By Jake Ellison 3 November 2011 Calling it an “emerging threat,” Sen. Maria Cantwell testified in congress yesterday that a floating debris field five-times the size of the state of Washington is heading for the West Coast and could disrupt the state’s economy when it lands in 2014. “After the tragic tsunami that struck Japan, […]
By Richard Black 14 April 2011 Just how …….d are the world’s oceans? I’ve put the dots in that sentence so you can insert the word of your choice. According to a high-level seminar of experts in Oxford earlier this week, there’s one word starting with the letter S that would fit quite well, a […]
Hundreds of shards reveal the threat to wildlife from debris floating in our seas By Adam Sherwin24 March 2011 This collection of hundreds of coloured, jagged shards could be a work of abstract art. But the objects in the photograph to the right are the contents of the stomach of a sea turtle that lost […]
[UPDATE 4 October 2011: Sadly, World Catastrophe Map has closed down for good.] Occasionally, Desdemona runs across a site or a blog that’s uncannily dialed into the Des vibe. All dedicated Doomers know the Apocadocs and Wit’s End, but the World Catastrophe Map is a new and delectable find for Des. “Let the End Times […]
By Tony Barboza, Los Angeles TimesMarch 11, 2011| Southern California researchers have found evidence of ingestion of plastic among small fish in the northern Pacific Ocean in a study that they say shows the troubling effect floating litter is having on marine life in the far reaches of the world’s oceans. About 35% of the […]
PARIS (AFP) 30 December 2010 – Some 250 billion microscopic pieces of plastic are floating in the Mediterranean, creating a biological hazard that reverberates up the food chain, according to research supported by green campaigners. The estimate comes from French and Belgian marine biologists who analysed water samples taken in July off France, northern Italy […]
By Jaymi Heimbuch in San Francisco, California 18 October 2010 Inspired by Chris Jordan’s photography of birds killed by ingesting plastic, Angela Haseltine Pozzi, artist and Executive Director of Artula Institute, came up with an idea that would put the problem of plastic pollution in perspective. Why not make the issue of birds killed by […]
Bergen, 24th September 2010. Ministers attending today’s North East Atlantic Environment Summit in Bergen, Norway have failed to take marine environmental issues seriously and have signed an unambitious ”Declaration of Delay”, ignoring a whole raft of urgent issues that demand action from them NOW, rather than vague commitments to do something in the future. […]
By Mark Kinver Science and environment reporter, BBC News 20 August 2010 A study has measured the amount of plastic debris found in a region of the Atlantic Ocean over a 22-year period. US researchers, writing in Science, suggest the volume of plastic appeared to have peaked in recent years. One reason could be tighter […]
By Lori BongiornoTue Aug 3, 6:58 pm ET Scientists previously mapped huge floating trash patches in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, but now a husband-wife team researching plastic garbage in the Indian Ocean suggest a new and dire view. “The world’s oceans are covered with a thin plastic soup,” says Anna Cummins, cofounder of 5 […]
