Oceans

19 Aquariums Pledge to Fight Plastic Pollution, Ban Single-Use Plastic Bags and Straws

19 Aquariums Pledge to Fight Plastic Pollution, Ban Single-Use Plastic Bags and Straws

A collaboration of aquariums across the U.S. have launched a campaign Monday to reduce ocean and freshwater plastic pollution. Notably, as of today, all 19 aquariums that belong to the Aquarium Conservation Partnership (ACP) have “eliminated” plastic straws and single-use carryout plastic bags at their facilities. Some of the biggest aquariums in the country are […]

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    Seismic Blasting Devastates Ocean’s Most Vital Organisms

    Seismic Blasting Devastates Ocean’s Most Vital Organisms

    By Francine Kershaw Seismic airguns exploding in the ocean in search for oil and gas have devastating impacts on zooplankton, which are critical food sources for marine mammals, according to a new study in Nature. The blasting decimates one of the ocean’s most vital groups of organisms over huge areas and may disrupt entire ecosystems. […]

    How Dead Is the Great Barrier Reef?

    How Dead Is the Great Barrier Reef?

    Worried about the future of the Great Barrier Reef? If so, you’re not alone. Many publications have already written obituaries for the reef, despite the fact that it is not completely dead. Thanks for this video via Vox for sounding the alarm on this critical issue, before it’s too late. According to water quality expert […]

    Plastic Pollution in Antarctica 5 Times Worse Than Expected

    Plastic Pollution in Antarctica 5 Times Worse Than Expected

    Not only have microplastic particles infiltrated the pristine Antarctic, the problem is much worse than anyone thought. Scientists from the University of Hull and the British Antarctic Survey have determined that the levels of microplastics are five times higher than previous estimates. The results were published in the journal Science of the Total Environment. These […]

    Black Sea’s Stunning Plankton Bloom Can Be Seen From Space

    Black Sea’s Stunning Plankton Bloom Can Be Seen From Space

    The turquoise swirls of the Black Sea’s phytoplankton bloom can be seen all the way from space in a new image released by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA‘s Aqua satellite. “The May ramp-up in reflectivity in the Black Sea, with peak brightness in June, seems consistent with results from other years,” said […]

    9 Shocking Facts About Plastics in Our Oceans

    9 Shocking Facts About Plastics in Our Oceans

    By Joe McCarthy The oceans are massive, pulsing, vibrant bodies of water that serve humanity in countless ways—from providing food to enabling commerce to simply being beautiful. But these powerful expanses of sea are not invincible. Each year, human activity erodes marine life in some way. Overfishing is driving many fish populations to the brink […]

    DiCaprio Teams With Mexican Government to Save World’s Most Endangered Marine Mammal

    DiCaprio Teams With Mexican Government to Save World’s Most Endangered Marine Mammal

    Today is World Oceans Day, and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, Leonardo DiCaprio and telecom tycoon Carlos Slim just signed a memorandum of understanding committing to conserve marine ecosystems in the Gulf of California and to save the vaquita porpoise—the most endangered marine mammal in the world. The region’s rampant overfishing has driven the native […]

    Trump Blasted at UN Ocean Conference: U.S. ‘Main Threat to Mother Earth’

    Trump Blasted at UN Ocean Conference: U.S. ‘Main Threat to Mother Earth’

    Bolivian President Evo Morales blasted President Donald Trump‘s announcement that the U.S. is withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement. He called the U.S. one of the world’s “main polluters” and said Trump’s decision is akin to “denying science, turning your backs on multilateralism and attempting to deny a future to upcoming generations.” This “has made […]

    Trump Administration One Step Closer to Approving Seismic Airgun Blasting

    Trump Administration One Step Closer to Approving Seismic Airgun Blasting

    The Trump administration issued Monday a draft Incidental Harassment Authorizations for seismic airgun blasting in the Atlantic Ocean, an extremely loud and dangerous process used to search for oil and gas deposits deep below the ocean’s surface. By issuing these draft Incidental Harassment Authorizations for public comment, Oceana said the federal government is giving another […]