Chris Armstrong ; Antje Scharenberg Treasure trove or rubbish dump? In either case, oceans are being spoiled. Concepts from ‘mare liberum’ to ‘common heritage’ don’t safeguard the blue planet’s largest frontier from escalated seabed mining, industrialised fishing and waste disposal, nor global inequality and racialized violence. Could a democratic World Ocean Authority be the answer?… Read More Ocean justice
Ocean temperatures have hit record highs this year, growing so hot in some places that taking a dip in the sea feels like stepping into a hot tub. For kelp farmers, who grow an underwater crop with a life cycle highly dependent on temperature, that spells trouble for their harvests – and their nascent industry’s future. “Over the… Read More Can kelp survive rising marine heat?
The transfer of more than 1 million barrels of oil from an ageing tanker moored off the coast of war-torn Yemen has been completed, avoiding an environmental disaster, the UN has said. In a statement on Friday, Farhan Haq, the deputy spokesperson for UN secretary general António Guterres, said the operation had prevented a “monumental environmental and… Read More Yemen: UN removes 1m barrels of oil from tanker to avert environmental catastrophe
Amid news of lethal heatwaves across the Northern Hemisphere comes the daunting prospect of a climate disaster on an altogether grander scale. Robert Marsh New findings published in Nature Communications suggest the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, or Amoc, could collapse within the next few decades – maybe even within the next few years – driving European weather… Read More The Atlantic is at risk of circulation collapse – it would mean even greater climate chaos
Luke Taylor in Providence The first thing that strikes visitors arriving on Old Providence is the island’s deep serenity. There are no cars and little noise except for the reggae playing at beach bars. Unlike most of Colombia’s tourist hotspots, there are no hawkers either; visitors are left to laze on the powdery white sands of… Read More A tiny island fears for its way of life
Tasmania was the site of some of the most brutal conflicts in the country. The British arrived in 1803, setting up a penal colony on the island and decimating the palawa population through disease, dispossession and violence. The colonisers forced the remaining Tasmanian Aboriginals onto missions, where most died, and rounded others up onto a… Read More The hike making Australia a better place
Adam Tooze ‘Vautour II’ flying in the cloud of the ‘Canopus’ nuclear explosion, the first explosion of a French thermonuclear bomb, over the lagoon of the Fangataufa atoll in French Polynesia in 1968. The Vautour II was taking samples of material from the cloud. Source: Marlène Aviation https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/russia-under-sanctions-the-foreign?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email Nuclear Testing in the Marshall Islands: A… Read More Mushroom cloud over Fangataufa atoll, French Polynesia, 1968
Olivier Bancoult US military personnel live in my birthplace, the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, but I am not allowed to. Since I was four years old, my people, the Chagossians, have lived in impoverished exile, while the US military has been enjoying the fruits of my homeland. The plight of my people has… Read More The US and UK stole our homes. 50 years on, we’re still being denied justice
Pascal Soriot The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report is a grim, yet unsurprising, reminder of the catastrophic effect global heating is having on our planet. The message from leading climate scientists is clear: action is needed now. Not tomorrow, not next year, not by the end of the decade. Even drastic carbon reduction today… Read More Climate emergency is the biggest health crisis of our time: bigger than Covid
By Jonathan Amos Scientists have filmed a fish swimming at an extraordinary depth in the ocean, making it the deepest observation of this nature that has ever been made. The species – a type of snailfish of the genus Pseudoliparis – was filmed swimming at 8,336m (27,349ft). It was filmed by an autonomous “lander” dropped into the… Read More Deepest ever fish caught on camera off Japan
