Breaking Waves: Ocean News

02/22/2025 - 02:00
The PM and his ministers are supporting illiberal laws that hard-right authoritarians could apply with zeal If the Trump project implodes, it might take with it the extreme and far-right European parties to which it is umbilically connected. Like all such parties, the hard-right Reform UK poses as patriotic while grovelling to foreign interests, and this could be its undoing. But we cannot bank on it. The UK government must do all it can to prevent the disaster that has befallen several other European nations. If it fails to meet people’s needs and keeps echoing far-right talking points, we could go the same way as Italy, the Netherlands, Hungary, Finland, Sweden and Austria. George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...
02/21/2025 - 17:08
In Buriticupu, about 1,200 people risk losing their homes, and residents have seen the problem escalate in 30 years Authorities in a city in the Brazilian Amazon have declared a state of emergency after huge sinkholes opened up, threatening hundreds of homes. Several buildings in Buriticupu, in Maranhão state, have already been destroyed, and about 1,200 people of a population of 55,000 risk losing their homes into a widening abyss. Continue reading...
02/21/2025 - 12:52
Scientists outline the urgency to better identify the significant damage sand extraction across the world heaps upon marine biodiversity.
02/21/2025 - 09:00
As Ningaloo reef bleaches and an election looms, we must hold to account those who stand in the way of our safety – the small cohort profiting from fossil fuels, and the politicians who protect them Late last spring, I was part of an expedition to Scott Reef, a magnificent coral atoll nearly 300 kilometres off the Kimberley coast. And while it was a privilege to be in such a remote and wonderful place, watching rare and endemic sea life drifting past, the moment I tipped from the boat in my mask and fins, I knew something was wrong. The water was too hot. Not tropical warm, but uncomfortably hot. Continue reading...
02/21/2025 - 09:00
The future of Tasmanian salmon farms has become a political issue centred on whether they can coexist with the endangered Maugean skate Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Anthony Albanese is caught in a pincer movement over a pre-election pledge that he will protect salmon farming in Tasmania’s Macquarie Harbour, with conservationists and industry leaders both urging him to rethink the commitment. The future of salmon farming in the harbour on the state’s west coast has become a sharp political issue centred on whether it can coexist with the endangered Maugean skate, an endemic ray-like species that has survived since the age of the dinosaurs. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading...
02/21/2025 - 09:00
Exclusive: Ged Kearney, Kate Thwaites, Josh Burns, Jerome Laxale, Sally Sitou, Alicia Payne, Josh Wilson and Renee Coffey will get extra door-knocking, phone banking and push ads Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Labor’s grassroots environmental action network is mobilising behind pro-nature MPs it wants in federal parliament to push the party to adopt a more ambitious green agenda. Labor Environment Action Network (LEAN) will support a select group of eight Labor “climate and environmental champions” at the federal election, actively promoting their green credentials to voters and helping with door-knocking and other grassroots campaigning. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading...
02/21/2025 - 09:00
Concerns are mounting that depleting already thinned ranks will only hamper extreme weather response efforts Federal agencies that play crucial roles in administering conservation, recreation and resource development across roughly than 640m acres of the nation’s public lands were thrust into a state of chaos this week after the Trump administration fired thousands of federal workers, leaving key operational gaps in its wake. The agencies are also on the frontline of mitigating the escalating effects from the climate crisis and concerns are mounting that the depletion of already thinned ranks will only hamper efforts to respond and recover from extreme weather events. Continue reading...
02/21/2025 - 07:00
US government stripping funds from domestic and overseas research amid warnings for health and public safety The Trump administration is stripping away support for scientific research in the US and overseas that contains a word it finds particularly inconvenient: “climate.” The US government is withdrawing grants and other support for research that even references the climate crisis, academics have said, amid Donald Trump’s blitzkrieg upon environmental regulations and clean-energy development. Continue reading...
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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