19 of the Greatest Ocean Heroes of All Time

19 of the Greatest Ocean Heroes of All Time
See the men and women who have been on the frontlines of protecting our blue world.

http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/ocean-heroes-460410

Wallace J. Nichols
As David Rockefeller, Jr. recently told The Daily Green, "Ninety-five percent of environmental conservation efforts go to the land, with only five percent left for oceans. Yet 71% of the globe is covered by oceans." Seen from space, Earth is a blue marble.

To bring this concept home, sea turtle researcher and conservationist Wallace "J." Nichols, PhD started the Blue Marbles Project, a global initiative that asks participants to pass along a blue marble to someone they see expressing care for the oceans. So far 60,000 marbles have been shared, and the stories have been told via social media and other outlets. Nichols was recommended to TDG by two members of our Facebook community. He is a research associate with the California Academy of Sciences and is the founder of OceanRevolution.org. "We ocean lovers need to be the voice for the ocean," Nichols told TDG.

Alexandra Paul
Alexandra Paul has been acting for 20 years, and is best known for her leading role on the international hit Baywatch. Paul has long had a deep commitment to the environment and social justice, and has campaigned tirelessly for oceans protection. She has spoken to thousands of young students about the issue, and co-hosted the environmental cable access talk show Earth Talk Today for seven years. She is a long-time vegetarian and driver of electric vehicles, and appeared in Who Killed the Electric Car?.

Paul has written and produced several other environmental programs, and blogs at Huffington Post about living a better, greener life. She has been recognized by the UN and other groups for her advocacy work.

Carl Safina
Carl Safina, PhD is the president and co-founder of the Blue Ocean Institute, which uses science, art and education to inspire conservation of the seas. A marine ecologist and recreational (and part-time commercial) fishermen, the Brooklyn-born Safina became alarmed at the collapsing of fish populations. In response, he has helped lead campaigns to ban high-seas drift-nets, re-wrote federal fisheries law and promoted a United Nations global fisheries treaty. In 1990 he founded the Living Oceans Program at the National Audubon Society, which he ran for a decade.

Safina has written extensively on the oceans, including the award-winning Song for the Blue Ocean and Eye of the Albatross.

Ransom Aldrich "Ram" Myers, Jr.
Also recommended by one of TDG's Facebook fans is Ransom Aldrich "Ram" Myers, Jr., PhD (1952-2007). Myers was a world-renowned marine biologist and conservationist. He started life as the son of a Mississippi cotton planter, and won an international science fair at age 16 for his X-ray crystallograph.

Myers spent most of his career studying marine life in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, Canada, where he drew international attention to collapsing fish stocks. He sounded the alarm about precipitous decline of Atlantic cod, bluefin tuna and many shark species.

David Helvarg
David Helvarg is an environmental advocate and journalist and who penned The War Against the Greens, Blue Frontier, 50 Way to Save the Ocean and his new memoir, Saved by the Sea: A Love Story with Fish. Helvarg is the founder and president of the Blue Frontier Campaign, which works with government to craft ocean policy.

Recently, Blue Frontier has been pressuring the Obama administration to lead a new direction in ocean conservation. The group also supports Roz Savage's solo trans-Pacific row to Australia and Margo Pellegrino's Seattle to San Diego paddle in a small outrigger, both to promote ocean awareness. Helvarg is also working to save Point Molate, the last 422 acres of undeveloped but also unprotected headlands and offshore eelgrass meadows on San Francisco Bay, which the Richmond, California city council is trying to sell for a casino/resort development.

Peter Benchley
Another project of Helvarg's group is the Blue Frontier/Peter Benchley Awards, the next of which will take place June 25 at the California Academy of Sciences museum in San Francisco. This recognizes achievement in ocean conservation in a range of areas, including science, policy, media, exploration and seaweed (marine grassroots) leadership. It is named for Peter Benchley (1940-2006), who is best known as the creator of Jaws, but who also spent years working on marine conservation.

Before he became a best-selling novelist, Benchley was a journalist who worked for the Washington Post and Newsweek. After his story about a man-eating shark became a cultural phenomenon, Benchley used his time in the limelight to educate the public about oceans issues. He spoke and wrote extensively on the topic, producing non-fiction as well as serious and pop fiction.

Sylvia Earle
A lion(fish) among voices for the sea, Sylvia Earle recently used her TED Award pulpit to argue that we "need to think blue as well as green." She added, "It's a mystery to me why we've neglected the oceans the way we have."

Sylvia Earle is a world renowned oceanographer who has logged some 7,000 hours under the waves, has set several diving records (including diving while pregnant) and is a National Geographic "Explorer in Residence." She is also a best-selling author and tireless speaker and advocate for ocean policy reform.

Charles William Beebe
Another Brooklyn-born ocean advocate was Charles William ("Will") Beebe (1877–1962), who was a naturalist, curator, explorer and author. Beebe went on many eco-adventures around the globe, delighting his many readers and introducing the natural world to an increasingly urbanizing public. His deep-sea explorations led to the development of the bathysphere (pictured, Beebe at left), which set several records in the 1930s for deep descents.

Beebe produced leading scholarship on birds, and was a fixture at the Bronx Zoo. He devoted considerable efforts to environmental education, and helped preserve tropical forest in the Caribbean.

Ted Danson
Ted Danson is an Emmy and Golden Globe-winning actor who is best known for his role on Cheers. But Danson is also a longtime hero of the oceans, having advocated on their behalf for more than 30 years. In 1987, he founded American Oceans Campaign, after being upset that California beaches were too polluted to take his daughter to. That group merged with Oceana in 2002, when Danson became a board member and ardent supporter.

Danson narrated the critically acclaimed 2009 documentary The End of the Line, about overfishing, and he has been working on a book about the state of the world's seas, forthcoming from Rodale. You can catch Danson these days on the shows Damages and Bored to Death.

