Tag Archives: marine

President Obama is designating these ocean monuments like it’s his job, or something.

by AshlyRosetta2 Posted on September 15, 2016

At the Our Ocean Conference in Washington, D.C., this week, Obama announced the creation of The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, which will protect deep-sea ecosystems off the coast of New England.

The monument, which lies about 150 miles east of Massachusetts, includes three submerged canyons — one of them deeper than the Grand Canyon — and four underwater mountains. The designation means that commercial fishing will be phased out of the region, and resource extraction such as mining and drilling will be prohibited. That’s good news for creatures like endangered whales, sea turtles, and deep-sea coral — and those less sexy microorganisms that sustain all of them, like plankton.

According to a recent study by the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, ocean temperatures in this section of the Atlantic are projected to warm three times faster than the global average. This new monument, according to the White House, “will help build the resilience of that unique ecosystem, provide a refuge for at-risk species, and create natural laboratories for scientists to monitor and explore the impacts of climate change.”

President Obama has protected more land and water than any other American president — including the world’s largest marine protected area in the Pacific.

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President Obama is designating these ocean monuments like it’s his job, or something.

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Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War – Mary Roach

by Myrna Posted on September 13, 2016

READ GREEN WITH E-BOOKS

Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War

Mary Roach

Genre: Life Sciences

Price: $12.99

Publish Date: June 7, 2016

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Seller: W. W. Norton


A New York Times / National Bestseller "America's funniest science writer" (Washington Post) Mary Roach explores the science of keeping human beings intact, awake, sane, uninfected, and uninfested in the bizarre and extreme circumstances of war. Grunt tackles the science behind some of a soldier's most challenging adversaries—panic, exhaustion, heat, noise—and introduces us to the scientists who seek to conquer them. Mary Roach dodges hostile fire with the U.S. Marine Corps Paintball Team as part of a study on hearing loss and survivability in combat. She visits the fashion design studio of U.S. Army Natick Labs and learns why a zipper is a problem for a sniper. She visits a repurposed movie studio where amputee actors help prepare Marine Corps medics for the shock and gore of combat wounds. At Camp Lemmonier, Djibouti, in east Africa, we learn how diarrhea can be a threat to national security. Roach samples caffeinated meat, sniffs an archival sample of a World War II stink bomb, and stays up all night with the crew tending the missiles on the nuclear submarine USS Tennessee. She answers questions not found in any other book on the military: Why is DARPA interested in ducks? How is a wedding gown like a bomb suit? Why are shrimp more dangerous to sailors than sharks? Take a tour of duty with Roach, and you’ll never see our nation’s defenders in the same way again.

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Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War – Mary Roach

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Greenpeace Shows How Many Companies Are Failing to Ban Microbeads

by PearlineVentura Posted on September 10, 2016

Microbeads are bad news, but fortunately most of us know that by now. There has been growing resistance to the miniscule pieces of plastic, added to personal care products for their ability to exfoliate skin, or sometimes just to look pretty in a see-through bottle. These microbeads, however, wreak environmental havoc as soon as theyre washed down the drain. The outcome is described here by campaign group Beat the Microbead:

Wastewater treatment plants are not designed to filter out microbeads and that is the main reason why, ultimately, they contribute to the Plastic Soup swirling around the worlds oceans. Sea creatures absorb or eat microbeads. These microbeads are passed along the marine food chain. Since humans are ultimately at the top of this food chain, it is likely that we are also absorbing microbeads from the food we eat. Microbeads are not biodegradable and once they enter the marine environment, they are impossible to remove.

After learning that microplastics have been found in 170 types of seafood, Greenpeace East Asia decided to take action. It launched a survey of 30 of the worlds largest cosmetics and personal care companies, assessing four main criteria:

1) Whether or not these companies have a commitment on microbeads, and whether its publicly accessible and easy to read
2) How microbeads are defined for the companys commitment
3) When the company plans to meet its deadline for the commitment
4) Whether the commitment covers all of the companys products

The result is theMicrobeads Commitment Scorecard, available as anoverviewandin greater detail. Companies such as Beiersdorf (owner of Nivea and Eucerin), Colgate-Palmolive, L Brands (La Senza, Victorias Secret, Bath & Body Works), and Henkel (Schwarzkopf and Persil) all scored highest in relation to the other companies; however, all of these top-scorers exhibit microbead commitments that fall short of an acceptable standard, mostly because of their definition of microbeads is too narrow and may allow for other, insoluble plastic polymers to be used in products.

At the very bottom of list, in the fail category, lie brands such as Revlon, Este Lauder (MAC), and Amway. The first two have not stated dates for phasing out microbeads and all continue to use plastics in their skin care products.

The good news? You dont need these brands and their nasty plastic pollution (nor the chemicals that will continue to exist in their products, even if they do get around the banning microbeads.)

