Scientists outline the urgency to better identify the significant damage sand extraction across the world heaps upon marine biodiversity.
Breaking Waves: Ocean News
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.
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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
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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02/21/2025 - 06:02
Expert recommendations will influence plans for energy, housing, transport industry and farming for decades
Labour will next week be confronted with stark policy choices that threaten to expose the fault lines between the Treasury and the government’s green ambitions, as advice for the UK’s next carbon budget is published.
Plans for the energy sector, housing, transport, industry and farming will all be called into question in a sweeping set of recommendations for how the UK can meet the legally binding target of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
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02/21/2025 - 06:00
Tall buildings fare poorly in derechos, say experts, raising questions over their resilience as climate crisis worsens
Skyscrapers built to withstand major hurricanes fare much more poorly in less powerful windstorms known as derechos, researchers have found, raising questions for cities worldwide over the resilience of tall buildings as the climate emergency worsens.
A team from Florida International University’s (FIU) civil and environmental engineering department studied the unexpectedly severe damage caused to buildings in Houston, a city with 50 skyscrapers of 492ft (150 metres) or more, during the 16 May 2024 derecho.
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02/21/2025 - 04:40
Net zero policies would result in fewer deaths saving UK billions, say researchers
Countries that weaken or stop their net zero and climate actions may be consigning their populations to decades of preventable illness.
Gains from net zero are often presented as global benefits and mainly for future generations. But less fossil fuel use also means less air pollution which results in local health gains right away.
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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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