In the last 40 years there has been a 100-fold increase of plastics in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, according to a study in Biology Letters. These plastics don’t only poison and strangle sea creatures—one of the findings of our “Swimming With Nurdles” graphic in May/June—they might re-weave the web of life, the study says. The increase in plastic bounty has been an excellent breeding ground for Halobates sericeus—a type of water skater that typically lays its eggs on naturally occurring flotsam like wood, pumice, and sea shells. Lead author Miriam Goldstein and her ... Read More
Ocean Garbage Patches: A Scientific Sifting
April 26, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Our oceans are filled with trash. Oceanographers, environmentalists and biologists have been working for years to better understand the problem of, and solutions to, marine debris. In the current issue of Pacific Standard we highlight the problem of, and some possible solutions to, marine debris in “Swimming with Nurdles” (PDF). Add to that: Marine debris is easy to think of as an environmentalist’s problem. But, according to an Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation report, marine debris cost Pacific nations’ fishing, shipping and marine tourism industries $1.27 billion in ... Read More
Ocean Health Index: The Audacity of Necessity
December 13, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
“It’s an act of real audacity when a ranking system tries to be comprehensive and heterogeneous.” Noted journalist Malcolm Gladwell made this observation recently about the U.S. News and World Report college rating system. But the same could be said of the Ocean Health Index, which will debut early next year. It represents an enormously ambitious effort to quantify ocean health for every coastal country on the planet — reporting on everything from biodiversity to artisanal fishing to cultural uses to carbon storage and sequestration. We assert that when it comes to the ocean such ... Read More
Trash Free Seas Alliance Takes Aim at Great Pacific Garbage Patch
October 16, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Normandy's windswept beaches have been quiet since the Allied invasion in 1944. Now the desolate coastline plays host to a different, more insidious attacker: plastic trash. Nestled in the coarse sand and tangled among pieces of driftwood lie the detritus of the industrialized world, an army of plastic bottles, discarded fishing lines and floats, crushed buckets, flip-flops, broken chairs, and bags. The English Channel is not the world's sole depositor of plastic debris. Lonely beaches all over the world — ones you’d expect to be devoid of human influence — teem with wildlife, but ... Read More
‘Safe Planet’ Uses the Arts to Explain Chemical Exposure Threat
August 9, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Telling someone they’ve been poisoned in ways that could reshape their DNA and be carried on to their descendants — possibly causing cancer, neurological illness, mental deficiency, birth defects, brain damage and death — isn’t easy. But that’s Michael Stanley-Jones’ job. As public information officer for the United Nations Environment Programme, he’s tasked with engaging the public with initiatives established during the Basel, Stockholm and Rotterdam conventions. While not exactly breakfast-table topics, those gatherings saw world leaders convene to address the dangers of ... Read More
Fireworks: Beautiful, Thrilling … Toxic?
July 1, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
As you gaze into the night sky this holiday weekend and marvel at the colorful fireworks display exploding before your eyes, give thanks that the founding fathers didn’t sign the Declaration of Independence on February 4, 1776. Fireworks and snowfall, it seems, are a problematic combination. That’s the conclusion of a 2008 study, one of several published in recent years that suggest these awe-inspiring fireworks displays may have unforeseen health and environmental consequences. This very old technology, which has been traced back to China’s Song Dynasty (960-1280 A.D.), has been ... Read More
Solar Energy Powers Cleanup of Superfund Site
March 3, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Last August, David Rosenfeld outlined on Miller-McCune.com how the tailing heaps and spoiled land leftover from mining in the American West might win a second act by serving as the home for land-hungry solar panels. ("Can Mining Provide a Renewable Energy Future?") As Tessera Solar's Janette Coates explained in his story, existing transmission lines, available water and roads capable of supporting wide loads provide ready-made infrastructure, while reclaiming large tracts of land — conveniently held by a single owner — that's already been disturbed reduces permitting costs. It also ... Read More
Smoggy Days Make for Sickly Stock Market
February 8, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Stock prices have been on the rise, tempting cautious investors to plunge back into the market. If you are one of them, you might consider this unconventional piece of advice: Buy low, sell smoggy. That’s the implication of a study conducted by two Israeli scholars published in the Journal of Economic Psychology. They report poor air quality in the vicinity of the trading floor "is negatively related to stock returns, even when controlling for other variables." Tamir Levy of Netanya Academic College and Joseph Yagil of Haifa University note that exposure to polluted air can trigger ... Read More
Can China Avoid Getting Stuck in Traffic?
February 6, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
The new Great Wall of China is the "Great Wall" of cars stuck in city traffic, researchers say, and it will take more than restrictions on new license plates and car registrations to break the gridlock. The problem is, there's barely enough space on the roads in China's largest cities for the 35 million cars that were bought during the past decade of frenzied consumerism, according to transportation experts at the University of California, Berkeley, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In the ancient capital city of Xi'an, home of the buried armies of terracotta warriors, Lee ... Read More
Rules That Improve the Business Environment?
January 21, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Harvard business professor Michael Porter floated an idea in a one-page essay in Scientific American 20 years ago that many of his colleagues at the time thought ridiculous. Good environmental regulation, he suggested, could actually spur innovation, making companies more competitive even as they adjust to stricter environmental standards. The idea was the exact opposite of conventional wisdom as it was discussed then among business leaders and taught in economics classrooms. Even 20 years later, it seems to contradict the premise that underlies every policy dispute in Washington over ... Read More