There are great alternatives out there that use all-natural, plastic-free ingredients to exfoliate your skin. Some that you may want to investigate are Celtic ComplexionsGentle Creme Exfoliant(very luxurious and made with jojoba beads),Ethiques Gingersnap Facial Scrub Bars(they smell like cookies), and Fable NaturalsQuinoa & Almond Fresh Skin Exfoliant(made with organic oats and almonds).

Written by KatherineMartinko.This post originally appeared onTreeHugger.

Photo Credit: Beat the Microbead/Facebook

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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Greenpeace Shows How Many Companies Are Failing to Ban Microbeads

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A top environmental activist isn’t so sure about the Green Party presidential candidate’s green cred.

by lemuelpleasant6 Posted on September 9, 2016

Australian architect James Gardiner wants to use 3D-printing technology to build structures for coral to grow on in places where reefs are decimated by disease, pollution, dredging, and other maladies (looking at you, crown o’ thorns).

Right now, artificial reefs are built out of uniform, blocky assemblages of concrete or steel. Those are cheap and easy to make, but don’t look or work like the real thing — for starters, because “the marine life that colonizes these reef surfaces can sometimes fall off,” one biologist told the Sydney Morning Herald.

Gardiner worked with David Lennon of Reef Design Lab to design new shapes with textured surfaces and built-in tunnels and shelters. The computer models are turned into wax molds with the world’s largest 3D printer, and then cast with, essentially, sand. It’s a cheap and low-carbon way to manufacture custom, modular pieces of reef.

Reef Design Lab installed the first 3D-printed reef in Bahrain in 2012 — and, eight months later, it was covered with algae, sponges, and fish.

Mandatory disclaimer: Rebuilding all of the world’s coral reefs by hand is impossible, and climate change is still the biggest threat facing coral reefs, so let’s not forget to save the ones we’ve got.

View original post here – 

A top environmental activist isn’t so sure about the Green Party presidential candidate’s green cred.

Posted in alo, Anchor, Crown, Everyone, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on A top environmental activist isn’t so sure about the Green Party presidential candidate’s green cred.

Airbnb is trying to address its racism problem.

by Cassandra8614 Posted on September 9, 2016

Australian architect James Gardiner wants to use 3D-printing technology to build structures for coral to grow on in places where reefs are decimated by disease, pollution, dredging, and other maladies (looking at you, crown o’ thorns).

Right now, artificial reefs are built out of uniform, blocky assemblages of concrete or steel. Those are cheap and easy to make, but don’t look or work like the real thing — for starters, because “the marine life that colonizes these reef surfaces can sometimes fall off,” one biologist told the Sydney Morning Herald.

Gardiner worked with David Lennon of Reef Design Lab to design new shapes with textured surfaces and built-in tunnels and shelters. The computer models are turned into wax molds with the world’s largest 3D printer, and then cast with, essentially, sand. It’s a cheap and low-carbon way to manufacture custom, modular pieces of reef.

Reef Design Lab installed the first 3D-printed reef in Bahrain in 2012 — and, eight months later, it was covered with algae, sponges, and fish.

Mandatory disclaimer: Rebuilding all of the world’s coral reefs by hand is impossible, and climate change is still the biggest threat facing coral reefs, so let’s not forget to save the ones we’ve got.

Original article – 

Airbnb is trying to address its racism problem.

Posted in alo, Anchor, Crown, Everyone, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Airbnb is trying to address its racism problem.

Way too many Americans have to worry about feeding themselves.

by HesterChewning Posted on September 8, 2016

Australian architect James Gardiner wants to use 3D-printing technology to build structures for coral to grow on in places where reefs are decimated by disease, pollution, dredging, and other maladies (looking at you, crown o’ thorns).

Right now, artificial reefs are built out of uniform, blocky assemblages of concrete or steel. Those are cheap and easy to make, but don’t look or work like the real thing — for starters, because “the marine life that colonizes these reef surfaces can sometimes fall off,” one biologist told the Sydney Morning Herald.

Gardiner worked with David Lennon of Reef Design Lab to design new shapes with textured surfaces and built-in tunnels and shelters. The computer models are turned into wax molds with the world’s largest 3D printer, and then cast with, essentially, sand. It’s a cheap and low-carbon way to manufacture custom, modular pieces of reef.

Reef Design Lab installed the first 3D-printed reef in Bahrain in 2012 — and, eight months later, it was covered with algae, sponges, and fish.

Mandatory disclaimer: Rebuilding all of the world’s coral reefs by hand is impossible, and climate change is still the biggest threat facing coral reefs, so let’s not forget to save the ones we’ve got.

Original post:

Way too many Americans have to worry about feeding themselves.

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Can toilets revive New York City’s oyster population?

by LarhondCraft Posted on September 7, 2016

Australian architect James Gardiner wants to use 3D-printing technology to build structures for coral to grow on in places where reefs are decimated by disease, pollution, dredging, and other maladies (looking at you, crown o’ thorns).

