Tag: Global warming
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Listen to the Children
Listen to the planet, the scientists, and the children, and you will know a warmer world is happening, with all its associated consequences. Now we need action to stop the bleeding and future consequences of our carbon-based technology. We can do it, we are already are, but not fast enough to make a difference.
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Enemies of the Planet: Earth Day redux
We once lived in a world where, despite our great prosperity, skies were covered in brown smog, suds came into our sinks, trash carpeted our landscape, and poisons permeated our streets and our foods. But yet, despite insurmountable odds, we changed all of that. Now we are faced with a slow, insidious extermination of many…
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SmartFin: Environmental Wave of the Future
As the world’s environmental problems expand the challenge is to keep up with the increasingly larger scale of the issues. Decades ago we worried about individual beaches, now we are focused on whole coastlines, and indeed entire oceans are at risk. To keep pace marine biologists and oceanographers have deployed huge arrays of sensors across the…
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Island in the Stream: the Timeless and Haunting Beauty of Santa Cruz Island
A Haunting Beauty The first thing I noticed was the quietness. Standing on the cliff at the west end all I heard was the wind blowing off the ocean, the waves crashing on the shore, the gulls screaming in the air, all mixed with the smell of the sea. No cars, no trucks, no sounds of…
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First Contact: the Mote in God’s Eye and Lessons for the Future of Humanity
Fictional setting for the novel: the red supergiant star known as Murcheson’s Eye. Associated with it is a yellow Sun-like star which appears in front of the Eye. Since some see the Eye and the Coalsack Nebula as the face of a hooded man, perhaps even the face of God, the yellow star is known…
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The Surfing Ecologist: A New Synergy for Surfers and Science
Are you as interested in the kelp as the swell in the lineup? Do you ponder what lives underwater as you wait for waves? Do you watch the jellyfish and stingrays zing by while surfing? If so, you might be a surfing ecologist and are doubly stoked hanging out in the ocean. Read on, this post is…
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Ocean Conservation for Surfers: Why Care about Healthy Oceans?
I recently attended a conference sponsored by the European Association of Surfing Doctors; a group of surfers that are also medical doctors and health practitioners. Held near Biarritz in the beautiful Basque region of southern France I was tasked with telling the group why they should care about a healthy ocean and what they can do about it.…
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The Last Song of Mother Earth
The planet is teeming with life, all literally bursting with sound. On land we hear these sounds every day and most people are familiar with the noises of the forest: the hooting, chirping, moaning, howling, tweeting, clucking, whistling, squawking and hooting that creates a complex sonic melody. The sound of nature is everywhere but we don’t always take the…
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Deep Impact: Five Reasons Why Surfers Should Care About Global Warming
As a marine biologist I am often asked what is the greatest threat to the oceans. It’s a easy answer: global warming. As a surfer I am surprised how few surfers seem to know, or care, about our assault on the oceans. I am often met with “why should I care” or worse “the surf will…
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We Need Action on Climate Change
Climate experts agree that global warming is real and is caused by humans. Yet in 2011 in the House of Representatives an amendment to a bill that would deny the EPA the authority to regulate greenhouse gases which stated: “Congress accepts the scientific findings of the Environmental Protection Agency that climate changes is occurring, is…