A boat made from thousands of plastic bottles has sailed into Sydney Harbour, completing a four-month voyage that began in San Francisco. The boat, called the Plastiki, was built using 12,500 plastic bottles. Its 9,000 mile (15,000 km) voyage aimed to raise awareness of the dangers posed to the environment by plastic waste. Hundreds of […]
By Bonny SchumakerMonday, July 26, 2010 Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s “aviation wing” has been extremely busy in the Gulf of Mexico for the past couple of months, and especially this past month. In keeping with the strong emphasis being put on collaboration, Sea Shepherd has been working with other NGOs as well as local people […]
By JEFFREY BALL JULY 27, 2010 GRAND ISLE, La.—To keep crude oil out of Louisiana’s sensitive marshes, workers have spread barriers known as boom in unprecedented amounts. Now the marshes face a new threat—from the boom itself. Recent storms have tossed dozens of miles of oil-soaked boom into the marshes, mowing down grass and threatening […]
Ten aerial survey bands (each 30 km in width), every two degrees of latitude, crossing eastern Australia and providing estimates for up to 50 species of waterbirds in October each year (1983-2004). Letters identify seven particular wetlands: Styx River wetlands (A), Lake Hope (B), Paroo River overflow lakes (C), and Macquarie Marshes (D). Australia State […]
By John PlattJul 26, 2010 04:45 PM Where did the Australian dingo go? Once present throughout that country, the feared predator (Canis lupus dingo) in its current form is on its way to extinction as it is either killed or breeds and hybridizes with domesticated dogs. With the disappearance of the purebred dingo comes the […]
Reporting by Raymond Colitt; Editing by Cynthia OstermanSun Jul 25, 2010 5:45pm EDT BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazilian native Indians on Sunday took 100 workers hostage at the construction site of a hydroelectric plant in the southern Amazon region, local media reported. As many as 400 Indians from several different tribes occupied a power plant they […]
It may takes tens of thousands of years for oceans to recover from the acidity caused by increased levels of carbon dioxide By David Biello July 22, 2010 Single-cell life-forms thrive throughout the world’s oceans—and have for hundreds of millions of years. Tiny varieties known as calcareous nanoplankton build exuberant, microscopic shells—resembling wagon wheels, fishlike […]
By Katia Moskvitch Science reporter, BBC News The UN may remove the world’s deepest and oldest lake from the World Heritage list because of concerns over pollution by a Russian pulp and paper mill. Lake Baikal holds one fifth of the world’s fresh water and is home to many unique plants and animals. At its […]
Carbon dioxide emissions are making the oceans more acidic, imperiling the growth and reproduction of species from plankton to squid By Marah J. Hardt and Carl Safina “Slow sperm … now that’s a problem,” said Jonathan Havenhand, his British accent compounding the gravity of the message. “That means fewer fertilized eggs, fewer babies and smaller […]
Loss of sea ice is unlikely to enable Arctic waters to mop up more carbon dioxide from the air. By Hannah Hoag As climate scientists watched the Arctic’s sea-ice cover shrink year after year, they thought there might be a silver lining: an ice-free Arctic Ocean could soak up large amounts of CO2 from the […]
