ocean

The U.S. and nine of the world’s largest fishing economies will sign an agreement Wednesday in Ilulissat, Greenland that bans commercial fishing in the central Arctic Ocean for the next 16 years. “This is the first multilateral agreement of its kind to take a legally binding, precautionary approach to protect an area from commercial fishing […]

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were banned in the U.S. in 1978, but their persistence in the world’s oceans is still posing a major threat to killer whales. A study published in Science Friday found that current concentrations of PCBs could lead to the disappearance of half of the world’s killer whale, or orca, populations over the […]

In the past few decades, the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica has gotten less salty and has warmed at roughly twice the rate of global oceans overall. Now, in a new study, scientists found convincing evidence that these trends are the result of two human influences: climate change from greenhouse gas emissions and the depletion of […]

Between the 1600s and the early 20th century, European settlers in New York City ate their way through 220,000 acres of oyster reefs covering 350 square miles, The Washington Post reported. That decimated a natural barrier that could have reduced the wave energy of storms like Sandy, which cost New York City $40 billion in […]

California became the first state in the U.S. to ban plastic straws in dine-in restaurants Thursday when Governor Jerry Brown signed legislation to that effect, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. The law, which will enter into force Jan. 1, prohibits restaurants from providing straws unless a customer requests one. It covers only sit-down eateries, not […]

This week, a video of a failed attempt to put a dead, 4,000-pound whale into a tiny dumpster made the rounds on the internet, garnering chuckles and comparisons to Peter Griffin forklifting and impaling a beached sperm whale on Family Guy. The juvenile minke whale washed up on Jenness Beach in Rye, New Hampshire on […]

Extreme floods have become more frequent in the Amazon Basin in just the last two to three decades, according to a new study. After analyzing 113 years of Amazon River levels in Port of Manaus, Brazil, researchers found that severe floods happened roughly every 20 years in the first part of the 20th century. Now, […]

By Sarah Graddy and Robert Coleman This summer, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) is tracking outbreaks of potentially toxic algae across the U.S. We have been startled to find that these outbreaks are erupting everywhere: from the East Coast to the West Coast, from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. Though outbreaks of […]