Fighting on the Front Line Continues

Sea Shepard's flagship may be impounded or sold after a lawsuit was brought against them by a Malta-based fishing company, Fish and Fish Limited. The boat was on its way to the Faeroes where it was planning to disrupt an annual whale hunt that sees around 1000 of the animals killed, according to STV news.

The action is in relation to damage they allege was done to bluefin tuna fishing gear by Sea Shepherd in the Mediterranean last year.

Whether we like their methods or not, Sea Shepard is on the front lines of a battle for the health of the oceans that is both real and symbolic.

Save the Big Guys

Scientists from six countries reaffirmed that all the animals in a habitat -- ocean, mountain, forest, etc -- are closely connected, and the largest, top predators are especially important for the health of the entire habitat.

This goes for whales, sharks, tuna, salmon, and many others in the marine world.

Lead author of the study, James Estes, a marine ecologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, states “The top-down effects of apex consumers have diverse and powerful effects on the ways ecosystems work, and the loss of these large animals has widespread implications," according to Mother Earth News.

The examples cited by the scientists show how health of a habitat is closely connected in surprising ways to the health of the larger animals.

    * Industrial whaling has led to declining populations of plankton-eating great whales. There is carbon contained in the whales’ feces and whales deposit this carbon in the deep sea. The decline of the whale population has led to an increase of 105 million tons of carbon into the atmosphere.

    * The baboon population was amplified due to the destruction of lions in Africa. Baboons carried over intestinal parasites to human settlements nearby.

    * The reintroduction of wolves in Yellowstone National Park reduced deer and elk populations, allowing aspen and willow trees to recover.

The New One Percent Rule

One percent of global GDP invested in renewable energy would provide 80% of the world’s power in four decades but “only if governments pursue the policies needed to promote green power,” according to a new report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

If the full range of renewable technologies were deployed, the world could keep greenhouse gas concentrations to less than 450 parts per million, the level scientists have predicted will be the limit of safety beyond which climate change becomes catastrophic and irreversible, according to the Guardian.

Catastrophic here feels subjective – the oceans are already becoming more acidic and this is catastrophic in the here and now, not only in the future. Also, 80% of the world's power from renewables is fantastic but four decades -- do we have that kind of time? Seems like the oceans do not.

Nevertheless, these results, these tangibles, are the kind of positive thinking we need to get us there.

Air Travel and Nature's Connection

Maybe the way to understand the connection between people and the natural world is to think of an airline flight.

There you are in your assigned seat after takeoff, seat belt fastened as per the rules, eating the paltry pack of nuts and sipping some beverage wondering about all the important things you have to wonder about.

Suddenly the seat in front of you comes back abruptly into your space.  You feel you could almost chip a tooth. Or your tray table begins to shake wildly at some point and your drink almost spills.

The person in the seat in front of you has forgotten that the back of their seat is the front of the space for you. Everything they do, from fully reclining their chair to tapping their head against their headrest, has an impact on your experience.

This is the way people are connected to nature.

The idea is not to fight it but to find a mutually-acceptable balance between your comfort and theirs.

Image courtesy: popsci.com

Good News Trickles In

Two pieces of good ocean news courtesy of Ocean Champions this week -- an important bill to reduce the Gulf of Mexico dead zone has passed a US House subcommittee, and funding for key marine conservation programs was restored. 

The latter was due in large part to the good work of Representative Sam Farr of California. Thanks Sam, and thanks everyone who continues to work for healthy and sustainable seas.

What's Next

So they send a rover deep into the ocean off Canada to see if the sponges and corals that are destroyed by trawling (raking heavy nets and iron chains across the bottom of the seafloor) are important to the fishery. Looks like the answer is yes.

What's the next move? A reconsideration of fishing gear? A look toward a healthy and sustainable fishery even twenty years from now? Right.

People who want more money now hire a good PR firm or a scientist to poke holes in the research, or a lawyer to defend the right to trash the ocean that feeds them.

Sorry, just been reading lots of ocean conservation news lately, makes me edgy.

Read more about the research here.

Nice Jump in Clean Energy Investments

Global clean energy investments increased 23% to the tune of $211 billion, according to USA Today.

Keep it coming! Let's get a momentum going that even the climate deniers and the fossils in the fossil fuel industries cannot stop.

This is the clean energy future. Get on board.

Telling Stats: 

China led all nations with about $49.8 billion in investments, ahead of German spending of $41 billion and U.S. spending of $29.6 billion.

Big gains came in small-scale projects such as rooftop solar panels, up 91% to $60 billion, tied to stimulus spending by nations in 2010, and government research, up 121% to $5.3 billion.