a species, particularly an endangered species, is to be improved. In the marine environment, for example, regulating fishing activity in certain wintering areas could improve and complement conservation and protection measures carried out on the breeding grounds.
04/30/2025 - 13:23
The number of species does not increase evenly when going from local ecosystems to continental scales -- a phenomenon ecologists have recognized for decades. Now, an international team of scientists has developed a new theory to explain the three distinct phases typical of species distributions across scales. The theory may be crucial for estimating how many species are lost when habitats are destroyed.
04/30/2025 - 13:18
In 2013, a sea star wasting syndrome decimated populations of Pisaster along the west coast of North America and along the Monterey Peninsula in California, where this study was conducted. The orange and purple stars have a hungry appetite for mussels in the rocky intertidal. Without the voracious sea stars lurking around, mussel populations exploded, expanding in cover from around five percent to more than 18 percent within three years. In the wake of the sea star die-off, mussels became a major prey surplus for sea otters, revealing a surprising link between the adjacent rocky intertidal and kelp forest ecosystems. The new research into the phenomenon shows how the loss of a keystone predator (Pisaster) in one ecosystem can impart changes to another (sea otters), linking ecosystems.
