« Called Acid Test, and produced by the Natural Resources Defense Council, the short film warns against ocean acidification and its effect on underwater food chain. As Sigourney explains, while our oceans may act as a beneficial carbon sink, there’s a limit to what can be captured in balance with the rest of the ecosystem. »
(la suite…)

« Ce sont les conclusions des chercheurs spécialisés sur l’Antarctique…
Plus 1,4 mètres d’ici à 2100: le niveau des eaux montera-t-il deux fois plus que prévu? C’est en tout cas les conclusions d’une étude du comité scientifique sur la recherche Antarctique si la température augmente de 4°C comme prévu. Autant dire que l’on ferait une croix sur les Maldives ou bien les îles Tuvalu. Londres, New-York, ou Shanghai devraient du coup dépenser des millions dans la construction d’infrastructures pour se protéger. »
 

• 20minutes.fr
• Google Flood map

« En Grande-Bretagne, un spot télévisé fait culpabiliser les parents de l’impact du réchauffement climatique sur leurs enfants. Une stratégie jugée contre-productive par certains experts.

Le spot a coûté 10 millions d’euros au gouvernement britannique. Pendant une minute, il raconte l’histoire d’un père lisant un livre à sa fille. Le récit dépeint un monde “très, très étrange” aux “horribles conséquences” sur les enfants. Les images du livre montrent des villes inondées, où se noient les habitants et leurs animaux. Le réchauffement climatique est représenté sous la forme d’un monstre flottant dans le ciel..»

sources:

• La suite chez: youphil
• BBC News: ‘Scary’ UK climate ad faces probe

Avec l’arrivée du printemps austral, la flotte baleinière japonaise se prépare à reprendre la mer dans quelques jours, pour entamer une nouvelle saison de chasse dans les eaux de l’Antarctique. Mais c’est sans compter la célèbre association Sea Shepherd Conservation Society de Paul Watson..

This is another big step by the industrial age: Two big nations finally managed to significantly pollute the pacific ocean (said to be the biggest ocean of the planet).

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a gyre of marine litter in the central North Pacific Ocean located roughly between the US and Chinese coast. Its size is estimated to be twice the size of Texas.

Thousands of tons of bottle caps, bags, wrappers, abandoned fishing nets and micro-pellets used in abrasive cleaners are carried from the west coast of North America in about five years, and debris from the east coast of Asia in a year or less. Some of the trash have labels written in Chinese and English.

According to Katsuhiko Saido (Nihon University, Japan), plastic actually does decompose, releasing potentially toxic chemicals that can disrupt the functioning of hormones in animals and marine life.

Plastics have entangled birds and turned up in the bellies of fish. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates 100,000 marine mammals die trash-related deaths each year.

Wikipedia: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

It is said that we throw away millions of tonnes of food a year – a quarter of all we buy. Enter the ‘freegans’ – campaigners like Tristram Stuart who are tackling the scandal of global waste by digging around in supermarket bins for their weekly shop..

Sources:

• Guardian.co.uk: The freegans
• Guardian.co.uk:Why do we throw away vast amounts of food?

Did you know that holding a mobile phone to the ear for extended periods of time could lead to a cubital tunnel syndrome ?

The cubital tunnel syndrome is a new syndrome brought to you by the technological age. Also known as cell phone elbow, this syndrome is a condition in which the nerve serving the hand is stretched at the end of the funny bone and as a result it can “choke the blood supply to the nerves.” and “could impede your writing ability..”

Source: Healthy Pages: Cell Phone Elbow?

A group of hunters aboard a small boat out of the tiny Alaska village of Wainwright were the first to spot what would eventually be called “the blob.” It was a dark, floating mass stretching for miles through the Chukchi Sea, a frigid and relatively shallow expanse of Arctic Ocean water between Alaska’s northwest coast and the Russian Far East. The goo was fibrous, hairy. When it touched floating ice, it looked almost black.

But what was it? An oil slick? Some sort of immense, amorphous organism adrift in some of the planet’s most remote waters? Read more..

See also:

• How sunblocks are damaging coral reefs