The potential layoffs listed in documents reviewed by Democrats are part of the White House'’s broader push to shrink the federal government
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) plans to eliminate its scientific research office and could fire more than 1,000 scientists and other employees who help provide the scientific foundation for rules safeguarding human health and ecosystems from environmental pollutants.
As many as 1,155 chemists, biologists, toxicologists and other scientists – 75% of the research programme’s staff – could be laid off, according to documents reviewed by Democratic staff on the house committee on science, space and technology.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
03/18/2025 - 20:45
03/18/2025 - 19:01
Thinktank’s warning follow reports that Labour is considering cuts to budget of company it set up to drive renewable power
The government risks “disappointing voters” hoping for cheaper energy bills in the next decade if it cuts the £8.3bn budget for GB Energy, a thinktank has warned.
Researchers at the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) found that the publicly owned energy company – set up by Labour to drive renewable energy and cut household bills – will need to be fully funded if it hopes to build enough clean energy projects to meet 5% of the country’s electricity needs by the 2030s.
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03/18/2025 - 19:01
Floods, heatwaves and supercharged hurricanes occurred in hottest climate human society has ever experienced
The devastating impacts of the climate crisis reached new heights in 2024, with scores of unprecedented heatwaves, floods and storms across the globe, according to the UN’s World Meteorological Organization.
The WMO’s report on 2024, the hottest year on record, sets out a trail of destruction from extreme weather that took lives, demolished buildings and ravaged vital crops. More than 800,000 people were displaced and made homeless, the highest yearly number since records began in 2008.
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03/18/2025 - 19:00
The Orbital and Morningside authors join Abi Daré, Roz Dineen and Kaliane Bradley in the running for the £10,000 award, for inspiring ways to ‘rise to the challenges of the climate crisis with hope and inventiveness’
Samantha Harvey and Téa Obreht are among the writers in the running for the inaugural Climate fiction prize.
Harvey’s Orbital, her Booker-winning novel set on the International Space Station, and Obreht’s novel The Morningside, about refugees from an unnamed country, have both been shortlisted for the new prize, which aims to “celebrate the most inspiring novels tackling the climate crisis”.
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03/18/2025 - 15:26
New White House fact sheet has removed references to Chuckwalla and Sáttítla national monuments
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The White House is fueling speculation over plans to eliminate two large national monuments in California established by former president Joe Biden.
Less than a week before leaving office, Biden designated the 624,000-acre (250,000-hectare) Chuckwalla national monument in southern California and the 224,000-acre Sáttítla Highlands national monument in northern California. Native American tribes consider these lands sacred and had urged Biden to protect them from drilling, mining, clean-energy development and other industrial activity.
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03/18/2025 - 12:18
Brown bear charged at André Rives in the Pyrenees and dragged him several metres before he shot and killed it
An 81-year-old French hunter has gone on trial accused of killing an endangered bear that attacked him in the Pyrenees.
The brown bear is a protected species in the mountain range, which separates France and Spain.
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03/18/2025 - 11:35
Meteorologist Eric Holthaus on growing concern of dust storms and why recent storms were a preview of future
Over the weekend, more than 120 tornadoes rampaged across at least 11 states in a three-day severe weather outbreak that killed more than 40 people. In addition to the tornadoes, the storm system brought extremely strong winds to drought-stricken parts of the plains states, kicking up dust storms and wildfires from Texas to Kansas. The combined impact has now become one of the deadliest non-hurricane weather disasters in decades in the US.
At the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (Noaa) Storm Prediction Center – the nerve center of severe weather forecasting in the US – scientists worked around the clock for days to anticipate the storms and give ample warning to those in their path. The center now has five staff vacancies, including two of its three senior roles in fire forecasting. Still, overworked meteorologists there passed one of the biggest tests yet of the newly diminished National Weather Service.
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03/18/2025 - 09:59
The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world
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03/18/2025 - 09:00
Advocates warn firings and funding freezes already risk poisoning drinking water and decimating fish population
Donald Trump’s and Elon Musk’s attacks on federal agencies and funding freezes will be “cataclysmic” for the environment of the sensitive Great Lakes region if not reversed, industry and environmental advocates in the region warn.
Initial actions taken since Trump returned to the White House in January – and put Musk in charge of slashing the federal government – already risk poisoning drinking water, decimating fish populations, and risking the jobs and health of tens of millions of people who rely on the lake system, they add.
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03/18/2025 - 07:00
Some of the caves I dive in are hundreds of thousands of years old and the marine life is unique. But they can be very dangerous places
Cave diving is like swimming through the history of the planet. There are remains of both humans and animals but also stalactites and stalagmites. These cannot form when the cave is flooded, so you can see when parts of it were submerged and when it was dry.
Yet when I’m in a cave, time does not tick. There is no natural light, so the cave looks the same, whether it’s midday or midnight. If you cave dive without the right training, equipment and mindset, it can be a very dangerous place. I have a very meditative focus when I’m down there. I live in the now. I cannot think about anything else but what is happening in the cave. I find that very soothing and relaxing.
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