Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Some of the everyday struggles animating voters have a climate link lurking in the background Sign up to The Stakes newsletter: your weekly guide to the US midterms When Florida governor Ron DeSantis signed a law erasing the words “climate change” from state statutes in May 2024 – colloquially known as the “don’t say climate change” law – Democrats were outraged. Just six months later, many liberal politicians began to go quiet on the issue themselves. After Donald Trump won the 2024 election, mentions of the climate crisis started to disappear from Democrats’ rhetoric. As the 2026 midterms approach, that retreat is still shaping how some candidates talk about climate on the campaign trail. The trend, known as “climate-hushing”, may reflect the limitations of Joe Biden’s climate policies, said Daniel Aldana Cohen, assistant sociology professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who studies climate politics and inequality. Green jobs and housing investments fell short of the climate movement’s desires, consumer incentives disproportionately benefited wealthier households, and Democrats struggled to effectively communicate their accomplishments. The president has since rolled back many Biden-era clean energy incentives and regulations. Continue reading...

There are several answers, and none of them will be provided by tech. One thing we must do is identify the ingredients for human flourishing Imagining the future as almost entirely bleak has somehow crept into the collective consciousness this year. Last week I was having coffee with an old friend. He was telling me about what his kids wanted to study when they went to university, when he suddenly broke off, stared into the middle distance and said, “I wish I’d never had children.” Brigid Delaney is the author of five books, including The Seeker and the Sage Continue reading...

Thirty years after a US ornithologist first sighted a jocotoco antpitta, the foundation he set up to restore biodiversity is a model for conservation globally I have to confess that I rarely enjoy birding in montane cloud forests. The birds that live in these mountainous, cool and humid habitats are masters of disguise, usually passing themselves off as a leaf or other form of foliage. But if I want to see antpittas – elusive, ground-dwelling birds that rarely show themselves – then I have no choice. So, on a cool, cloudy morning my guide, Juan Carlos Crespo, Fredy Ramón Castillo, a local ranger, and I are standing on a steep, muddy path close to Tapichalaca Lodge, 2,500 metres above sea level in the eastern Andes, waiting for the jocotoco antpitta to emerge from the undergrowth. Continue reading...

South Australian authorities say case discovered on Kangaroo Island is first for species of which less than 12,000 animals remain Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast South Australia has recorded the first death of an endangered Australian sea lion from H5 bird flu. Experts say about 12,000 Australian sea lions remain – though a more recent estimate put the figure at less than 10,000. Most of the population are found in South Australia, with the remainder in Western Australia. Continue reading...