The failure of UN talks in Geneva should anger us all. The increasing threat to our health, our environments and wildlife must be addressed.
By ensuring the collapse of UN talks seeking the first legally binding agreement on tackling plastic pollution, blockers in Geneva have failed the next generation. Most states are willing, even determined, to act. But the US joined petrostates obstructing action. Their children too will live to regret that.
To say that plastics are part of our lives from cradle to grave is an understatement: microplastics have been found in placentas, as well as blood and breast milk. While we can’t yet be certain of the full impact of the substances, we know that many have been linked to health effects and that foetuses, infants and young children are highly vulnerable. Microplastics have been shown to damage human cells in laboratory experiments, and a review published this month documented how exposure is associated with increased risks of miscarriage, stillbirth, birth defects, impaired lung growth, childhood cancer and fertility problems as an adult.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
08/15/2025 - 11:05
08/15/2025 - 11:04
Consumers are drinking less red wine than ever. Producers need to revive the fresher and lighter vintages that their medieval ancestors once harvested
These are always anxious weeks in the Bordeaux vineyards, where 15% of France’s wine is grown, including in celebrated places like Chateau Latour and Chateau Mouton-Rothschild. In earlier years, this ritual anxiety among the region’s winegrowers had a pleasingly folkloric quality. In the middle of August, the grapes would ripen and their colour start to turn. About 45 days from now, tradition dictates, it will be time to start picking the 2025 vintage. As the wine writer Edmund Penning-Rowsell put it: “To pick or not to pick is the most momentous decision in the winemaking year in Bordeaux.”
This once timeless rhythm is now collapsing. Part of the problem is the climate crisis. Bordeaux still benefits from its moderate Atlantic climate. But south-west France is getting much hotter and drier. Even in the Gironde region, maximum temperatures have been close to 40C at times this past week. Adaptation, in the form of hardier grapes and greater crop diversity, feels unavoidable.
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08/15/2025 - 10:57
Hurricane is predicted pick up steam toward Florida before veering away from the US mainland
A tropical storm sped up to become Hurricane Erin mid-morning on Friday, as it approached Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, bringing heavy rains that could cause flooding and landslides on its way to becoming a major Atlantic hurricane.
The huge storm was swirling across the Caribbean and is ultimately expected to head towards Florida, picking up speed over warm ocean water, before ultimately veering away from the US mainland.
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08/15/2025 - 08:00
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act includes billions of dollars in giveaways to fossil fuel companies and their executives
The Republican lawmakers who voted for Donald Trump’s anti-environment tax and spending bill have accepted more than $105m in political donations from the fossil fuel industry, a new analysis has found, raising concerns about their relationship with big oil.
Signed into law last month, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act includes billions of dollars in giveaways to oil and gas companies and their executives, alongside provisions to scale back credits for clean vehicles, wind and solar which were enshrined by Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
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08/15/2025 - 07:00
Findings help decipher mechanisms through which ‘forever chemicals’ cause disease, aiding in treating health problems
New research suggests exposure to some common Pfas or “forever chemical” compounds causes changes to gene activity, and those changes are linked to health problems including multiple cancers, neurological disorders and autoimmune disease.
The findings are a major step toward determining the mechanism by which the chemicals cause disease and could help doctors identify, detect and treat health problems for those exposed to Pfas before the issues advance. The research may also point toward other diseases potentially caused by Pfas that have not yet been identified, the authors said.
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08/15/2025 - 05:14
Scientists in Svalbard in race to study polar microbes as global heating threatens fragile glacial ecosystems
“It felt really scary … like being in the middle of a burning city during a night raid.” Dr Arwyn Edwards is not describing urban warfare but a recent hot and foggy day on a Svalbard glacier, where record-breaking summer heat turned his workplace into a cascade of meltwater and falling rocks.
Edwards is a leading researcher in glacier ecology – the study of life forms that live on, within and around glaciers and ice sheets. Over two decades of polar research, he has always felt “relaxed and at home” on ice. But the accelerating climate breakdown is beginning to erode that sense of security.
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08/15/2025 - 01:55
NGOs say deadlock over legally binding deal to curb production and toxic chemicals is ‘blow to multilateralism’
Global talks to reach agreement on a treaty aimed at ending the growing scourge of plastic pollution have collapsed, with no deal agreed and no clear path forward.
Countries worked beyond Thursday’s deadline into the night and Friday morning, but remained deadlocked on the issue that has dogged talks since they were launched, amid fervent optimism, in 2022: whether to reduce exponential growth of plastic production and place global, legally binding controls on toxic chemicals used to make plastics.
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08/15/2025 - 00:00
Healthy fungal networks help trees and plants grow, making them key to successful reforestation. The only problem? Almost nothing is known about this subterranean ecology
Even in midsummer, the ancient hazelwoods on the Hebridean island of Seil are cool and quiet. Countless slanted stems of hazel support a thick canopy, which blots out the sun and blankets everything below in a sort of “fairytale darkness”, says Bethan Manley, a biologist at the Wellcome Sanger Institute.
Moss and lichen coat branches threaded with honeysuckle, forming a great dome above you, adds David Satori, a researcher at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
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08/15/2025 - 00:00
Tiébélé’s wavy-walled houses covered in geometric lines showing signs of disintegration amid erratic weather
A world heritage site that was once a famous tourist destination is suffering from signs of disintegration, as climate change affects weather patterns.
The wavy-walled houses covered with singular geometric lines of the Royal Court of Tiébélé in Burkina Faso, established in the 16th century, are recognisable all over the world. The paintings represent the thoughts, culture, and religion of the Kassena people, literally written on the walls.
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08/14/2025 - 19:37
There is no chance of Australia becoming more economic resilient if we don’t have robust national laws that set clear environmental standards
One Big Idea is a new series on how to transform Australia’s economy ahead of Jim Chalmers’ economic roundtable
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We must reform Australia’s broken national environment laws, as they have failed to protect the environment. Projects critical to our future prosperity are bogged down in slow, opaque, duplicative and contested environmental planning and approvals processes based on poor information, and mired in administrative complexity.
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