oceans
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Bittman takes a bite out of the ocean
Endangered species for sale Photo: MaRonin47 I’m a big fan of Mark Bittman. I’ve been reading him since his Cook’s Illustrated days in the early ’90s; I consider his weekly “Minimalist” column in The New York Times invaluable; and several of his cookbooks sit, stained and dogeared, on my shelf. Bittman made a career by […]
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Umbra advises on tuna and mercury
Dear Umbra, Big, mature tuna have a lot of mercury in their bodies and are often caught with longlines that snag endangered sea turtles and sea birds; smaller juvenile tuna have less mercury, swim near the surface so they can be caught with less destructive fishing gear, but they have not had the chance to […]
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Q: How much can West Antarctica plausibly contribute to sea-level rise by 2100?
U.K. Telegraph: “Antarctic ice bridge collapse hailed as new sign of global warming.” A. 3 to 5 feet — contributing to an increasingly likely total sea-level rise of more than 5 feet by 2100, a rise that will be all but impossible to stop if we don’t sharply reverse CO2 emissions trends within a decade […]
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The ocean does represent a major source of energy, just not the one you’re thinking of
In the minutes after midnight on March 24, 1989, the Exxon Valdez poured 10.8 million gallons of oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound. The spill turned pristine spruce-lined waters into a sticky death trap for countless animals, including a quarter of a million birds. Yet two decades later, the lessons of Exxon Valdez have not […]
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Why the foodie press needs to do better work on seafood
I recently finished Taras Grescoe’s wonderful, vitally important book Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood. Everyone who loves seafood and would prefer to be able to enjoy it in 20 years must read it. Basic message: overfishing, pollution, climate change, and abusive aquaculture practices threaten to turn the oceans into […]
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Nuclear technology tracks Carribbean pollution
PANAMA (AFP) – A UN agency is using nuclear material and technologies to study coastal pollution in a dozen Caribbean countries caused mainly by oil refineries, its officials said. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is focusing on marine pollution in this project because the sea is vital to the region, accounting for up to […]
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California has much to lose from rising sea levels, study says
If global warming continues unchecked through 2100, rising sea levels will displace 480,000 Californians, put nearly $100 billion of property at risk of flooding, and erode away stone formations at Big Sur and other coastal bluffs, according to a new report from the Pacific Institute, a California environmental non-profit. Even Disneyland could end up underwater […]
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The case for — and against — eating those suddenly pervasive, stinging sea creatures
In Checkout Line, Lou Bendrick cooks up answers to reader questions about how to green their food choices and other diet-related quandaries. Lettuce know what food worries keep you up at night. Beach menace — or dinner? Dear Checkout Line, I’ve heard that jellyfish are plentiful and that we should eat them. I want […]
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A volunteer army takes on oceans of trash
This photo of a trash-covered beach in the Philippines was taken during the 2008 cleanup. Photo: Tamara Thoreson Pierce On a single day last September, some 390,000 volunteers collected 6.8 million pounds of garbage from coastal locations and waterways throughout the world, providing a stark and detailed snapshot of the trash polluting the world’s oceans. […]
