We live in a world obsessed with numbers – college rankings, baseball scores, exam results – and now we have one to tell …
ocean acidification
EcocentricOceans
Ocean History Lessons: How Corals Can Protect Themselves From Warming
History is a valuable teacher—to natural systems as well as humans, apparently. In a study that could critically shape marine conservation efforts for years to come, scientists have found that sea life can learn from the past …
EcocentricUncategorized
Oceans: Coral Reefs Facing a Triple Threat
I was traveling yesterday, speaking on a panel about electric cars at Harvard University’s Belfer Center, so I didn’t get a chance to cover yesterday’s news closely. But I wanted to note an alarming report published by the World Resources Institute (WRI) on the risks facing coral reefs.
The short version: coral reefs are in big …
EcocentricOceans
Why Australia’s Great Barrier Reef Is in Trouble
A few weeks ago when the floods first hit eastern Australia, I wrote about their potential impact on the Great Barrier Reef as fresh water plumes send sediment and nutrients into the waters offshore. Here’s my longer take in this week’s international editions of the magazine on why the world’s largest protected coral system is in …
EcocentricOceans
Oceans: From Climate Change to Overfishing, Bad News for the Deep Blue
For all the reports about overfishing, it can sometimes be hard to except that we really have a problem. After all, if we’re supposedly fishing out the seas, why is it easy—and cheap—to get salmon, crab, tuna and any other delicacy you want at the local sushi counter? Why have McDonald’s Filet-o-Fish sandwiches skyrocketed in …
EcocentricOceans
Oceans: Saving Our Coral Reefs
Over on the Time.com mainpage, I have a piece on the worrying bleaching events ocurring to coral reefs around the world, thanks largely to warming ocean temperatures. Though the sudden bleachings we’re seeing in places like Indonesia immediately have to do with unusually warm water temperatures caused in part by this year’s El Nino, …