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By Sheila Bonini, Senior Vice President, Private Sector Engagement, World Wildlife Fund U.S. In recent years, a growing chorus of voices—among consumers, in business and across government—has urged immediate action to reduce plastic pollution. It’s a shift driven by countless images of natural habitats befouled by plastic waste and animals harmed or killed, as well […]
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With so much focus on space exploration, it is easy to forget that the ocean covers 70 percent of the Earth and 80 percent of that is unknown and uncharted — has not been mapped. But a project called “Seabed 2030” launched three years ago, is aiming to change all that.
Why This Matters: It is hard to believe how much we don’t know about our home — it’s as if we live in a house but have never explored the basement.
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A new study warns that climate change “velocity” in the deep ocean — the rate at which species’ range shifts in order to remain at their preferred temperature — is greater than at the surface even if we mitigate climate change, and particularly at depths below 600 and 3000 feet.
Why This Matters: The differences in water temperature increases at different depths in the water column could cause major disruptions in food webs as species that rely on each other for survival will have to adapt at different velocities, thus having major impacts on the distribution and abundance of ocean wildlife.
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We already know that microplastics (bits that are less than 5 mm) are omnipresent in the ocean, but now scientists believe that previous estimates about how much plastic is in the ocean are actually way too low.
Why This Matters: Microplastic is more abundant than the tiniest and one of the most abundant life forms in the ocean — zooplankton — if these estimates are correct.
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By David Helvarg and Jason Scorse As we enter another hurricane season in the midst of a global pandemic, there are growing calls to respond to the climate emergency at the scale we’ve responded to COVID-19. Yet many climate solutions being proposed fail to address the 71 percent of the planet that’s blue. In early […]
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With supermarkets running low on meat, seafood is a healthy option, and sales of frozen seafood like shrimp and canned seafood (much of which is imported) are up over last year, according to some retailers. Most of the domestic seafood landed and sold in the U.S. comes from small fishing businesses and goes to restaurants and those sales are down as much as 95% across the country.
Why This Matters: Congress provided $300m for fishers in stimulus funding, but it is only a “drop in the bucket” of what is needed to keep fishers afloat said Alaskan commercial fisher Julie Decker on Tuesday at a forum convened by the Ocean Caucus Foundation.
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