At least one of the marine mammals was recently spotted in Washington wearing the multipurpose fishy accessory
Researchers suspect that orcas may be reviving a peculiar fashion statement of sorts not seen since the 1980s.
Scientists in Washington state have observed at least one orca balancing salmon on its head, a trend known as the “dead salmon hat”. They spotted the stylish killer whale this autumn in Puget Sound.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
12/02/2024 - 13:27
12/02/2024 - 11:46
New GCSE was announced under previous government in 2022 but now ‘sitting in limbo’, says Mary Colwell, one of its architects
The natural history GCSE has been shelved because it is “seen as a Conservative party initiative”, one of the architects of the proposed new qualification has said.
The conservationist and campaigner Mary Colwell told the Guardian she was “hugely frustrated” with the halt to the proposed new GCSE, which had been announced in 2022 and was supposed to be taught in schools by 2025.
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12/02/2024 - 09:31
Paul Watson, an early Greenpeace member, says his imprisonment in Greenland is a ‘political case’
The anti-whaling activist Paul Watson will learn within 14 days whether he will be extradited to Japan, a court has been told, as his four-month imprisonment in Greenland was extended.
At a hearing in Nuuk, the capital of the autonomous territory of Denmark, the judge Lars-Christian Sinkbæk said that Watson, who turned 74 on Monday, would continue to be detained in a high security prison pending a decision from the Danish government. Watson’s legal team immediately submitted an appeal to Greenland’s high court.
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12/02/2024 - 09:00
Organisation asked supporters if they ‘want to feel different on our election night’ in an ad with half of Trump’s face and half of Dutton’s
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Climate 200 has reported a surge in first-time donors in November off the back of a donation-matching campaign comparing the Coalition and opposition leader Peter Dutton to the politics of Donald Trump.
The funding aggregator claims to have raised $377,000 from 3,900 donations including 1,373 people who donated to it for the first time, the biggest wave of first-time supporters since it was launched in 2021.
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12/02/2024 - 09:00
Readers are led to believe a short-on-facts advertorial exhorting government to let companies extract more gas is straight news coverage
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The big news on Monday morning was that the story splashed across the front of News Corp’s biggest-selling tabloid newspapers wasn’t news at all. It was an advertorial paid for by a fossil fuel industry. Not that readers glancing at page one of the Daily Telegraph, Herald Sun, Courier-Mail or Adelaide Advertiser were let in on this secret.
Instead, they were sold a lie – that the story was straight news coverage, in some cases described as an “exclusive” or a “special report”, on how (in the words of the Courier-Mail) Australia must “step on the gas” as it was the “only way to avoid higher bills, blackouts”.
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12/02/2024 - 09:00
Researchers at ANU found no real difference between the climate opinions of regional and urban Australians. Remember that as we head into the next federal election, with renewable energy on the front line
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I have many heritages: Chinese, Irish, Anglo and Japanese among them. I am a journalist. I grew up in the city but have lived in the country for 30 years. How should I define my identity?
Rural life has colonised my writing life. But I would hazard a guess I am not fully accepted as rural in many circles. I am certainly not the mythical bush person of legend.
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12/02/2024 - 07:35
Small Socialist Left party threatens to block budget if government becomes first to issue licences for deep-sea exploration
The Norwegian government has paused its plans to mine the deep sea in the Arctic, after pressure from a small leftwing party.
The agreement was reached after the Socialist Left (SV) party said it would not support the government’s budget unless it halted the first round of licences for deep-sea mining exploration, planned for the first half of 2025.
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12/02/2024 - 07:00
With Biden soon to leave the White House, Republicans start an assault on the Environmental Protection Agency
Donald Trump’s allies have fired the opening salvoes of his coming administration’s attack on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the federal agency that enforces and regulates laws on air, soil, and water quality among other crucial environmental and health issues.
In a letter from Republican House leadership to the EPA administrator Michael Regan, Republicans trained their sites on the agency’s scientific integrity policies that are designed to insulate scientists and research from political interference.
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12/02/2024 - 06:59
Vanuatu envoy makes claim as landmark hearing gets under way at international court of justice in The Hague
A handful of countries should be held legally responsible for the ongoing impacts of climate change, representatives of vulnerable nations have told judges at the international court of justice (ICJ).
During a landmark hearing at the Peace Palace in The Hague, which began on Monday, Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu’s special envoy for climate change and environment, said responsibility for the climate crisis lay squarely with “a handful of readily identifiable states” that had produced the vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions but stood to lose the least from the impacts.
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12/02/2024 - 05:33
Group of 85 countries and blocs press for ambition in plastic waste treaty after no agreement was reached in Busan
Binding global targets to cut plastic production must be at the centre of any continuing negotiations to secure the world’s first treaty to tackle plastic waste, a group of 85 countries has said.
Talks in Busan, South Korea, attempting to secure agreement between more than 200 countries on the details of a plastic pollution treaty ended in failure over the weekend.
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