Population matters for the world’s oceans – Population Matters

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While oceans are in many respects the heart of our ecosystem, their sustainable existence is threatened by our actions.

The first World Oceans Day was celebrated in 1992 after the Canadian government proposed the idea at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. In 2008, the United Nations recognised the initiative officially.

“We have to ensure that oceans continue to meet our needs without compromising those of future generations. They regulate the planet’s climate and are a significant source of nutrition. Their surface provides essential passage for global trade, while their depths hold current and future solutions to humanity’s energy needs.”  More:  Population matters for the world’s oceans – Population Matters

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The Guardian view on the Great Barrier Reef: the crisis they prefer to downplay | Opinion | The Guardian

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Many of the politicians fighting Australia’s election campaign talk about the economy and immigration but the world is listening for what they say about the impact of climate change.

If the rest of the world could vote in next month’s Australian election, there would almost certainly be one issue that would be raised to the top of the country’s political agenda: saving the Great Barrier Reef. Scientists say this year 93% of its reefs experienced some bleaching, and 22% of all of the reef’s coral was killed by unusually warm waters. Unheard of just three decades ago, large-scale bleaching has become a regular occurrence. Within 20 years the conditions that drove this year’s bleaching in Australia will occur every second year. A Guardian report illustrates in vivid detail the scale of the devastation unfolding beneath the surface. Over the past 34 years the average proportion of the Great Barrier Reef exposed to temperatures where bleaching or even death is likely has increased from about 11% a year to about 27% a year.

It is a constant struggle to motivate most people most of the time about climate change. The evidence accumulates slowly; despite being an emergency, it often . . . more:  The Guardian view on the Great Barrier Reef: the crisis they prefer to downplay | Opinion | The Guardian

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Arctic Sea Ice Breaks May Record . . . By A Lot | Climate Central

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By Bobby Magill:  Arctic sea ice shrank to its fourth-lowest level in 50 years last month, setting a record low for the month of May and setting up conditions for what could become the smallest Arctic ice extent in history, according to National Snow and Ice Data Center data released Tuesday.

“We didn’t just break the old May record, we’re way below the previous one,” NSIDC Director Mark Serreze said.  More:  Source: Arctic Sea Ice Breaks May Record . . . By A Lot | Climate Central

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To save the Great Barrier Reef ‘we need to start now, right now’ – video | Environment | The Guardian

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GR:  The video leaves us with a grim outlook.  Human wastes running into the oceans coupled with global warming will soon destroy all the reefs.  Do enough people care to force our governments to act?  Probably not.  Do you see any answers?

and , theguardian.com:  Jon Brodie from James Cook University says to give the Great Barrier Reef even a fighting chance to survive, Australia needs to spend $1bn a year for the next 10 years to improve water quality. If we don’t do that now, he says, we might need to just give up on the reef. ‘Climate change is happening much more quickly and much more severely than most scientists predicted’•

The Great Barrier Reef: a catastrophe laid bare – special report.    Source: To save the Great Barrier Reef ‘we need to start now, right now’ – video | Environment | The Guardian

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Predator Control in Alaska Wildlife Refuges

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Pat Lavin:  The state of Alaska is pursuing aggressive predator control measures on our national wildlife refuges, targeting bears, wolves and other wildlife on land that was meant for their conservation.

Alaska is a state unlike any other, home to diverse landscapes from the tundra of the high arctic to temperate rainforests in the south. Polar bears, wolves, and brown bears live here. In many parts of the state, these carnivores live in pristine habitat as they have for thousands of years, hunting their natural prey, including moose, caribou, deer, salmon and more.  More:  Predator Control in Alaska Wildlife Refuges

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Green Conservatives call for earlier UK coal power phase-out | Environment | The Guardian

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Damian Carrington:  The UK should close all its coal-fired power stations two years earlier than the government’s pledge of 2025, according to green Conservatives including former energy minister Lord Greg Barker.

The move would not cause the lights to go out, would cut both carbon emissions and air pollution and would boost cleaner energy projects, according to a report from Bright Blue, a thinktank of Tory modernisers.

The report also concludes that if the troubled Hinkley C nuclear plant is cancelled it could be replaced by renewable energy.  Source: Green Conservatives call for earlier UK coal power phase-out | Environment | The Guardian

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Great Barrier Reef: diving in the stench of millions of rotting animals – video | Environment | The Guardian

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GR:  Watch this short video to get a clear idea of what’s happening to coral.

Richard Vevers from the Ocean Agency had never experienced anything like the devastation he witnessed in May diving around the dead and dying coral reefs off Lizard Island on the Great Barrier Reef. When his team emerged from the water, he says, ‘We realised we just stank – we stank of the smell of rotting animals.’ The reefs around the island have been ravaged by coral bleaching caused by climate change.  Special report by Josh Wall and Michael Slezak, theguardian.com.  Source: Great Barrier Reef: diving in the stench of millions of rotting animals – video | Environment | The Guardian

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Florida harbor dredging threatens corals | Summit County Citizens Voice

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GR:  This seems like the wrong time to be destroying coral.  Is the pursuit of economic progress driving Florida and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers mad?

Bob Berwyn:

Activists plan lawsuit to win more environmental protection

Staff Report:  Even with coral reefs around the world under the global warming gun, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is seeking approval for a controversial Florida dredging project that could smother parts of the only coastal barrier reef in the continental United States.

But a coalition of environmental and community groups have banded together to try and the the Corps to provide mandatory, common-sense protections for reefs near the Port Everglades dredging project near Fort Lauderdale. The project’s goal is to increase coastal access for larger ships.Critics of the project say similar dredging at PortMiami injured and killed Endangered Species Act-listed staghorn corals and buried alive more than 200 football fields of reef habitat. They claim the damage stemmed from the Corps’ failure to collect and use accurate, up-to-date information or adequately account for potential impacts to nearby reefs.  More:  Florida harbor dredging threatens corals | Summit County Citizens Voice

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Nuclear power or waste? Asking the wrong questions | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

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nuclear waste 4Steven Starr:  This is a discussion in which, as Manpreet Sethi has noted, all the participants “either argue in favor of nuclear power or decline to argue against it. … [T]hey see no need to eliminate nuclear energy.” That is, the Bulletin has selected experts who may suggest new policies or technological fixes for the nuclear industry, but will not call for the industry’s abolition.

nuclear waste 3I am a senior scientist with Physicians for Social Responsibility, a group that does call for abolition. Physicians for Social Responsibility is deeply concerned about the medical and ethical consequences of the ongoing production of enormous amounts of high-level nuclear waste. Such waste, hundreds of thousands of tons of it, sits in “cooling pools” next to nuclear power reactors; many individual pools contain more cesium-137 than was released by all atmospheric nuclear weapons tests combined. These utterly lethal radionuclides will require some form of supervision for hundreds of thousands of years if they are to be prevented from entering the biosphere. Thousands of generations of human beings will have to perform the supervision.

nuclear waste 2Only one country, Finland, has begun work on a permanent repository for high-level waste, but it is not yet operational. The only permanent site for low-level waste in the United States, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, is currently closed due to mishaps including a 2014 radiation release. Hence the entire world provides no good examples of safe permanent storage.  More: Nuclear power: Asking the wrong questions | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

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