Save Money, Save the Ocean, Save Ourselves
Good Times Weekly
WRITTEN BY WALLACE J. NICHOLS
THURSDAY, 21 AUGUST 2008
As oil prices break records daily and the $75 fill-up becomes standard fare at the corner station, Dow Chemical, purveyor of everything plastic, has been forced to raise prices 20 percent for the second month in a row.
The connections between oil and plastic are numerous. In the past 50 years, these two products have come to dominate our lives. But, over-consumption of both is destroying the ocean. Burning of fossil fuels is changing the climate and warming the ocean. Excess carbon dioxide is making the sea more acidic, destabilizing coral reefs and upsetting the ocean food web. Big oil spills, seepage from ships and residue runoff from roads make a toxic mess of all things aquatic.
Plastic, by the way, is made from oil. It lasts a very long time. And it’s everywhere. It’s in the North Pacific Ocean, for instance, where a continent-sized patch best described as “plastic soup” fills up albatrosses, sea turtles and even plankton that feed unwittingly on the stuff.
The oil ties to the ocean run deeper still. So high are fuel prices, that diesel subsidies are necessary to prop up the fuel-dependent fishing sector, which in turn uses those subsidies to strip the seas of millions upon millions of pounds of fish and wildlife annually. Monofilament lines and ghost nets—made of rugged, non-biodegradable plastic (read: oil)—break free, wander the ocean untended, and reap countless fish, dolphins, turtles, birds and whales along the way.
Oil and plastic and the ocean just don’t mix.
The current Administration’s “solution” to the crisis is to drill for more oil along our coasts and in wildlife refuges. The profits, of course, will fall to the oil companies and plastic manufacturers who seek to expand their sales. Exxon-Mobil and Dow both set new records for profits and sales even as news reports and scientific journals lay out in shocking detail how the ocean is warming, sea level is rising and the Pacific plastic garbage patch is expanding.
What this means to the rest of us is that traveling anywhere, eating at a seafood restaurant and buying just about anything plastic are about to get ridiculously expensive. So, here are a few ways you can pinch some pennies and protect the ocean at the same time:
• First, buy your food local and seasonal. This summer, dig into your farmers’ market and ask for local produce and seafood. Buying local and seasonal require less energy for transport and refrigeration.
• Wash, reuse and refill plastic containers: not just water bottles and shopping bags, but Zip-Loc bags, disposable forks and plastic plates. Better yet, avoid plastic completely. Can you make it through a day without throwing any plastic in the trash? It’s harder than you think (aDayWithoutPlastic.org).
• Instead of a road trip, join the International Coastal Cleanup and spend a day under the blue sky with friends in a global effort to clean local waterways and shores. (coastalcleanup.org).
• Share a ride, walk, bike, or hop a train or bus. If you’re looking to replace your car, go for one that doubles, or even triples, your previous miles-per-gallon. A 2003 Ford Expedition gets 14 mpg. A roomy, next-generation Toyota Prius is said to get nearly 100 mpg.
• Be heard: Tell your elected officials that there are safer, cheaper, smarter solutions to the energy crisis than hasty drilling for more oil along our coasts. And let the politicians who are leading the way to a greener future know that you like their style.
Americans aren’t strangers to this way of thinking. My grandmother called it frugality. To her it was a virtue. Maybe it is old-fashioned or just trendy eco-consciousness, but one thing is certain: the incentives to conserve our ocean and to protect our pocketbooks have never been greater—and, who knows, may come at just the right time to do some good for the ocean.
It’s time for each of us to join the revolution in ocean and energy conservation. Let’s get petroleum and plastic out of the ocean and put the profits back in our own pockets.
Save money. Save the ocean. Maybe even save ourselves.
Dr. Wallace J. Nichols is a marine biologist and ocean activist, living in Davenport. Visit wallacejnichols.org
August 22, 2008
June 23, 2008
Seas Rising and Warming Faster Than Realized
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Residents of Fire Island, N.Y., will find no comfort in a new study on sea level trends.
[UPDATE 6/20: On slowing of sea rise since 2006.] On a very busy climate-oil-politics day I was able to just squeak in a short print piece last night on a new study in the journal Nature clarifying what’s happening with the oceans in a heating world (the heat held in by a building greenhouse blanket has largely accumulated in the oceans and physics demands that it will eventually add to atmospheric warming).
