The Guardian

• The ocean has shielded us from the worst of climate change. Now it is running a fever | Karina Von Schuckmann

  Nearly every indicator of climate change is flashing red. But we still hold the tools available to bring the planet back into balance

  The ocean is running a fever. In 2025, the number of days of marine heatwaves – prolonged spells when the sea turns abnormally, dangerously warm – was more than triple what it was in the early 1990s.

  These are not abstract statistics. A severe and persistent marine heatwave bleaches coral reefs, strips away the kelp forests that shelter young fish, empties fishing grounds and – if occurring frequently – can tip whole ecosystems past the point of recovery.

  Karina Von Schuckmann is an IGCC author and senior adviser of Mercator Ocean International

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• Trump’s DoJ intervenes to back Elon Musk in datacenter pollution lawsuit

  Justice department urges judge to throw out suit brought by NAACP over xAI’s methane-gas turbines in Mississippi

  The Trump administration is coming to the defense of Elon Musk in a lawsuit over claims that his artificial intelligence company, xAI, is polluting residential neighborhoods in north Mississippi. The justice department told a federal court late on Monday to throw out the case.

  The lawsuit was filed by the NAACP in April over allegations that xAI and its subsidiary MZX Tech set up dozens of methane-gas turbines to power its datacenter in Southaven, Mississippi, without air permits. The suit claims these turbines emit toxic pollutants in violation of the Clean Air Act, and is asking a judge to block xAI from operating the machines.

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• US lawmakers fight Trump cuts to $386m ocean monitoring program: ‘supreme stupidity’

  Lisa Murkowski, a Republican senator, joins Democrats in bid to stop dismantling of Ocean Observatories Initiative

  • US politics live – latest updates

  A group of Democratic senators and one Republican, as well as two Democratic House committees, sent letters on Monday to the National Science Foundation asking it to reverse course on its plan to dismantle a sprawling ocean monitoring network, with House lawmakers going further and accusing the agency of acting illegally.

  The Ocean Observatories Initiative is a network of more than 900 ocean sensors built at a cost of $386m. Over the last decade it has tracked ocean circulation, marine ecosystems, climate change and extreme weather, producing data freely available to the public and informing more than 500 scientific publications. The project was slated to run another 15 to 20 years.

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• King tides along California coast prompt advisories following two deaths

  A five-year-old girl was swept away and a woman was pulled into the water, prompting authorities to urge precaution

  Massive waves, coastal flooding and dangerous rip currents are roiling the California coastline this week as authorities advise people to take precautions while visiting beaches following two deaths last week.

  Turbulent waters swept a five-year-old girl, who was walking with her mother and brother, out to sea from the shore of Treasure Island Beach in Orange county in southern California on Tuesday. Bystanders were able to rescue the mother and son, but the girl was not found and her body was recovered on Thursday.

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• Trump wants to put a $75m coal terminal in this liberal California city. Residents aren’t having it

  Residents of West Oakland, which suffers from toxic waste and high pollution rates, rally against a coal export facility

  West Oakland, a California neighborhood known for its rich history of Black activism from the Pullman Porters’ union to the Black Panthers, might not seem like the site of the country’s next great coal project.

  But that’s exactly what the Trump administration is pushing for – with the injection of $75m to build a sprawling coal export terminal in the nearby port of Oakland.

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