David Rockefeller, Jr.
Billionaire heir David Rockefeller, Jr. recently sat down for an exclusive interview with TDG. Rockefeller is a lifelong sailor and founder of the group Sailors for the Sea, which aims to organize recreational boaters in support of ocean conservation. The group is also currently sponsoring Around the Americas, a fact-finding and educational sail around the Western Hemisphere.

The Cousteau Family
A name that needs no introduction when it comes to oceans is Cousteau. Jacques Cousteau (1910-1997) was an explorer, scientist, filmmaker, naval officer and inventor who introduced millions of people around the world to the wonders of the oceans, and was a passionate and eloquent voice for protecting them. His son Jean-Michel Cousteau has carried on his legacy with the Ocean Futures Society, as have several other Cousteaus, including Celine and Fabien, who are shown here with Jean-Michel in the Dry Tortugas during production of "America's Underwater Treasures" for PBS. Alexandra and Philippe Cousteau are also heavily involved in ocean conservation.

Archie Fairly Carr, Jr.
Archie Fairly Carr, Jr. (1909–1987) was a herpetologist at the University of Florida and a pioneering conservationist who put the plight of endangered sea turtles on the global map. His long career helped shape and define the emerging field of conservation biology, as shown in the 2007 book The Man who Saved Sea Turtles by Frederick R. Davis.

Ed Ricketts
Edward Flanders Robb Ricketts (1897-1948), commonly known as Ed Ricketts, was a pioneering marine biologist and philosopher. His 1939 study Between Pacific Tides helped set the stage for modern conservation ecology, and since it was accessible and widely read it brought about awareness of the fragile coastlines, particularly in fast-developing California. Ricketts was not well accepted by the scientific establishment during his time, since he had not completed a college degree, but his work is influential even today.

Ricketts was also a profound influence on Nobel Prize-winning author John Steinbeck, who was a close friend. They collaborated on The Log from the Sea of Cortez (1951), and as a result of their interactions, Steinbeck would imbue much of his work with themes of nature and environmental degradation. Several of the author's characters, including "Doc" in Cannery Row and Jim Casy in The Grapes of Wrath, are modeled after Ricketts. He died in a tragic collision at a railroad crossing.

Sigourney Weaver
Actress Sigourney Weaver grew up near the ocean on the East Coast, but told TDG that she used to take the oceans for granted, until she learned about the myriad threats they face. Now she is an informed and passionate spokesperson for the issue. She recently narrated NRDC's powerful Acid Test film about ocean acidification. She also played a blue character on a little movie called Avatar, which had an environmental theme or two.

Paul Watson
To many in the environmental and animal rights movements, Paul Watson needs no introduction. The captain of the Sea Shepherd Society is also increasingly known from the hit reality show Whale Wars, about the group's ongoing battles to block Japanese whalers. Watson was a co-founder of Greenpeace, and he has fought for the Earth for decades, often putting himself directly in the harpoon's path.

Eddie Vedder, the longtime vocalist of Pearl Jam, is a surfer and paddler who has done a lot of work with the conservation group Surfrider over the years on behalf of ocean conservation. Vedder has raised funds, volunteered his time and worked to spread awareness about the oceans around the world.

His bandmates have also long been committed to environmental causes, most notably lead guitarist Stone Gossard.

John Halas
In 2009, John Halas won the first annual Ocean Hero award from Oceana, for his long efforts to protect coral reefs. Halas is a marine biologist and manager of the Upper Region of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. He also developed an anchor and mooring buoy system that is less damaging to fragile corals, and which has spread around the world.

Halas has helped people protect sensitive marine habitats in at least 38 countries.

The Cove Filmmakers
The stirring, dramatic documentary The Cove has helped build global awareness about the annual dolphin slaughter in a small Japanese fishing town. The fact that it won an Academy Award certainly didn't hurt. The film introduced many to Ric O'Barry's passionate, tireless crusade on behalf of marine mammals.

The Cove also makes a case against over fishing, and it warns of the toxic burden of mercury pollution, which poisons our food supply.

Robert Ballard
Robert Ballard is a pioneering ocean archaeologist and explorer who is best known for finding the wrecks of the Titanic, Bismarck, Yorktown and JFK's PT boat. Ballard is a former commander in the U.S. Navy and is a professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island. Ballard also founded the Institute for Exploration.

In addition to his inspiring explorations, Ballard has spoken out about the importance of better understanding and protecting the oceans. He has helped educate thousands of kids through the distance learning project he founded, the JASON Project, which is now part of National Geographic.Share this on Facebook: Share

Climate Change in the Deep

Climate Change in the Deep

Source: http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/04/climate-change-deep

What happens at the surface doesn't stay at the surface. It seems that changes in Earth's climate can cause unexpectedly large changes in deep-sea ecosystems. Based on 18 years of studies, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute's Ken Smith and coauthors show that such ecosystem changes occur over short time scales of weeks to months, as well as over longer periods of years to decades. The paper, Climate, carbon cycling, and deep-ocean ecosystems, is in PNAS. From the From the abstract:

"The dependence of deep-sea communities on surface water production has raised important questions about how climate change will affect carbon cycling and deep-ocean ecosystem function. Recently, unprecedented time-series studies conducted over the past two decades in the North Pacific and the North Atlantic at >4,000-m depth have revealed unexpectedly large changes in deep-ocean ecosystems significantly correlated to climate-driven changes in the surface ocean that can impact the global carbon cycle. Climate-driven variation affects oceanic communities from surface waters to the much-overlooked deep sea and will have impacts on the global carbon cycle. Data from these two widely separated areas of the deep ocean provide compelling evidence that changes in climate can readily influence deep-sea processes."

The MBARI video illuminates some of the changes underway in the permanent darkness of the deep sea floor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qblwORXwrg&feature=player_embedded


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Hawaii: Isles of Extinction

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World Oceans Day, June 8, can be a saving grace

World Oceans Day, June 8, can be a saving grace
May 19, 2009

There’s no accurate accounting of the damage that man has inflicted on food supplies or the ocean itself over the past 16 years through industrial pollution, waste dumping, over-fishing and reckless fishing that imperil untargeted species.

