The condition of the state’s system was already precarious when the US president ordered billions of gallons be let out
First, there was Donald Trump’s executive order to release billions of gallons of water from two reservoirs in California’s Central valley, a move the feds walked back after farmers and water experts decried it as wasteful, ill-conceived – and an unnecessary risk factor for levees in the region.
The mandate, said Nicholas Pinter, a professor of applied geoscience at the University of California at Davis who studies California’s levees, amounted to “hydrologic insanity”.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
02/20/2025 - 07:00
Experts warn victory for Energy Transfer, whose CEO is a Trump donor, could have a ‘chilling’ effect on free speech
A fossil fuel company’s $300m lawsuit against Greenpeace opens in rural North Dakota on Monday, in a case that has been widely condemned by constitutional rights experts as baseless, bad faith litigation that threatens free speech.
Energy Transfer Partners, a Dallas-based oil and gas company worth almost $70bn, accuses Greenpeace of defamation and orchestrating criminal behavior by protesters at the Dakota Access pipeline (Dapl).
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02/20/2025 - 04:00
In Grimsby, locals have created a society focused on the environmental and health benefits more trees provide, planting thousands in schools, parks and hedgerows
Billy Dasein was born on Rutland Street, Grimsby, in the front room of the house where he still lives. His father was a fitter, and his mother a housewife who also worked in the Tickler’s jam factory. He left school at 16 and wound up working at Courtauld’s synthetic textiles factory.
Rows of terrace houses, constructed for workers in the booming fish industry, are set out in a grid structure by the docks. Life was similar on all these streets: doors left unlocked, kids out playing. Everyone knew everyone.
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02/20/2025 - 00:00
Greenpeace argues European-backed projects hamper countries’ ability to decarbonise their own economies
European countries are extracting renewable energy from Morocco and Egypt to “greenwash” their own economies, while leaving north Africans reliant on dirty imported fuels and paying the environmental costs, a Greenpeace report says.
Both Morocco and Egypt are aiming to leverage their strategic locations south of the Mediterranean, and their solar and wind power potential, to position themselves as pivotal to Europe’s quest to diversify its energy supply.
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02/19/2025 - 17:04
Groups from Sierra Club to Greenpeace take aim at Trump’s drilling orders in term’s first environmental legal battles
Green advocacy groups filed two lawsuits against the Trump administration on Wednesday, marking the first environmental legal challenges against the president’s second administration.
Both focus on the Trump administration’s moves to open up more of US waters to oil and gas drilling, which the plaintiffs say are illegal.
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02/19/2025 - 13:37
Experts raise fears for England’s largest colony at Blakeney Point as they conduct tests to identify source of infection
Experts have raised fears for the seals at England’s largest colony after four were found to have died after having been infected with bird flu.
Government scientists are investigating to find out whether the seals died after scavenging from the corpses of infected birds.
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02/19/2025 - 13:36
Activists warn new designation for projects such as pipelines threatens US wetlands and waters
Environmentalists were outraged on Wednesday after the Trump administration moved to fast-track fossil fuel projects through the permitting process, with activists describing it as an attempt to sidestep environmental laws that could harm waterways and wetlands.
In recent days, the US Army Corps of Engineers created a new designation of “emergency” permits for infrastructure projects, citing a day one executive order signed by Donald Trump which claims the US is facing an “energy emergency” and must “unleash” already booming energy production.
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02/19/2025 - 13:06
Site in Cumbria can now return to routine inspections but concerns remain over cybersecurity
The UK nuclear industry regulator has taken Sellafield, the world’s largest store of plutonium, out of special measures for its physical security – but said concerns remained over its cybersecurity.
Guarding arrangements at the vast nuclear waste dump in Cumbria have improved enough to allow for routine inspections from the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR), rather than requiring “enhanced regulatory oversight”.
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02/19/2025 - 12:24
Decades-long research shows world’s glaciers collectively lost 6.542tn tonnes of ice between 2000 and 2023
Melting glaciers have caused almost 2cm of sea level rise this century alone, a decades-long study has revealed.
The research shows the world’s glaciers collectively lost 6.542tn tonnes of ice between 2000 and 2023, causing an 18mm (0.7in) rise in global sea levels.
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02/19/2025 - 12:12
Humanity can farm more food from the seas to help feed the planet while shrinking mariculture's negative impacts on biodiversity, according to new research.