Right now, artificial reefs are built out of uniform, blocky assemblages of concrete or steel. Those are cheap and easy to make, but don’t look or work like the real thing — for starters, because “the marine life that colonizes these reef surfaces can sometimes fall off,” one biologist told the Sydney Morning Herald.

Gardiner worked with David Lennon of Reef Design Lab to design new shapes with textured surfaces and built-in tunnels and shelters. The computer models are turned into wax molds with the world’s largest 3D printer, and then cast with, essentially, sand. It’s a cheap and low-carbon way to manufacture custom, modular pieces of reef.

Reef Design Lab installed the first 3D-printed reef in Bahrain in 2012 — and, eight months later, it was covered with algae, sponges, and fish.

Mandatory disclaimer: Rebuilding all of the world’s coral reefs by hand is impossible, and climate change is still the biggest threat facing coral reefs, so let’s not forget to save the ones we’ve got.

Link – 

Can toilets revive New York City’s oyster population?

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The number of coal-fired power plants under development saw a big hit in the first half of 2016.

by DelilahHummel Posted on September 7, 2016

Australian architect James Gardiner wants to use 3D-printing technology to build structures for coral to grow on in places where reefs are decimated by disease, pollution, dredging, and other maladies (looking at you, crown o’ thorns).

Right now, artificial reefs are built out of uniform, blocky assemblages of concrete or steel. Those are cheap and easy to make, but don’t look or work like the real thing — for starters, because “the marine life that colonizes these reef surfaces can sometimes fall off,” one biologist told the Sydney Morning Herald.

Gardiner worked with David Lennon of Reef Design Lab to design new shapes with textured surfaces and built-in tunnels and shelters. The computer models are turned into wax molds with the world’s largest 3D printer, and then cast with, essentially, sand. It’s a cheap and low-carbon way to manufacture custom, modular pieces of reef.

Reef Design Lab installed the first 3D-printed reef in Bahrain in 2012 — and, eight months later, it was covered with algae, sponges, and fish.

Mandatory disclaimer: Rebuilding all of the world’s coral reefs by hand is impossible, and climate change is still the biggest threat facing coral reefs, so let’s not forget to save the ones we’ve got.

From:

The number of coal-fired power plants under development saw a big hit in the first half of 2016.

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Obama designates world’s largest protected area — it’s underwater

by DorisNewhouse Posted on August 26, 2016

Obama designates world’s largest protected area — it’s underwater

By on Aug 26, 2016Share

President Obama, who marked the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service by designating a whole new land monument in Maine, is giving oceans some love, too.

On Friday, he expanded the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument, also known as Papahānaumokuākea, to 582,578 square miles. At nearly three-and-a-half times the size of California, the monument is now the world’s largest protected area.

Papahānaumokuākea encompasses 10 islands and atolls of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, and the Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge, which supports over 7,000 species — a quarter of which are unique to Hawaii.

Native Hawaiians urged for the monument’s expansion back in January and consider the place a “the boundary between Ao, the world of light and the living, and Pō, the world of the gods and spirits from which all life is born and to which ancestors return after death,” according to the White House.

Protecting this area means it will be closed for the extraction of oil, gas, minerals, and other energy development. You can learn more about it from this video by Pew:

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Obama designates world’s largest protected area — it’s underwater

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"Please Don’t Let Hate Infect Your Heart": Read Slain Baton Rouge Officer’s Heartbreaking Facebook Post

by RIATerrenc Posted on July 18, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

On July 8, three days after Alton Sterling was shot and killed by Baton Rouge police outside a convenience store, Montrell Jackson reflected on the challenge of being a black man and a police officer in the city he loved.

“These are trying times,” he wrote in a Facebook post, confirmed by the Associated Press and NPR. “Please don’t let hate infect your heart. This city MUST and WILL get better.”

More than a week later, Jackson, 32, became one of at least three police officers killed in an altercation with a gunman in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. At least four other officers were injured. The suspected shooter, identified as 29-year-old ex-Marine Gavin Eugene Long, attacked authorities just 10 days after a shooting near a Black Lives Matter protest in Dallas left five officers dead and nine other people injured. Jackson’s half-brother Kedrick Pitts told NPR on Sunday that the post came in light of the recent Sterling’s death and described Montrell as a well-known officer who “loved the thrill and loved being there for others.”

“He felt hurt. He wants justice for their family also. But he just asked every to respect everyone, to continue to love everyone, and he just wanted everyone to get through this together. He didn’t want any hatred going on, especially killing,” Pitts said. “He was a police officer. He wanted peace.”

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"Please Don’t Let Hate Infect Your Heart": Read Slain Baton Rouge Officer’s Heartbreaking Facebook Post

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