It’s increasingly clear, however, that man’s compromise of the ocean may soon reach a tipping point, and that nations need to agree on, establish and enforce more sustainable practices.

It has been 16 years since the idea of a World Oceans Day—to raise public support to reverse the declining health of marine eco-systems—was first floated before the United Nations. Since then, hundreds of museums, conservation organizations, agencies, along with the ocean protection and restoration group Oceana (www.oceana.org), have pushed for the UN recognition.

Three-quarters of the world’s fisheries are now over-exploited, fully exploited, significantly depleted or recovering from over-exploitation, reports the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. “The good news, says Andrew Sharpless, the chief executive of Oceana, “is that restoring abundant oceans is the most solvable global ecological challenge that we face today.”

To read the full article: http://www.supermarketguru.com/index.cfm/go/sg.viewArticle/articleId/491

Saving the seas for marine mammals

Saving the seas for marine mammals
by Erich Hoyt


As the world marks the first UN Oceans Day, marine scientist Erich Hoyt says too little of the oceans has been set aside to protect marine life. In this week's Green Room, he explains why vast protected areas are needed to ensure the long term survival of marine mammals such as whales and dolphins.

“ If we can make homes for whales and dolphins, the ocean may just have a chance ”

Where do whales live? In the sea, of course; but the sea is ever changing.

We know that sperm whales search for squid in the dark canyons off the continental shelf.

We know that other whales and dolphins feed along massive seasonal upwellings fuelled by plankton explosions that attract vast schools of fish, which in turn attract seabirds, sharks and turtles, too.

We know that whales travel from feeding areas near the Arctic and Antarctic to warm equatorial regions where they breed and raise their calves.

So where precisely do whales live?

Well, this is the starting point for marine habitat-related research on whales and dolphins. We are still in the process of determining the fine points based on ocean depth, slope, temperature, currents and other factors; but we are learning.

And the more we learn, the more we realise how important it is to know where everything lives and how it functions in the dynamic environment of the sea; not just whales and dolphins but all marine life.

Habitats for a lifetime

Since the 1960s' save-the-whale movement started in California, we have made some progress reversing the momentum toward extinction that came from centuries of whaling.

There are still great threats to whales and dolphins as some countries continue to go whaling and dolphin hunting.

Hundreds of thousands of whales and dolphins are killed every year as bycatch and as a result of becoming tangled in fishing gear.

Also, overfishing has damaged ecosystems and food chains; the escalating noise in the sea from shipping, military sonar and hydrocarbon exploration has invaded their habitats.

On top of all this, there is the silent kill from chemical pollution and the effects of climate change.

Meanwhile, oil, gas and mining industries have their sights set on the vast ocean seabed.

If the lessons of intensification during the previous century show us anything, it is that we need to make a place in the sea for marine life.

We cannot save the whales unless we save their habitat.

To read the full article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8089122.stm

Please protect oceans from open ocean farming

http://action.foodandwaterwatch.org/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=27023

Government Plan Would Protect Ocean Floor From Florida To N.C.

Government plan would protect ocean floor from Florida to North Carolina
o US group to vote in June on destructive fishing gear ban
o 23,000 square miles of coral reefs would be affected
McClatchy newspapers
guardian.co.uk
Thursday 5 March 2009

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/mar/05/florida-reef-ecosystem-government-protection/print
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/mar/05/florida-reef-ecosystem-government-protection

A few miles from the south-east Florida coast, at a depth of crushing pressure and frigid temperatures, lies an eerie world of snowy coral, undiscovered forms of life and rock towers thrusting through ink-dark water.

Although the deep ocean reefs of the south-eastern United States rose before the pyramids, their existence had only been hinted at by geological evidence until ruggedly built submersibles reached them in the late 1990s. Now, before commercial fishing damages a still-pristine ecosystem, the federal government is considering protecting a stretch of ocean floor from the Florida Keys to North Carolina, an area six times the size of Yellowstone National Park.

The South Atlantic Fishery Management Council plans to vote in June on banning bottom trawls, bottom longlines and other destructive fishing gear across 23,000 square miles, an area thought to encompass the largest deepwater reef system in the world. Although elsewhere such reefs have been mown down by commercial fishing gear, the reefs being considered for protection have sustained little impact from human activities, and the council wants to act before any damage takes place.

"We want to protect these very fragile, vulnerable ecosystems that we know very little about," said Myra Brouwer, a biologist with the Fishery Management Council. "They grow very slowly, and they're thousands of years old."

More remote than the polar ice caps or the Himalayan peaks, the deep ocean has surrendered its secrets slowly. It took the use of submarine-hunting sonar, for example, for scientists in the 1950s to map out the oceans' submerged mountain ranges. And while they suspected the existence of reefs in the ocean depths, they only acquired the tools to study them with the development of deep-diving submersibles, multibeam sonar and remotely operated vehicles.

John Reed, senior scientist at the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute at Florida Atlantic University, discovered many of the deepwater reefs off Florida riding the submersible Johnson-Sea-Link 2,500 feet below the surface, where no sunlight penetrates and the water temperature drops into the 30s. During undersea trips from Jacksonville to Miami, he counted about 400 coral mounds, one reaching a height of 400 feet, mostly composed of a delicately branched, snow-white coral called Lophelia pertusa. He saw eels, scorpion fish and several examples of the huge sixgill shark, a primitive species that hunts near the surface at night and spends the day in the depths.

During a dive off south-east Florida, he peered through the submersible's acrylic bubble as the craft inched toward the coast. Searchlights swept the black water, revealing only small fish and sandy bottom. But as the craft came within 15 miles of the hotels and condominium towers of Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Boca Raton, the ocean floor sloped sharply upward, in a rugged, rubble-strewn ascent of more than 1,000 feet.