As you may be aware, those rejecting the enormous body of evidence pointing to a growing human influence on climate had embraced some transitory findings implying that the oceans were cooling. This new work may help resolve that particular line of debate. The formula holds: more CO2 = warming world = less ice + higher seas + lots of changing climate patterns.
Read it all HERE
Residents of Fire Island, N.Y., will find no comfort in a new study on sea level trends.
[UPDATE 6/20: On slowing of sea rise since 2006.] On a very busy climate-oil-politics day I was able to just squeak in a short print piece last night on a new study in the journal Nature clarifying what’s happening with the oceans in a heating world (the heat held in by a building greenhouse blanket has largely accumulated in the oceans and physics demands that it will eventually add to atmospheric warming).
As you may be aware, those rejecting the enormous body of evidence pointing to a growing human influence on climate had embraced some transitory findings implying that the oceans were cooling. This new work may help resolve that particular line of debate. The formula holds: more CO2 = warming world = less ice + higher seas + lots of changing climate patterns.
Read it all HERE
June 8, 2008
OpEd: Live like you love the ocean
World Ocean Day OpEd: Live like you love the ocean
Everywhere I go, people ask: “What one thing can I do for the ocean?”
My daughter, a kindergartener, answers simply: “pick up your trash.” Of course, using energy efficient light bulbs or driving a hybrid are good answers, since global warming is fundamentally an ocean issue. Then again, the simple act of choosing to eat only seafood that is sustainable and healthy can help the ocean.
But our ocean is in serious trouble. Reading recent news and scientific papers is enough to make your head spin. They tell us that there is no corner of our vast ocean that is not free of human fingerprints.
As an oceanographer, I’m quite familiar with the relentless bad news. Keeping up-to-date on it all is a part of my job. Since the ocean holds the majority of life on Earth and governs our air, our climate, and our food, that means we’re in real, big trouble.
As daunting as it appears, the ocean crisis can be boiled down to three problems: we’ve put too much in, we’ve taken too much out, and we are wrecking the edge.
Who wouldn’t be concerned about the ever-expanding Texas-size “garbage patch” in the Pacific Ocean, the shutdown of West Coast salmon fishing, right whales and sea turtles drowning in fishing gear, and the summer closure of beaches due to toxic pollution?
Obviously, there is no silver bullet … or, is there? If I had one answer to give to those who ask, “What can I do for the ocean?” it would be this: “Live like you love the ocean.” Living like we love the ocean means putting less in, taking less out, and protecting the ocean’s edge where so much life lives.
Less in. Less out. Protect the edge.
Simple.
Rather than wringing our hands, hope is on the horizon. We can live like we love the ocean in many ways.
First, shop like you love the ocean.
Buy products that are ocean-friendly. Use a canvas bag to get your stuff from the store to your car to your house, rather than a plastic bag that will stick around forever. Drink filtered tap water from a refillable glass or steel bottle instead of buying water shipped halfway around the world.
Second, eat like you love the ocean.
When you choose seafood, be sure it’s caught sustainably. That’s gotten a heck of a lot easier lately as Whole Foods, thousands of local restaurants, and even WalMart are going organic and sustainable.
Third, vacation like you love the ocean.
This summer, hike in a coastal park or visit an aquarium. Go on a sea turtle or whale watch where your visit supports conservation. Surfing, kayaking, and snorkeling are all ocean-friendly activities. Why not join Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup and make a day of it with your friends?
Lastly, vote like you love the ocean.
Many local, state, and national politicians support bold efforts to tackle global warming, create ocean parks—our so-called “Undersea Yosemites” that Ocean Conservancy is helping to build—and better fund cutting-edge ocean science. With our votes, we must be perfectly clear: we want leaders who bring about sea change.
We are entering a decade of progress in the culture of conservation and sustainability. Millions who care deeply about the ocean are joining to transform our relationship with the sea … they are starting a sea change.
Each of us must be part of this ocean revolution -- each in our own way, each as part of a connected whole.
Join for yourself. Join for others. Join for the ocean. But, when you join, please remember to live like you love the ocean.
June 8th is World Ocean Day. Find out more at www.oceanconservancy.org
Dr. Wallace J. Nichols is a senior scientist at Ocean Conservancy and a research associate at California Academy of Sciences. He was featured in the documentary film The 11th Hour. On World Ocean Day he will be speaking in Baja California Sur, Mexico, on the shores of the Bay of Loreto National Marine Park.
