Bear Grylls-inspired vessel helps wardens on Coquet Island care for UK’s only breeding colony of roseate terns
It looks like something James Bond might drive – or, more accurately, Bear Grylls. But rather than enabling secret missions or carrying millionaires, this innovative amphibious boat is helping RSPB wardens look after Britain’s only breeding colony of roseate terns.
The endangered birds nest on Coquet Island off the Northumberland coast each spring but seasonal wardens who manage the tiny island struggle to get on and off it because there is no safe mooring point or harbour at low tide. This means boats can only take people and kit to the island at high tide – often at inconvenient times of day or night – making life for the wardens, who live in the island’s lighthouse, a little complicated.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
04/15/2025 - 05:00
As part of Trump’s administrations ‘efficiency’ drive, staff running decades old program for energy assistance laid off
Robert F Kennedy Jr, the secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), is facing new demands to release almost $400m allocated by Congress to help low-income US families keep the air conditioning on this summer.
The funds are under threat after the staff running a decades old program were fired – as part of the Trump administration’s so-called ‘efficiency’ drive.
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04/15/2025 - 04:40
Dmitry Kalmykov is a Ukrainian scientist who has dedicated his life to investigating environmental disasters, first at Chornobyl and now in Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan - formerly the Soviet Union's primary nuclear weapons testing site. He teaches schoolchildren about how bombs were tested, and how – more than 30 years after the site was decommissioned – the surrounding community is only beginning to comprehend radiation's lasting deadly effects. Against the backdrop of war in Ukraine and the long shadow of a nuclear conflict across the region, Dmitry debates Kazakhstan's nuclear future with its next generation
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04/15/2025 - 01:00
The country’s average temperature has risen by 0.48C a decade from 2000. Last August, photographer Susan Schulman visited Baghdad and Amarah, to capture the impact of extreme weather on everyday lives
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04/15/2025 - 01:00
Britain’s traditional retailers were in decline for years. Then the pandemic changed how we buy food and boosted the fishing industry
The seafood chef and restaurateur Mitch Tonks recalls the moment things for him changed dramatically. It was March 2020, the start of Covid, when a local fishing boat skipper called him in a panic. “Nick was having a tough time; nobody was buying his catch, so I emailed our customer network,” he says.
Tonks asked people to bring cash and containers. The next morning, Nick landed his boat at Brixham, the south Devon port that is England’s largest fish market by value of catch sold. “About 150 people turned up to buy his fish. Many asked ‘why can’t we just buy fish straight off boats like this normally?’”
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04/14/2025 - 21:00
European State of the Climate report ‘lays bare’ impact of fossil fuels on continent during its hottest 12 months on record
The home-wrecking storms and floods that swept Europe last year affected 413,000 people, a report has found, as fossil fuel pollution forced the continent to suffer through its hottest year on record.
Dramatic scenes of cars piled up on inundated streets and bridges being ripped away by raging torrents were seen around the continent in 2024, with “high” floods on 30% of the European river network and 12% crossing the “severe” flood threshold, according to the European State of the Climate report.
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04/14/2025 - 14:00
Hotter seas supercharge storms and destroy critical ecosystems such as kelp forests and coral reefs
The climate crisis has tripled the length of ocean heatwaves, a study has found, supercharging deadly storms and destroying critical ecosystems such as kelp forests and coral reefs.
Half of the marine heatwaves since 2000 would not have happened without global heating, which is caused by burning fossil fuels. The heatwaves have not only become more frequent but also more intense: 1C warmer on average, but much hotter in some places, the scientists said.
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04/14/2025 - 10:00
Exclusive: Brad Battin says he had a conversation with the federal opposition leader about the ‘language’ he would use about plans to build a nuclear reactor in eastern Victoria
Victoria’s Liberal leader is counting the days to the election. But will ‘brand Brad’ pass the pub test?
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The Victorian opposition leader says he discussed the language he would use to distance the state party from the federal Coalition’s campaign to build a nuclear reactor in the Latrobe Valley, telling Peter Dutton “it’s your campaign”.
The Loy Yang coal-fired power station in the Latrobe Valley east of Melbourne is one of seven proposed sites for the federal Coalition’s proposal to build nuclear reactors, the centrepiece energy policy the federal Liberal leader will be taking to the 3 May poll.
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04/14/2025 - 10:00
Australian Conservation Foundation says opposition has ‘failed every single test’ while Labor passes with 54% and Greens achieve 98%
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One of Australia’s largest conservation organisations has awarded the federal Coalition just 1 out of 100 for its environment and climate change policies – the lowest score it has given the Liberal and National parties in more than 20 years of compiling pre-election scorecards.
Labor scraped through with a pass – on 54% – while the Greens achieved 98%, according to the scorecard, which ranked the major parties and key independents on their policies for protecting nature, championing renewable energy, and rejecting nuclear and fossil fuels.
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04/14/2025 - 09:27
Unite leader says ‘partial deal on pay protection for a few’ was overwhelmingly rejected in vote, as rubbish piles up
Bin workers have “overwhelmingly” rejected a deal that would have ended the all-out strike in Birmingham that has caused bin bags to pile up in the streets and an influx of rats in the city.
Negotiations between the council and Unite, which is representing the striking workers, have stalled for months, and refuse workers have been on indefinite strike since 11 March.
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