At the top, about 900 feet below the surface, a lush undersea landscape of sea fans, black corals, sponges and other creatures covered the reef called the Miami Terrace. New species of fish, crab and coral have been found in these reefs, and scientists expect to find many more.

"We really don't understand a lot about the ecology of these deepwater reefs," Reed said. "We're still learning what lives there - what animals, what fish."

Despite encompassing a vast stretch of ocean floor, the plan is not particularly controversial. A small amount of commercial fishing takes place along the periphery of the reef systems, mostly for shrimp and golden crab. The new rule would allow the fishing to continue, although it would freeze the footprint of the golden crab fishery in place.

But a group of recreational fishermen called deep-droppers, who catch fish at depths of 400 feet to 3,000 feet, are worried that the protected zone could be a prelude to restrictions on their activities. Mark Sagerholm, president of the 100 Fathom Fishing Club, said he supports protecting the coral, so long as it doesn't lead to restrictions on deep-dropping.

"Our real concern is any time someone says, 'Hi, I'm from the government and I'm here to help,'" he said. "Even though right now there's no restrictive language against deep-dropping, we're concerned that later restrictive language will be put in."

Unlike famous landscapes such as the South Dakota badlands, Florida Everglades or Amazon rain forest, the reefs of the deep ocean can't be experienced except through photographs and videos. Pressed for an explanation of why we should care about protecting them, scientists talked of the pharmaceuticals that could be developed from deep reef species and spoke of our duty to prevent harm to ecosystems with their own integrity and beauty, whether or not we can see them directly.

"This is a unique ecosystem that occurs right in our backyard, and we should act as stewards," Reed said. "They're very similar to ancient redwood forests. Once they're clear-cut, they're not going to grow back in our lifetimes."

Shell and High Water - Acid Oceans Transform Marine Life

Shell and High Water
Climate change: Acid oceans transform marine life, says study
09 Mar 2009

http://www.grist.org/cgi-bin/printthis.pl?uri=/news/2009/03/09/oceans/index.html
http://www.grist.org/news/2009/03/09/oceans/index.html?source=daily

PARIS -- Ocean acidification driven by climate change is stripping away the protective shell of tiny yet vital organisms that absorb huge amounts of carbon pollution from the atmosphere, a new study has revealed.

Since the start of the Industrial Revolution, the calcium carapace of microscopic animals called foraminifera living in the Southern Ocean have fallen in weight by a third, the study found.

The amoeba-like organisms, about the size of a grain of sand, live in the surface waters of oceans around the world.

They are an important part of the ecological chain and also provide a bulwark against global warming. They transform carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air into calcium-based shells.

When they die, their carbon-rich shells sink to the ocean floor, effectively storing the atmospheric CO2 forever.

Previous studies have shown that other marine animals, notably corals, are losing their ability to form exoskeletons from calcium.

However, the potential causes for this are tangled, and include rising temperatures and nutrient runoff from coastal agriculture as well as acidification.

This is the first study to look specifically at acidification and pin it to greenhouse-gas pollution, which is driven especially by the invisible product of burning oil, gas and coal.

"It is the invasion of anthropogenic (man-made) CO2 that is causing this particular source of acidification," said co-author William Howard of the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Center in Hobart, Tasmania.

Howard's team collected shells of one foraminifera species, Globigerina bulloides, as they drifted toward the sea floor, and compared them to older specimens that had sunk several hundred years earlier.

The newer shells had 30-to-35 percent less mass, they reported in the online edition of the journal Nature Geoscience.

"If forams and other shell makers are not making shells, that might change the transfer of carbon from the surface ocean into the deep ocean," said Howard.

"It changes the efficiency of the biological pump, and would tend to lessen the degree to which the ocean takes up carbon. That's a feedback that we have to be concerned about," he said in a phone interview.

Only in the last five years have scientists become aware of the extent of ocean acidification and its potential to disrupt Earth's carbon cycle, which balances the absorption and release of CO2 into the atmosphere.

"The problem with this impact is that it is so persistent and so long-lived, unlike other pollution carbons. We will have a harder time turning this impact around," Howard said.

The geo-chemical mechanisms that buffer acidification work very slowly, he explained.

"It is like taking an antacid tablet for an upset stomach and then having to wait hundreds -- or thousands -- of years for it to work."

If the loss of shell mass threatens the survival of the amoeba-like creatures, it could also disrupt a food chain reaching from the plankton they eat, all the way up to large sea mammal such as whales.

"We don't know yet what those impacts might be," Howard said.

Acid Oceans NEED URGENT ACTION

Acid oceans 'need urgent action'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7860350.stm
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7860350.stm?ad=1

The world's marine ecosystems risk being severely damaged by ocean acidification unless there are dramatic cuts in CO2 emissions, warn scientists.

More than 150 top marine researchers have voiced their concerns through the "Monaco Declaration", which warns that changes in acidity are accelerating.

The declaration, supported by Prince Albert II of Monaco, builds on findings from an earlier international summit.

It says pH levels are changing 100 times faster than natural variability.

Based on the research priorities identified at The Ocean in a High CO2 World symposium, held in October 2008, the declaration states:

"We scientists who met in Monaco to review what is known about ocean acidification declare that we are deeply concerned by recent, rapid changes in ocean chemistry and their potential, within decades, to severely affect marine organisms, food webs, biodiversity and fisheries."

'The other CO2 problem'

It calls on policymakers to stabilise CO2 emissions "at a safe level to avoid not only dangerous climate change but also dangerous ocean acidification".

The researchers warn that ocean acidification, which they refer to as "the other CO2 problem", could make most regions of the ocean inhospitable to coral reefs by 2050, if atmospheric CO2 levels continue to increase.

The also say that it could lead to substantial changes in commercial fish stocks, threatening food security for millions of people.

"The chemistry is so fundamental and changes so rapid and severe that impacts on organisms appear unavoidable," said Dr James Orr, chairman of the symposium.

