Creating an Oceanscape
A new, multinational initiative aims to protect 38.5 million sq. km. of Pacific ocean — larger than the areas of United States, Canada and Mexico combined. From Conservation International:
Across the globe, the world’s ocean is in crisis, threatened by massive overfishing, climate change and a myriad of other forces. Although the Pacific Islands Forum counts some of the world’s smallest countries as its members, the group has just made one of the boldest agreements for collaborative, integrated and adaptive ocean management yet: the launch of the Pacific Oceanscape.
“The new Pacific Oceanscape will help us build resilience in ocean ecosystems so that marine life has the best chance of adapting. Only by doing this can there be some assurance that the oceans, and millions of people who depend on them directly for their livelihood and well-being, will survive the onslaught of global climate change.” – President Anote Tong of Kiribati
Confused by Environmental Assessments from the BP Gulf Oil Leak?
There could be a reason for that, from Newsweek:
The program designed to assess the environmental effects of the BP spill may be skewed by the legal process, say scientists struggling to get funding for independent research.
Deviations from normal sea surface temperatures (left) and sea surface heights (right) at the peak of the 2009-2010 central Pacific El Niño, as measured by NOAA polar orbiting satellites and NASA’s Jason-1 spacecraft, respectively. The warmest temperatures and highest sea levels were located in the central equatorial Pacific. Image: NASA/JPL-NOAA

Fins Across Florida: Public Art in Service of Environmental Awareness
This month, Elizabeth Cushman Titus Putnam became the first conservationist to receive the Presidential Citizens Medal, the United States’ second-highest civilian award, given to those “performing exemplary deeds of service for her country and fellow citizens.”

Lake Eyre basin, Australia. Source: NASA Earth Observatory.
While politicians and policy makers around the world debate the feasibility of modest measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions over the next 30 or 80 years, a group in Australia has taken a bolder approach, asking what it would take to transform theirs into a zero-emission nation by 2020.





