Oceans

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    Chile Bans Plastic Bags in 100+ Coastal Areas

    Chile Bans Plastic Bags in 100+ Coastal Areas

    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, […]

    New Seafood Sustainability Report Ranks 15 Foodservice Companies

    New Seafood Sustainability Report Ranks 15 Foodservice Companies

    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 Runoff Threatens Coral Reefs

    Hurricane Harvey Runoff Threatens Coral Reefs

    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 […]

    Florida Faces 3 Toxic Crises Triggered by Flooding

    Florida Faces 3 Toxic Crises Triggered by Flooding

    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, […]

    Trump Taps AccuWeather CEO to Head NOAA

    Trump Taps AccuWeather CEO to Head NOAA

    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 […]

    Trader Joe’s Stops Buying Mexican Shrimp After Pressure to Protect Vaquita

    Trader Joe’s Stops Buying Mexican Shrimp After Pressure to Protect Vaquita

    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. […]

    Scientist Warns of Mass Marine Extinction

    Scientist Warns of Mass Marine Extinction

    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 […]