"The questions are now how bad will it be and how soon will it happen."

Another signatory, Patricio Bernal, executive secretary of the UN Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, outlined how the marine research community intended to respond to the challenge.

"We need to bring together the best scientists to share their latest research results and to set priorities for research to improve our knowledge of the processes and of the impacts of acidification on marine ecosystems."

Prince Albert II used the declaration to voice his concerns, adding that he hoped the world's leaders would take the "necessary action" at a key UN climate summit later this year.

"I strongly support this declaration. I hope that it will be heard by all the political leaders meeting in Copenhagen in December 2009."

How the Rich are Destroying the Earth

How the Rich Are Destroying the Earth
November 24, 2008

http://www.enn.com/lifestyle/commentary/38716
http://www.enn.com/lifestyle/commentary/38716/print

Environment: There is an emergency. In less than a decade we will have to change
course, but there are a few major obstacles blocking the way.

The following is reprinted from the new book How the Rich Are Destroying the
Earth by Herve Kempf and published by Chelsea Green.

There is an emergency. In less than a decade we will have to change course --
assuming the collapse of the U.S. economy or the explosion of the Middle East
does not impose a change through chaos. To confront the emergency, we must
understand the objective: to achieve a sober society; to plot out the way there;
to accomplish this transformation equitably, by first making those with the most
carry the burden within and between societies; to take inspiration from
collective values ascribed to here in France by our nation's motto: "Liberty,
ecology, fraternity."

What are the main obstacles that block the way?

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First of all, received wisdom -- prejudices really -- so loaded that they orient
collective action without anyone really thinking about them. The most powerful
of these preconceived ideas is the belief in growth as the sole means of
resolving social problems. That position is powerfully defended even as it is
contradicted by the facts. And it is always defended by putting ecology aside
because the zealots know that growth is incapable of responding to the
environmental issue.

The second of these ideas, less cocky although very broadly disseminated,
proclaims that technological progress will resolve environmental problems. This
idea is propagated because it allows people to hope we will be able to avoid any
serious changes in our collective behaviors thanks to technological progress.
The development of technology, or rather of certain technical channels to the
detriment of others, reinforces the system and fosters solid profits.

The third piece of received wisdom is the inevitability of unemployment. This
idea is closely linked to the two previous ideas. Unemployment has become a
given, largely manufactured by capitalism to assure the docility of the populace
and especially of the lowest level of workers. From a contrary position, the
transfer of the oligarchy's wealth for the purpose of public services, a system
of taxation that weighed more heavily on pollution and on capital than on
employment, sustainable agricultural policies in the countries of the South, and
research into energy efficiency are immense sources of employment.

A fourth commonly associates Europe and North America in a community of fortune.
But their paths have diverged. Europe is still a standard-bearer for an ideal of
universalism, the validity of which it demonstrates by its ability to unite --
despite problems -- very different states and cultures. Energy consumption,
cultural values -- for example, the critical significance of food -- the
rejection of the death penalty and torture, less pronounced inequality and the
maintenance of an ideal of social justice, respect for international law, and
support for the Kyoto Protocol on climate are some of the many traits that
distinguish Europe from the United States.

Europe must be separated from the obese power and draw closer to the South,
unless the United States shows it can really change.

The Oligarchy Could Be Divided

Then there are the forces at work.

The first, of course, is the power of the system itself. The failures that will
occur will not in themselves be sufficient to undo the system, since, as we have
seen, they could offer the pretext to promote an authoritarian system divested
of any show of democracy.

The social movement has woken up, however, and may continue to gain power. But
it alone will not be able to carry the day in the face of the rise of
repression: it will be necessary for the middle classes and part of the
oligarchy -- which is not monolithic -- to clearly take sides for public
freedoms and the common good. The mass media constitute a central challenge.
Today they support capitalism because of their own economic situation. They
depend, for the most part, on advertising. That makes it difficult for them to
plead for a reduction in consumption.

On top of that, the development of free papers that depend solely on advertising
further increases the pressure on widely distributed paid newspapers, many of
which have entered the stables of big industrial groups. It's not certain that
the information possibilities generated by the Internet, although immense -- and
for as long as these remain open -- will be adequate to counterbalance the
weight of the mass media should it wholly become the voice of the oligarchy.

Nevertheless, not all journalists are totally enthralled yet, and they could be
galvanized around the ideal of freedom.

The third, wobbly force is the left. Since its social-democratic component
became its center of gravity, it has abandoned any ambition of transforming the
world. The compromise with free-market liberalism has led the left to so totally
adopt the values of free-market liberalism that it no longer dares -- except in
the most cautious terms -- to deplore social inequality. On top of that, the
left displays an almost cartoonish refusal to truly engross itself in
environmental issues.

The left remains pickled in the idea of progress as it was conceived in the
nineteenth century, still believes that science is produced the same way it was
in the time of Albert Einstein, and intones the chant of economic growth without
the slightest trace of critical thinking. Moreover, "social capitalism" rather
than "social democracy" is undoubtedly the more apposite term.

Nonetheless, can the challenges of the twenty-first century be addressed by the
currents of tradition other than the one that identified inequality as its
primary motive for revolt?

This hiatus is at the heart of political life. The left will be reborn by
uniting the causes of inequality and the environment -- or, unfit, it will
disappear in the general disorder that will sweep it and everything else away.
And yet, let us be optimistic. Optimistic, because there are ever more of us who
understand -- unlike all the conservatives -- the historical novelty of the
situation: we are living out a new, never-seen-before phase of the human
species' history, the moment when, having conquered the Earth and reached its
limits, humanity must rethink its relationship to nature, to space, to its
destiny.

We are optimistic to the extent that awareness of the importance of the current
stakes becomes pervasive, to the extent that the spirit of freedom and of
solidarity is aroused. Since Seattle and the protests against the World Trade
Organization in 1999, the pendulum has begun to swing in the other direction,
toward a collective concern about the choices for the future, seeking
cooperation rather than competition.

