By Pete Stauffer It’s a simple choice, really. Do we want our National Marine Sanctuaries to be used for recreation, education, fishing and ecological protection? Or do we want to hand these ocean gems over the oil and gas industry so they can expand offshore drilling off our coasts? For the past six months, the […]
Chilean President Michelle Bachelet signed a bill Wednesday that prohibits the sale of single-use plastic bags in 102 coastal villages and towns in a bid to stop the build-up of ocean plastic and to “[take] care of our marine ecosystems.” An estimated eight million tons of plastic trash gets dumped into our oceans each year, […]
In the second edition of its Sea of Distress report released Tuesday, Greenpeace found that some foodservice industry players—especially Sodexo, Aramark, and Compass Group—have taken important steps toward protecting the oceans and workers at sea. While the majority of the fifteen companies assessed in the report failed again, there are signs that some companies are […]
Hurricane Harvey‘s record rains didn’t just unleash a torrent of floodwaters into the Gulf of Mexico—this freshwater could be harming coral reefs which require saltwater to live, according to new research. After Harvey dumped more than 13 trillion gallons of rain over southeast Texas, researchers detected a 10 percent drop in salinity at the Flower […]
By Dipika Kadaba Ah, Florida—home to famous natural landscapes and amazing wildlife, but also to more than 20 million people and billion-dollar industries. Decades of booming development in Florida—all of it built in the path of Atlantic hurricanes—have brought to a head some toxic problems the state still struggles to solve. Every major flooding event, […]
President Donald Trump announced his nomination of Barry Myers, the CEO of private weather company AccuWeather, to lead the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the country’s foremost scientific agency for oceanic and climate research. The White House praised Myers and his company for its “highest grossing years, and its largest global web and […]
Conservation organizations announced Wednesday that Trader Joe’s has declared it will stop buying shrimp from Mexico. The popular grocery store chain’s decision follows pressure from organizations behind the Boycott Mexican Shrimp campaign, launched earlier this year to save the vaquita, the world’s smallest porpoise, from decades of decline due to entanglement in shrimp fishing gear. […]
By Gary Griggs and Charles Lester The California coast is an edge. It’s the place where 1,100 miles of shoreline meets the largest ocean on the planet. Many different forces collide there, and a lot of exciting things happen. The coast is a geological edge, zippered to North America by 800 miles of the San […]
By Tim Radford Mass marine extinction may be inevitable. If humans go on burning fossil fuels under the notorious “business as usual” scenario, then by 2100 they will have added so much carbon to the world’s oceans that a sixth mass extinction of marine species will follow, inexorably. And even if the 197 nations that […]