An amazing shot in service of conservation:
The US actor Maggie Q swims with a whale shark off Cancun, Mexico, as part of a campaign to publicise the plight of marine animals threatened by the demand for shark fin soup. China has announced a ban on shark fin from all official banquets. Photograph: Paul Hilton/AFP/Getty Images.
(via guardian)
“Osteoporosis of the sea” is a terrifying phrase if you’re concerned about marine ecosystems like us. From saveplanetearth:
Rising ocean acid levels are ‘the biggest threat to coral reefs’: The speed by which oceans’ acid levels have risen has caught scientists off-guard, says the head of NOAA @ Guardian
Oceans’ rising acid levels have emerged as one of the biggest threats to coral reefs, acting as the “osteoporosis of the sea” and threatening everything from food security to tourism to livelihoods, the head of a US scientific agency said Monday.
The speed by which the oceans’ acid levels has risen caught scientists off-guard, with the problem now considered to be climate change’s “equally evil twin,” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) chief Jane Lubchenco told The Associated Press.
”We’ve got sort of the perfect storm of stressors from multiple places really hammering reefs around the world,” said Lubchenco, who was in Australia to speak at the International Coral Reef Symposium in the northeast city of Cairns, near the Great Barrier Reef. “It’s a very serious situation.” (…)