The somewhat successful, although still incomplete, battle in Europe against
GMOs, the international community's continuance of the Kyoto Protocol in 2001
despite the United States' withdrawal, the refusal by the peoples of Europe to
participate in the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and the general recognition of the
urgency of climate-change challenge are signs that the wind of the future has
begun to blow. Despite the scale of the challenges that await us, solutions are
emerging and -- faced with the sinister prospects the oligarchs promote -- the
desire to remake the world is being reborn.

Herve Kempf is the environmental editor of Le Monde, France's most influential
newspaper and the author of the new book, How the Rich Are Destroying the Earth.

Man-made Noise in World's Seas Threatens Wildlife

Man-made noise in world's seas threatens wildlife
By Silvia Aloisi
Wed Dec 3, 2008

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE4B26P920081203

ROME (Reuters) - Man-made noise in the world's seas and oceans is becoming an increasing threat to whales, dolphins and turtles who use sound to communicate, forage for food and find mates, wildlife experts said on Wednesday.

Rumbling ship engines, seismic surveys by oil and gas companies, and intrusive military sonars are triggering an "acoustic fog and cacophony of sounds" underwater, scaring marine animals and affecting their behavior.

"There is now evidence linking loud underwater noises with some major strandings of marine mammals, especially deep diving beaked whales," Mark Simmonds, Science Director of the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, told a news conference in Rome.

Simmonds, who was speaking on the sidelines of a December 1-5 United Nations Environment Program's Convention on Migratory Species conference, said there are also growing indications that certain tissue damage in cetaceans is linked to noise.

Experts suspect that startled animals may tend to dive erratically and suffer something similar to human divers getting the "bends" -- illness symptoms experienced when divers do not carry out proper decompression stops after a long or deep dive.

According to "Ocean Noise: Turn It Down," a new report by the International Fund for Animal Welfare, the distance over which blue whales can communicate has been cut by 90 percent as a result of higher noise levels.

Over the past 50 years, low frequency underwater noise has doubled every 10 years over the previous decade, while the number of ships has tripled, the report also said.

It added that sound produced by air guns used for seismic surveys in oil exploration can travel more than 3,000 km (1,864 miles) from their source.

The rising number of vessels, and their increasing speed, has led to more ships striking marine animals already threatened by hunting and climate change.

Experts say there are also concerns that rising levels of carbon dioxide are pushing water acidity levels up and contributing to noisier oceans, because when acidity rises, water absorbs less noise.

"If there is a lot of background noise, the animals can't hear the boat coming," said Simmonds. "It's the cocktail party effect."

Marine conservationists at the Rome conference are urging governments and industry to adopt quieter ship engines, tighter rules on seismic surveys and less disrupting sonar technologies by navies.

The European Union has submitted a draft resolution to the convention calling on members to consider a wide range of measures to reduce underwater noise.

But Simmonds said conservationists were concerned that pressures from the military and energy industry as well as the need for more research into marine noise pollution may lead to the resolution being substantially weakened.

"We simply don't know at this stage how many animals are affected by noise pollution, but the lack of full scientific evidence should not be a reason to delay action, said Simmonds."

Cost to tackle Ocean Acidification: just $237 billion

Cost of Tackling Ocean Acidification: Just $237 Billion
New Documentary Examines and Offers Solutions for the Sleeper Environmental Issue of Our Time
by Ned Sullivan
November 25, 2008

http://www.thedailygreen.com/print-this/living-green/blogs/easy-tips/ocean-acidification-55112503

The electrifying redemption of America’s revolutionary declaration that all human beings are born equal sets the stage for the renewal of United States leadership in a world that desperately needs to protect its primary endowment: the integrity and livability of the planet.
— Al Gore, The New York Times (Nov. 9, 2008)

The results of the recent election promise a sea change in how the U.S. confronts the most daunting challenge facing us — reducing greenhouse gas emissions. President-elect Obama has made it clear he intends for America to lead by example in efforts to halt climate change and its potentially disastrous consequences, including extreme coastal flooding, sweltering temperatures and cataclysmic storms. As he said during the campaign:

“The issue of climate change is one that we ignore at our own peril. There may still be disputes about exactly how much we’re contributing to the warming of the earth’s atmosphere and how much is naturally occurring, but what we can be scientifically certain of is that our continued use of fossil fuels is pushing us to a point of no return. And unless we free ourselves from a dependence on these fossil fuels and chart a new course on energy in this country, we are condemning future generations to global catastrophe.”

Part of this catastrophe — the acidification of our oceans — gets very little attention. That should change shortly. Hudson Valley filmmaker Barbara Ettinger and her husband, Sven Huseby, are putting the finishing touches on an eye-opening film (which I originally wrote about Sept. 18, 2007) showing how the huge amount of carbon absorbed by our seas is decimating fish, shellfish and coral reefs. Without immediate action, experts predict more than one million aquatic species will become extinct within the next century.

There is hope. A Stanford University scientist interviewed in the film says technology already exists to slay the two-headed monster of climate change and ocean acidification. The cost: $237 billion. That’s just a third of what Congress approved for the banking system’s bailout, or two-thirds of what Americans spend eating in restaurants each year. It goes without saying that the return on such an investment would be astronomical.

Climate change demands the same urgency that compelled our leaders in Washington and across the globe to work together to tackle the world economic crisis. Nothing our elected officials do — whether in the U.S. Capitol, our statehouses or our town and village halls—must be allowed to take precedence. It’s incumbent on us as citizens to hold them accountable until we achieve the sea change necessary to ensure all future generations can begin life on a healthy, welcoming planet.