Everywhere I go, people ask: “What one thing can I do for the ocean?”
My daughter, a kindergartener, answers simply: “pick up your trash.” Of course, using energy efficient light bulbs or driving a hybrid are good answers, since global warming is fundamentally an ocean issue. Then again, the simple act of choosing to eat only seafood that is sustainable and healthy can help the ocean.
But our ocean is in serious trouble. Reading recent news and scientific papers is enough to make your head spin. They tell us that there is no corner of our vast ocean that is not free of human fingerprints.
As an oceanographer, I’m quite familiar with the relentless bad news. Keeping up-to-date on it all is a part of my job. Since the ocean holds the majority of life on Earth and governs our air, our climate, and our food, that means we’re in real, big trouble.
As daunting as it appears, the ocean crisis can be boiled down to three problems: we’ve put too much in, we’ve taken too much out, and we are wrecking the edge.
Who wouldn’t be concerned about the ever-expanding Texas-size “garbage patch” in the Pacific Ocean, the shutdown of West Coast salmon fishing, right whales and sea turtles drowning in fishing gear, and the summer closure of beaches due to toxic pollution?
Obviously, there is no silver bullet … or, is there? If I had one answer to give to those who ask, “What can I do for the ocean?” it would be this: “Live like you love the ocean.” Living like we love the ocean means putting less in, taking less out, and protecting the ocean’s edge where so much life lives.
Less in. Less out. Protect the edge.
Simple.
Rather than wringing our hands, hope is on the horizon. We can live like we love the ocean in many ways.
First, shop like you love the ocean.
Buy products that are ocean-friendly. Use a canvas bag to get your stuff from the store to your car to your house, rather than a plastic bag that will stick around forever. Drink filtered tap water from a refillable glass or steel bottle instead of buying water shipped halfway around the world.
Second, eat like you love the ocean.
When you choose seafood, be sure it’s caught sustainably. That’s gotten a heck of a lot easier lately as Whole Foods, thousands of local restaurants, and even WalMart are going organic and sustainable.
Third, vacation like you love the ocean.
This summer, hike in a coastal park or visit an aquarium. Go on a sea turtle or whale watch where your visit supports conservation. Surfing, kayaking, and snorkeling are all ocean-friendly activities. Why not join Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup and make a day of it with your friends?
Lastly, vote like you love the ocean.
Many local, state, and national politicians support bold efforts to tackle global warming, create ocean parks—our so-called “Undersea Yosemites” that Ocean Conservancy is helping to build—and better fund cutting-edge ocean science. With our votes, we must be perfectly clear: we want leaders who bring about sea change.
We are entering a decade of progress in the culture of conservation and sustainability. Millions who care deeply about the ocean are joining to transform our relationship with the sea … they are starting a sea change.
Each of us must be part of this ocean revolution -- each in our own way, each as part of a connected whole.
Join for yourself. Join for others. Join for the ocean. But, when you join, please remember to live like you love the ocean.
June 8th is World Ocean Day. Find out more at www.oceanconservancy.org
Dr. Wallace J. Nichols is a senior scientist at Ocean Conservancy and a research associate at California Academy of Sciences. He was featured in the documentary film The 11th Hour. On World Ocean Day he will be speaking in Baja California Sur, Mexico, on the shores of the Bay of Loreto National Marine Park.
February 23, 2008
UN Says Warming Threatens Fish Stocks
By ANGELA CHARLTON – 20 hours ago
PARIS (AP) — Major world commercial fish stocks could collapse within decades as global warming compounds damage from pollution and overfishing, U.N. officials said Friday.
A U.N. Environment Program report details new research on how rising ocean surface temperature and other climate changes are affecting the fishing industry. It says that more than 2.6 billion people get most of their protein from fish.
"You overlay all of this and you are potentially putting a death nail in the coffin of the world fisheries," Achim Steiner, head of the program, said in a telephone news conference from Monaco.
READ MORE
PARIS (AP) — Major world commercial fish stocks could collapse within decades as global warming compounds damage from pollution and overfishing, U.N. officials said Friday.
A U.N. Environment Program report details new research on how rising ocean surface temperature and other climate changes are affecting the fishing industry. It says that more than 2.6 billion people get most of their protein from fish.
"You overlay all of this and you are potentially putting a death nail in the coffin of the world fisheries," Achim Steiner, head of the program, said in a telephone news conference from Monaco.
