In first-of-its-kind complaint, state accused four fossil fuel majors and US oil lobbying group of climate disinformation
Amid rising concern about global heating and soaring energy costs, Michigan has sued big oil for allegedly fueling both crises – a move experts have hailed as groundbreaking.
In a first-of-its-kind complaint, the state’s attorney general, Dana Nessel, accused four fossil fuel majors and the top US oil lobbying group last month of acting as a “cartel” to stifle the growth of renewable energy and electric vehicles (EVs), while suppressing information about the dangers of the climate crisis. The conduct, the lawsuit alleged, violates federal and state antitrust laws.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
02/05/2026 - 08:00
02/05/2026 - 06:00
Charity praises effort to stop Ramsgate’s Pie Factory Music closing but calls for more youth services in coastal towns
The last remaining youth centre in one of England’s most deprived coastal places has been saved from being sold after a long campaign by the charity that has for 13 years called it home.
In November the Guardian revealed how the centre in Ramsgate on the Kent coast was facing being auctioned off by Kent county council, despite an independent report that estimated the centre was saving the council more than £500,000 a year in costs, including for services in mental health, youth justice and social care.
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02/05/2026 - 04:13
Shas Sheehan challenges refusal to remove 25,000 tonnes of waste causing ‘grave environmental hazard’ near school
A 25,000-tonne illegal waste dump next to a primary school in Wigan presents “a grave environmental hazard” and should be cleared, the chair of the Lords environment committee has told the government.
Shas Sheehan challenged the refusal of the Environment Agency to clean up an illegal waste dump in Bolton House Road in the Greater Manchester town, given the agency was spending millions clearing up illegal waste deposited in Kidlington, Oxfordshire.
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02/05/2026 - 00:00
On a recent trip to Lake Geneva in Switzerland, biodiversity reporter Phoebe Weston witnessed the impact of one of the planet’s most potent invasive species, the quagga mussel. In just a decade the mollusc, originally from the Ponto-Caspian region of the Black Sea, has caused irreversible change beneath the surface of the picturesque lake. While ecologists believe invasive species play a major role in more than 60% of plant and animal extinctions, stopping them in their tracks is almost impossible. Phoebe tells Madeleine Finlay how invasive species spread, how conservationists are trying combat them and why some think a radical new approach is needed.
‘It’s an open invasion’: how millions of quagga mussels changed Lake Geneva for ever
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02/04/2026 - 19:01
States and financial bodies using modelling that ignores shocks from extreme weather and climate tipping points
Flawed economic models mean the accelerating impact of the climate crisis could lead to a global financial crash, experts warn.
Recovery would be far harder than after the 2008 financial crash, they said, as “we can’t bail out the Earth like we did the banks”.
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02/04/2026 - 19:01
Industry bigger than all but seven world economies, and accounts for more than third of China’s economic growth
China’s clean energy industries drove more than 90% of the country’s investment growth last year, making the sectors bigger than all but seven of the world’s economies, a new analysis has shown.
For the second time in three years, the report showed the manufacture, installation and export of batteries, electric cars, solar, wind and related technologies accounted for more than a third of China’s economic growth.
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02/04/2026 - 09:02
Company publicly denied allegations that primary forests were being cut down to fuel UK’s biggest power plant
Senior executives at Drax raised concerns internally about the validity of the energy company’s sustainability claims while it publicly denied allegations that it was cutting down environmentally important forests for fuel, court documents have revealed.
Britain’s biggest power plant assured ministers and civil servants of the company’s green credentials as it scrambled to defend itself against claims in a BBC Panorama documentary that it had burned wood sourced from “old-growth” forests in Canada.
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02/04/2026 - 09:00
Only 180 bats survived intense heat in South Australian town, including 34 babies that carers say face months of recovery
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A colony of about 1,000 flying foxes in a South Australian town has been shattered by the intense heat that gripped south-eastern Australia last week, with more than 80% of the camp at Naracoorte wiped out.
“It’s a devastating loss of numbers,” said Judith Bemmer, a carer at Bat Rescue SA. Among the surviving 180 animals, about 34 underweight and dehydrated babies were rescued, and would face months of recovery.
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02/04/2026 - 07:30
Dismantling rules will make children vulnerable to chronic diseases ‘make America healthy again’ wants to eradicate
Donald Trump’s aggressive rollback of environmental protections directly contradicts the promises of his “make America healthy again” campaign, according to new research.
Helmed by Robert F Kennedy Jr, Trump’s health and human services department has touted pledges to “transform our nation’s food, fitness, air, water, soil and medicine” and “reverse the childhood chronic disease crisis”. But the president’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is pushing the country in the opposite direction, says the new report from the liberal research and advocacy non-profit Center for American Progress (CAP).
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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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