Ahhh, the Holidays! Tis the season for entertaining and getting together with friends and family. If you are planning on serving seafood as part of your holiday feasts, there are many things you can do to ensure that your choices are sustainable and do not reward retailers and commercial fisheries who threaten our oceans’ ecosystems. Why is this so important? In 2003, the Pew Oceans Commission warned that the world’s oceans are in a state of “silent collapse,” threatening our food supply, marine economies, recreation and the natural legacy we leave our children.
White Christmases are rare at NOAA’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla, Calif., but a select group of fisheries scientists from the Center are pretty much guaranteed to have one. Every year, from about October through March, researchers from SWFSC’s Antarctic Living Marine resources (AMLR) Program head south to Antarctica to study and observe how animals living in the Antarctic ecosystem are impacted by commercial fisheries in the Southern Ocean.
Tthe U.S. Senate passed the Shark Conservation Act yesterday, which was introduced by Sen. John Kerry (D-MA). This bill was first introduced in the Senate in April of 2009, so it is a great achievement that it was finally passed in the current lame duck session. The cost of the bill was estimated to be [...]
The Lemelson-MIT Inven Team Initiative is designed to excite high school students about invention; empower students to problem solve and encourage an incentive cultre in schools and communities. InvenTeams are teams of high school students, teachers, and mentors that receive grants up to $10,000 each to invent technological solutions to real-world problems. Each InvenTeam chooses [...]
The flow of oil may have stopped, but the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster will have implications for the Gulf of Mexico for perhaps decades to come. There is not only the environmental effects to be studied and mitigated, the legal circus surrounding the disaster has only just begun. Here are the latest developments: December [...]
UNITI LLC, an industrial titanium venture jointly owned by Allegheny Technologies Incorporated (NYSE: ATI) and Verkhnaya Salda Metallurgical Production Association (VSMPO), today announced that it has been chosen to supply a significant portion of the commercially pure (CP) titanium to be used in the world’s largest seawater desalination plant. UNITI expects to supply between 5.5 [...]
Former Backstreet Boy turned desparate reality TV personality, Nick Carter, ran his 45 foot luxury power boat N-Control aground in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary in May of 2001. The grounding and subsequent salvage of the Sea Ray injured 3,762 square feet (349.49 square meters) of critical seagrass habitat, an area larger than a tennis court. On July 18, 2002, NOAA settled the case for $30, 573. Results of a five-year monitoring effort to repair seagrass damaged in the boat grounding incident has just been released by NOAA.
Sea level is rising, and California’s coastal communities will need to prepare for the gradual inundation of low-lying areas, as well as increased erosion rates and damage from storms. Gary Griggs, professor of Earth and planetary sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz, is working on a guidebook for local government agencies to help them make the difficult the decisions ahead.
Environmental crises like the Gulf oil spill make scientists and citizens more aware of the importance of clean and flourishing marine ecosystems. The Florida Institute of Technology is among those institutions taking the lead in a major step toward public understanding of the ocean by joining the Center for Ocean Science Education Excellence (COSEE) Network. Based at Indian River State College (IRSC) in Fort Pierce, the center is a collaboration of IRSC, Florida Tech, the Smithsonian Marine Station and the Ocean Research and Conservation Association (ORCA
New submarine volcanoes, a large hydrothermal field with a thriving exotic animal ecosystem and areas rich with deep-sea ocean animals are among the discoveries reported today by U.S. and Indonesian scientists who explored the largely unknown deep Sulawesi Sea last summer off the coast of Indonesia.
Ocean Power Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq: OPTT and London Stock Exchange AIM: OPT) (“OPT” or “the Company”) announces its financial results for the second quarter and six months ended October 31, 2010 of its fiscal year ending on April 30, 2011.
University of British Columbia researchers today launched a $13-million, nine-year research program with Japan’s Nippon Foundation (NF) to study the future of the world’s oceans and to monitor the impact of human activities on seafood resources.
Two New England firms are the subject of enforcement actions by both the U.S. EPA and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, for improper disposal of dredged sediments in ocean waters during recent dredging projects in Massachusetts Bay harbor communities.
The grocery chain took this important step in sustainability on September 2nd of this year after several meetings with Iemanya staff to discuss transitioning Henry’s to sustainable seafood and receiving petitions by Iemanya Oceanica supporters to discontinue selling shark meat. In a formal letter to Iemanya, Doug Veranai, the Meat and Seafood Director for Henry’s stated, “We are currently working to find alternative resources so we can start to reduce and eliminate any additional unsustainable seafood from our counters.”
Deepwater Wind today announced its plans to construct the Deepwater Wind Energy Center (DWEC), the first of the “second generation” of offshore wind farms in the United States.
“DWEC will be the first regional offshore wind energy center in the United States, with a wind farm and a transmission system serving multiple markets. The industry is maturing and becoming a major force in reshaping our national energy future for the better, and DWEC will lead this effort.”
The U.S. Senate should heed the recommendation by the staff of the bipartisan National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling that “Congress should direct 80 percent of civil and criminal Clean Water Act penalties” to Gulf Coast restoration, according to eight non-profit groups. While the full commission report is expected in January, the groups urged the Senate to act on this staff recommendation before the lame duck congressional session ends later this month.
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