Oceans Growing Acidic 10x faster than Expected - from Carbon Emissions

Oceans Growing Acidic 10 Times Faster Than Expected
Carbon Emissions Don't Just Cause Global Warming
by Dan Shapely
November 25, 2008

http://www.thedailygreen.com/print-this/environmental-news/latest/ocean-acidification-47112501

The rate of acidification of the oceans is 10 times faster than previously predicted according to a new study that adds to a growing list of dire assessments and predictions for the oceans.

The world's oceans are growing acidic at a rate 10 times as fast as predicted, according to a new University of Chicago study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The study also reinforced what we already knew: Ocean acidification results from the same thing that is driving global warming: carbon dioxide emissions. Oceans absorb the lion's share of our pollution, but not without consequence. As the carbon dioxide is absorbed, it forms carbonic acid, which at certain thresholds can prevent marine life from forming calcium carbonate shells. The most likely target will be Arctic plankton that form the basis for the entire food web, but ultimately coral and many other species will be affected, either directly or indirectly through the loss of food.

Further, as oceans become saturated, they may absorb less carbon dioxide, leaving more of it to fill up the atmosphere, where it helps trap the sun's heat near the Earth's surface, fueling global warming.

The new study is based on nearly 25,000 measurements taken over eight years, and amounts to one of the most thorough studies to account for rising acidity. It also documented, on Tatoosh Island in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Washington, the effects of acidification: The number of mussels and stalked barnacles dropped as acidity increased, while populations of other smaller-shelled and nonshelled creatures increased.

The study adds to a growing list of dire assessments and predictions for the oceans. A recent assessment by a Scripps Institution of Oceanography oceanographer, for instance, predicted that overfishing, acidification, habitat destruction, global warming and nutrient runoff from farming would conspire to drive oceans back toward a primordial state, dominated by the likes of algae and jellyfish.

CO2 Curbs May Be Too Late For Reefs

CO2 curbs may be too late for reefs, study warns
by David Adam, environment correspondent
The Guardian
Monday October 27 2008

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/oct/27/coral-reefs-co2-wildlife-conservation/print
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/oct/27/coral-reefs-co2-wildlife-conservation

A new global deal on climate change will come too late to save most of the world's coral reefs, according to a US study that suggests major ecological damage to the oceans is now inevitable.

Emissions of carbon dioxide are making seawater so acidic that reefs including the Great Barrier Reef off Australia could begin to break up within a few decades, research by the Carnegie Institution at Stanford University in California suggests. Even ambitious targets to stabilise greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere, as championed by Britain and Europe to stave off dangerous climate change, still place more than 90% of coral reefs in jeopardy.

Oceanographers Long Cao and Ken Caldeira looked at how carbon dioxide dissolves in the sea as human emissions increase. About a third of carbon pollution is soaked up in this way, where it reacts with seawater to form carbonic acid. Experts say human activity over the last two centuries has produced enough acid to lower the average pH of global ocean surface waters by about 0.1 units.

Such acidification spells problems for coral reefs, which rely on calcium minerals called aragonite to build and maintain their exoskeletons.

"We can't say for sure that [the reefs] will disappear but ... the likelihood they will be able to persist is pretty small," said Caldeira.

The new study was prompted by questions by a US congressional committee on how possible carbon stabilisation targets would affect coral loss.

How Organochlorine Pollutants End Up In Whales

Source: Natural News, How organochlorine pollutants end up in whales

(NaturalNews) Some chemicals, such as DDT, that were banned many years ago persist in the environment even in places where there are no human inhabitants or no known chemical use. They are contaminating what used to be considered pristine environments, and are being found in wildlife.

These chemicals are known as persistent organochlorine pollutants or POP. Along with DDT, they include industrial chemicals, PCB's and dioxins. Studies in the Antartic of humpback whales have found concentrations of POP in fat blubber. Likely explanations of this are to do with the food chain.

First, here's an explanation of just how POP could occur in the Antartic. POP's slowly evaporate into the atmosphere or the air. Then the air moves around and when the temperature changes, for example, from cold to hot, or hot to cold, the chemicals condense out of the air. The chemicals return to the environment and that's where they stay.

If the chemicals are absorbed by ice, then when the ice melts, the chemicals may go to the seabed or are absorbed in some way by the krill.

The humpback whales are most likely to have accumulated the chemicals by eating krill. Researcher Dr Nash (of The National Research Centre for Environmental Toxicology, The University of Queensland (1)) is responsible for the current study of contamination in humpback whales.

She found high concentrations of over hundred different types of POP in krill. Krill is at the base of the food chain in the Antartic. If you remove the krill, many species would not survive. Humpback whales eat two tonnes of krill a day.

In the breeding season, the humpbacks travel 10,000 kilometres from the Antartic to warmer waters relying only on body fat. It is logical to assume that the quality of the body fat or blubber will determine how well they make the return trip. Since the whale has to use the blubber as a food source, the chemicals within the fat are unlocked and carried around the bloodstream.

The concern is that the organochlorines, which are neurotoxins, will impact on the movement and reproductive systems, and that this could affect the breeding of whales.

While the study has yet to be completed, trials were carried out on the behaviour of krill in solutions containing algae contaminated with DDE (a break-down product of DDT). It was evident that the schooling behaviour of the krill was impacted and this could have consequences for the survival of the species and thus other species.

Source: www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/2389804.htm
(1) www.entox.uq.edu.au



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About the author
Lynn Berry is passionate about personal development, natural health care, justice and spirituality. She has a website at www.lynn-berry.com.

source:http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=6006228&page=1

Bringing Oysters Back to Town

'Electric Oyster Reef Project' Aims to Re-establish Mollusks in Once Polluted Areas

By MOISES VELASQUEZ-MANOFF

NEW YORK Oct. 12, 2008—

James Cervino, a professor of marine biology at Pace University in New York City, thinks a little electricity could go a long way in helping oysters return to the city's waterways.

On a recent morning in College Point, Queens, just a few blocks from where he grew up, Professor Cervino shows a visitor what he calls "the electric oyster reef project." He's installed a series of spiral-shaped bands of metal in the shallow water. At low tide, they jut from the water like giant strands of DNA.

