Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Fishy business: who really profits when sardines go viral? - video

admin — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 10:00:46 +0000

Once a cheap store-cupboard staple, sardines are fast becoming a luxury food item. Last year, #SardineGirlSummer saw influencers promoting the health benefits of sardinemaxxing, while sardinecore became the must-have fashion trend. Now, demand is accelerating just as Morocco’s sardine stock has collapsed, causing shortages on supermarket shelves. The Guardian travels to Matosinhos in Portugal, the cultural home of the sardine industry, to investigate who is profiting from the boom, how it has affected local fishermen, and what sustainability looks like in an era of global heating

US building twice as much gas-fired capacity as China in AI boom, analysis finds

admin — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 10:00:34 +0000

There has been a 76% increase in under-construction gas-fired projects amid ‘frenzy’ to build more datacenters

The US has surged ahead of China in the building of new gas-fired power generation, largely to feed a boom in artificial intelligence (AI) that is adding vast amounts of planet-heating emissions, a new analysis has found.

‘Environmental violence’: inside the fight to save indigenous land from becoming a nuclear dumping ground

admin — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 09:00:53 +0000

New documentary To Use a Mountain spotlights the pain and triumph of resisting government efforts to turn parts of rural US into disposal sites

From Scotland, I look at England’s water privatisation disaster. I wish you had done what we did | Devi Sridhar

admin — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 09:00:53 +0000

Listening to debate, you’d think bringing English water companies into public ownership was a radical socialist idea. Here, we call it common sense

Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh

‘Small changes can make a big difference’: how getting farmers, fishers and beavers together could save a Cornish river

admin — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 08:17:21 +0000

A local initiative is testing simple ways to stop algal blooms in the River Fal threatening some of England’s most biodiverse marine habitats

On a rocky beach in Cornwall, a group of wetsuit-clad freedivers and snorkellers are wading into the shallows. Below St Mawes Castle, built by Henry VIII to defend Falmouth harbour, they disappear in a swish of florescent pink and green fins.

They are volunteers, trained by the Cornwall Wildlife Trust to use underwater cameras and floating GPS devices to detect changes in marine habitats over time.

The war on ‘loudcasting’ phones can be won, but it will take some very British nudging | Dan Hancox

admin — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 07:00:51 +0000

Although mobiles blared in public are nothing new, this crop of headphone-dodging irritants are truly maddening. It’s time to take them on

‘Interesting cities can’t be quiet”, runs one of grime DJ and music industry thinker Elijah’s epigrams – and in its essential spirit, he is right. Silent, tidy, prim cities should be treated with suspicion. Any such atmosphere denotes that something has gone wrong at a macro level: either you’ve wound up in an authoritarian regime or, worse, Switzerland.

Going with the grain: how restoring biodiversity led one farmer back to heritage wheat

admin — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 07:00:50 +0000

Henry Astor looked back to his grandfather’s time for the inspiration to find older varieties that could help nature on his Cotswold farm

It is the earliest harvest Henry Astor can remember. But walking through the scorched wheatfields of his Cotswolds farm, signs of life are everywhere – swarms of insects, kaleidoscopic wildflower meadows, bushy hedgerows several metres wide. A yellowhammer perches on a nearby tree.

Climate damage would obliterate any economic benefits of new North Sea fields, analysis shows

admin — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 05:00:48 +0000

Exclusive: Economic harm of CO2 pollution from Rosebank and Jackdaw forecast to far outweigh any boost to UK

The climate damage caused by developing the Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields under consideration by the UK government would destroy their economic benefits many times over, according to an analysis.

It estimates the economic damage caused by the carbon pollution from the oil and gas produced would be between £119bn and £336bn in the coming decades, compared with the £28.7bn in value to the UK estimated by Adura, the fossil fuel company promoting the new fields.

Heatwave health risks threaten insurer earnings, rating agency S&P warns

admin — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 04:00:48 +0000

Rise in claims linked to heat-related deaths and illness, especially among older people, could drive up premiums

Europe’s intense heatwaves could hit insurers’ earnings as companies face a rise in claims linked to heat-related deaths and worsening health conditions, the rating agency S&P has said.

At least 35,000 excess deaths recorded in Europe’s back-to-back heatwaves

admin — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 04:00:47 +0000

True figure likely to be much higher as it only covers about half of continent and does not include August totals

At least 35,000 more people died during Europe’s four record-breaking, back-to-back heatwaves this summer than would normally be expected, according to incomplete figures from barely half the continent.

Excess mortality in three of the EU’s larger countries – Germany, France and Spain – alone has already exceeded 25,000, according to the provisional national figures, and experts say the toll will rise significantly once August totals are consolidated.