Author Archive
86 percent of dolphins and whales threatened by fishing nets
February 7th, 2010 
Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin
Mongabay: A new report from the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) finds that almost 9 out of 10 toothed whales--including dolphins and porpoises--are threatened by entanglement and subsequent drowning from large-scale fishing operations equipment, such as gillnets, traps, longlines, and trawls. These operations threaten the highest percentage (86 percent) of the world's toothed whales. "During the International Year of Biodiversity, the Convention on Migratory Species continues to ...
Whalers, activists clash again off Antarctica
February 6th, 2010 Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin
Associated Press: Anti-whaling ship the Bob Barker and a Japanese harpoon boat collided in icy Antarctic waters in the second major clash this year in increasingly aggressive confrontations between conservationists and the whaling fleet. No one was injured in the clash Saturday, which each side blamed on the other. The U.S.-based activist group Sea Shepherd, which sends vessels to confront the Japanese fleet each year, accused the Japanese ship of deliberately rammed the Bob Barker -- named ...
Blue Whales Croon A New Tune
February 6th, 2010 Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin
National Public Radio: Blue whales are updating their playlist, according to new research on the huge mammals. It's not quite West Side Story, but male blue whales use songs to warn away other males and attract females. It's a pulsing sound, more like a large piece of machinery than the Jets and the Sharks. But that song has been changing. John Hildebrand of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography studies whale sounds and says he's been hearing something new lately. "They've been ...
Arctic ice melt alarms scientists
February 6th, 2010 Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin
Winnipeg Free Press: A Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker makes its way through the ice in Baffin Bay. A local researcher says the melt of sea ice surpasses even pessimistic forecasts. (JONATHAN HAYWARD / THE CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVES) Sea ice in Canada's fragile Arctic is melting more quickly than anyone expected, the lead investigator in the largest climate change study done in Canada said Friday. University of Manitoba Prof. David Barber, the lead investigator of the Circumpolar Flaw Lead System ...
Whaler and Activist Ship Collide Off Antarctica
February 6th, 2010 Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin
New York Times: The anti-whaling ship the Bob Barker and a Japanese harpoon boat collided in the icy waters off Antarctica on Saturday -- the second major clash this year in the increasingly aggressive confrontations between the two sides. No one was reportedly injured in the latest strike. The U.S.-based activist group Sea Shepherd, which sends vessels to confront the Japanese fleet each year, said a small hole was torn in the hull of its ship, but it was above the water line and the vessel was not ...
Arctic sea ice vanishing faster than ‘our most pessimistic models’: researcher
February 6th, 2010 Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin
Vancouver Sun: Sea ice in Canada's fragile Arctic is melting faster than anyone expected, the lead investigator in Canada's largest climate-change study yet said Friday -- raising the possibility that the Arctic could, in a worst-case scenario, be ice-free in about three years. University of Manitoba Prof. David Barber, the lead investigator of the Circumpolar Flaw Lead System Study, said the rapid decay of thick Arctic Sea ice highlights the rapid pace of climate change in the North and foreshadows ...
Posted in Ocean 
Comments Off on Arctic sea ice vanishing faster than ‘our most pessimistic models’: researcherNetherlands Enters The Climate Fray
February 6th, 2010 Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin
redOrbit: A claim made by the UN climate change panel in 2007 that half of the country of the Netherlands was below sea level, is being contested by the country itself. Dutch authorities estimate that only 26 percent of the country is below sea level and will be asking the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to check its figures, environment ministry spokesman Trimo Vallaart told AFP. The IPCC's calculation that 55 percent of the Netherlands was below sea level came from adding the ...
Climate change likely to make it harder to feed 1 billion hungry: CIDA chief
February 5th, 2010 Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin
Canadian Press: Poor countries are still gripped by the food crisis of two years ago and climate change will only make things tougher in the coming years, says the head of Canadian International Development Agency. CIDA President Margaret Biggs offered that candid assessment of the state of the undeveloped world and what Canada can to do help, in a speech Thursday to University of Ottawa students. Biggs, who rarely speaks publicly, also said a tough road lies ahead in rebuilding ...
Posted in Ocean Comments Off on Climate change likely to make it harder to feed 1 billion hungry: CIDA chiefDefusing the Methane Greenhouse Time Bomb
February 5th, 2010 Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin
Scientific American: Methane trapped in Arctic ice (and elsewhere) could be rapidly released into the atmosphere as a result of global warming in a possible doomsday scenario for climate change, some scientists worry. After all, methane is 72 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide over a 20-year timescale. But research announced at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union this December suggests that marine microbes could at least partially defeat the methane "time bomb" sitting ...
Arctic melt to cost up to $24 trillion by 2050: report
February 5th, 2010 Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin
Reuters: Arctic ice melting could cost global agriculture, real estate and insurance anywhere from $2.4 trillion to $24 trillion by 2050 in damage from rising sea levels, floods and heat waves, according to a report released on Friday. "Everybody around the world is going to bear these costs," said Eban Goodstein, a resource economist at Bard College in New York state who co-authored the report, called "Arctic Treasure, Global Assets Melting Away." He said the report, reviewed by more ...
