The world's oceans are faced with an unprecedented loss of species comparable to the great mass extinctions of prehistory, a major report suggests today. The seas are degenerating far faster than anyone has predicted, the report says, because of the cumulative impact of a number of severe individual stresses, ranging from climate warming and sea-water acidification, to widespread chemical pollution and gross overfishing. [...more]
A new study says the seas are acidifying ten times faster today than 55 million years ago when a mass extinction of marine species occurred. And, the study concludes, current changes in ocean chemistry due to the burning of fossil fuels may portend a new wave of die-offs. [...more]
The Earth has nine biophysical thresholds beyond which it cannot be pushed without disastrous consequences, the authors of a new paper in the journal Nature report. Ominously, these scientists say, we have already moved past three of these tipping points. [...more]
Mounting evidence that human activity is changing the world’s oceans in profound and damaging ways is outlined in a new scientific discussion paper released today. [...more]
An international team of scientists has proposed a set of basic rules to help save the world’s imperiled coral reefs from ultimate destruction. [...more]
The Oceans are like the Goose that Laid the Golden Egg. As long as it was alive it laid a golden egg each day but then the greedy farmer decided to kill it to get all the gold inside and found nothing and the Goose laid no more golden eggs because it was dead. For centuries, the oceans have fed humankind. But in the last century, human greed has raped and pillaged oceanic eco-systems remorsefully with an ecological ignorance that is staggeringly insane. [...more]
U.S. taxpayers doled out more than $6.4 billion in subsidies to the commercial fishing industry between 1996 and 2004, possibly accelerating the ongoing collapse of fish stocks worldwide and adding to the devastation of large ocean fish species. [...more]
Unchecked global warming would leave ocean dwellers gasping for breath. Dead zones are low-oxygen areas in the ocean where higher life forms such as fish, crabs and clams are not able to live. In shallow coastal regions, these zones can be caused by runoff of excess fertilizers from farming. A team of Danish researchers have now shown that unchecked global warming would lead to a dramatic expansion of low-oxygen areas zones in the global ocean by a factor of 10 or more. [...more]
Fishing and hunting are having broad, swift impacts on the body size and reproductive abilities of fish and other commercially harvested species, potentially jeopardizing the ability of entire populations to recover, according to the results of a new study that will appear in the January 12, 2009, online issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). [...more]
A new report released by Oceana today concludes that more than 80 percent of the world's fisheries cannot withstand increased fishing activity and only 17 percent of the world's fisheries should be considered capable of any growth in catch at all. Too Few Fish: A Regional Assessment of the World's Fisheries shows there is very little room for further expansion of global fishing efforts. [...more]