READ MORE
February 16, 2008
Ocean Impact Map Reveals Human Reach Global
News - February 15, 2008
Ocean Impact Map Reveals Human Reach Global
As vast as the oceans are, almost no waters remain untouched by human activities
By David Biello, Scientific American
Fishing, fertilizer runoff, pollution, shipping, climate change—these are just a few of the ways that human activities influence the oceans that cover 70 percent of Earth's surface. And in all that vastness—139 million square miles (360 million square kilometers)—less than 4 percent remains unaffected, and more than a third has suffered serious human impacts, according to a new map published in Science.
more HERE
Ocean Impact Map Reveals Human Reach Global
As vast as the oceans are, almost no waters remain untouched by human activities
By David Biello, Scientific American
Fishing, fertilizer runoff, pollution, shipping, climate change—these are just a few of the ways that human activities influence the oceans that cover 70 percent of Earth's surface. And in all that vastness—139 million square miles (360 million square kilometers)—less than 4 percent remains unaffected, and more than a third has suffered serious human impacts, according to a new map published in Science.
more HERE
February 15, 2008
New Global Map of Ocean Impacts
The first-ever comprehensive map of our planet's marine environment shows that human activity has heavily affected 41 percent of the world's ocean-covered area, with no area left completely untouched.
"This new picture of ocean warming reveals a far greater degree of local ... variation in temperature anomalies than previously recognized or even anticipated," said John Bruno, a researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
READ MORE
February 8, 2008
Changing the Climate on Campus
By Bryan Walsh
In the 1960s and early '70s, civil rights and the Vietnam War were the defining issues on college campuses. In the 1980s, it was apartheid. Today, that issue is climate change — or at least it will be, if Eban Goodstein has anything to do about it. An economics professor at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Ore., Goodstein became convinced of the threat from climate change in the early 1990s. He started writing and speaking about it and eventually created the Green House Network in 1999 to train other global warming advocates — doing Al Gore's work before Gore was. But a couple of years ago, Goodstein came to realize that his response wasn't meeting the sheer scale of the climate change risk. "Americans don't really understand," he says. "They think global warming is scary, but they don't realize how short a window of time we have." The message needed to get bigger — and so Focus the Nation was born.
More from TIME Magazine
In the 1960s and early '70s, civil rights and the Vietnam War were the defining issues on college campuses. In the 1980s, it was apartheid. Today, that issue is climate change — or at least it will be, if Eban Goodstein has anything to do about it. An economics professor at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Ore., Goodstein became convinced of the threat from climate change in the early 1990s. He started writing and speaking about it and eventually created the Green House Network in 1999 to train other global warming advocates — doing Al Gore's work before Gore was. But a couple of years ago, Goodstein came to realize that his response wasn't meeting the sheer scale of the climate change risk. "Americans don't really understand," he says. "They think global warming is scary, but they don't realize how short a window of time we have." The message needed to get bigger — and so Focus the Nation was born.
More from TIME Magazine
January 31, 2008
Scientist finds specific relationship between ocean warming and hurricanes
WASHINGTON (AP) - It just takes one degree of warming in the waters of the Atlantic, to produce a big jump in hurricane activity.
Researchers find that with that one-degree of warming in the hurricane breeding grounds of the Atlantic, overall hurricane activity jumps by half.
Scientists have known for a while that hurricanes get their enormous energy from warm water. The warmer the water, the more fuel a storm can use to start up, or get stronger.
This research, though, calculated to what extent the frequency and strength of storms are the result of warmer sea water.
A professor of climate prediction at the University College London found a distinct numerical connection between the ups and downs of water temperatures and how nasty a hurricane season gets. Mark Saunders says it helps explain why hurricanes have been so much worse in the past dozen years.
The study appears in the journal Nature.
Researchers find that with that one-degree of warming in the hurricane breeding grounds of the Atlantic, overall hurricane activity jumps by half.
Scientists have known for a while that hurricanes get their enormous energy from warm water. The warmer the water, the more fuel a storm can use to start up, or get stronger.
This research, though, calculated to what extent the frequency and strength of storms are the result of warmer sea water.
A professor of climate prediction at the University College London found a distinct numerical connection between the ups and downs of water temperatures and how nasty a hurricane season gets. Mark Saunders says it helps explain why hurricanes have been so much worse in the past dozen years.
The study appears in the journal Nature.
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