"I had a dream one night of helixes coming out of the water," he says. In retrospect, the shape "is actually not such a great idea." But the concept, he says, is.

Solar panels perched atop poles provide the helixes with a low voltage. The current causes a chemical reaction in seawater, and limestone builds up on the electrified metal. The ready supply of shell-building minerals, Cervino says, will help the oysters, decimated here and elsewhere by overharvesting, pollution, and disease. Cervino's collaborator, Thomas Goreau, president of the Global Coral Reef Alliance, has shown that electrification can help damaged coral reefs regenerate. It seems to be helping the oysters here as well, he says. Oysters in mesh sacks at the spirals' base are alive while control oysters  those farther from the electric field  have all died.

He points to a lime-encrusted bit of metal: "That's how I know it's working," he says. And then he adds, "If we recreated oyster reefs, we'd clear the water."

This project is part of a larger movement along the East Coast and elsewhere to restore ecosystems drastically altered by human activity. Restoration almost invariably begins with so-called keystone species, the humble filter feeders once so numerous along the eastern seaboard that they cleaned entire bays within days.

Don Boesch, president of the Univer­sity of Maryland Center for Environ­­mental Science in Cam­bridge, Md., calls oysters "the coral reefs of the East Coast." Oyster-restoration projects are at various stages in Florida, South Carolina, Chesapeake Bay, New York, and New Jersey. Before European settlement, oyster reefs covered some 350 square miles around New York. Their importance as a species stems from their ability to filter large amounts of water. Depending on its size, an oyster filters between 5 and 50 gallons of water daily. Water now murky with algae and other organic matter was, in earlier times, almost certainly clear.

"I suppose that when [Henry] Hudson sailed through the harbor, you could see right through to the bottom," says Mark Kurlansky, author of "The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell," the tale of New York City's long relationship with the mollusks. Their absence, he says, is "a symbol of how badly we've cared for New York."

By the 1930s, oysters were deemed too dangerous to eat in New York. A few decades later, they were ecologically extinct from the city's waterways. Thanks to the Clean Water Act, conditions have improved a lot since the 1970s when, as Mr. Kurlansky recalls, the water was black "with this sort of mother-of-pearl purplish green thing on the surface." Says Cervino, "I'll go swimming in this." As an adolescent, he'd studiously avoided it. Any restoration effort faces some serious obstacles.

"Once you mess around with nature  if you remove something from the food chain  that space isn't reserved for it to come back," says Mr. Kurlansky. "It's very difficult to reverse these things because the absence has had all sorts of repercussions in nature."

He points to cod's nonrecovery after lengthy closures of Georges Bank and Canada's Grand Banks to cod fishermen. "To have a drastic moratorium like that and have nothing come back is pretty scary," he says.

Oysters need hard surfaces to attach to and access to minerals to form their shells, for example. When reefs are abundant, the shells of previous oyster generations serve as both a hard substrate and mineral source. Reefs self-perpetuate. But when oysters disappear, their habitat goes as well. With oysters gone, the area becomes less oyster-friendly.

In relatively enclosed waterways like Chesapeake Bay, high nutrient runoff from fertilizer and livestock, combined with the loss of filter feeders has led to more extensive algal blooms. That leads to low-oxygen conditions that, in turn, suffocate what bottom-dwelling filter-feeders remain, further exacerbating the problem.

In the 1950s, Asian oysters brought to the Eastern Seaboard for aquaculture also carried two parasites that American oysters had little resistance to. Native oysters succumbed easily. The bacteria linked to cholera in humans also exacted a toll. The hurdles facing oyster restoration quickly began to look insurmountable. The abiding question: How can you tip the ecosystem back to a more oyster-friendly state?

Chesapeake Bay is a case study. It was once home to what were probably the largest oyster reefs in the United States, yielding around 15 million bushels of oysters a year in the late 19th century. The oysters used to filter the entire bay every three to four days. Even 20 years ago the bay still produced a couple million bushels a year. Then the diseases arrived. By last year, the harvest had dropped to 100,000 bushels. The oysters that remain now manage to filter the bay three to four times a year. And the ecosystem has changed. Sunlight can't penetrate the now-murky water. Plants can no longer grow on the bottom. During the summer, large areas become oxygen-starved (hypoxic), hostile to animal life.

"The degree that the oyster as a living part of the ecosystem, as a filter feeder, was able to keep the bay clear of nutrients is a very important function," says William Eichbaum, chair of the Maryland Oyster Advisory Commission in Washington, D.C. "And it's gone."

Intensive restoration efforts have so far failed to reestablish breeding oyster populations. And yet, Mr. Eichbaum and others think such efforts may be at a turning point. Oyster harvesters simply can't live off what's left. Many are moving to aquaculture. That's good news for the bay's beleaguered oysters, he says. Able to reproduce without pressure from the harvest, oysters will have a chance to rebuild habitat  to form structures that, by rising above the seafloor, help them avoid low-oxygen conditions and silt. With healthier reefs, oysters will have a chance to develop a resistance to the exotic parasites, says the University of Maryland's Professor Boesch. "They're going to have to confront the disease," he says.

Cervino hopes to help the oysters in New York in a slightly different manner. He's not sure how the electrified metal helps oysters fight off disease, but he suspects that by making their lives easier with a mineral-rich substrate, their ability to resist disease is strengthened.

"I'm a bottom-up guy," Cervino says. Then he recites his mantra, taken from the 1989 movie "Field of Dreams": "If you build it, they will come."

In other words, bring the marsh grasses, the hard surfaces, and the minerals back, and the oysters and mussels will return. The horseshoe crabs, blue crabs, and fish will follow. People will ultimately benefit. The whole living system, shellfish included, will provide an alternative to bulkheads and other human antierosion measures that the shellfish can provide naturally.

"The only barrier to protect against erosion is wildlife  habitat," he says.

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