Environment

February, 2018

• 13 February

  Microplastics pollute even the most remote parts of the ocean, scientists warn

  

  Traces of minute plastic particles have been found in one of the most far-flung and unchartered stretches in the middle of the South Indian Ocean, according to new data.   
• 13 February

  Sea level rise is accelerating – study

  

  Sea level rise is accelerating and could reach 26 inches (66 centimeters) by century’s end, in line with United Nations estimates and enough to cause significant problems for coastal cities, a study said Monday.  
• 12 February

  NGO says blue sharks face extinction as ‘unscrupulous’ Maxim’s restaurant refuses to scrap shark fin soup

  

  According to NGO WildAid, blue sharks are being overfished by Spanish industrial fishing boats in the Northwest Atlantic at unsustainable rates due to a lack of catch limits. Last year, Spain exported 628 tonnes of frozen shark fin to Hong Kong, according to data provided by the government.  
• 12 February

  Derelict fishing gear keeps doing what it was designed to do: catching and killing animals.

  

  Every year, more than 136,000 whales, dolphins and seals and millions of fish, turtles and birds are caught in “ghost gear”—abandoned, lost and discarded fishing nets, lines and traps that can take up to 600 years to decompose.  
• 11 February

  Mangroves protect coastlines, store carbon – and are expanding with climate change

  

  With the help of technology, humans can traverse virtually every part of our planet’s surface. But animals and plants are less mobile. Most species can only live in zones where temperature and rain fall within specific ranges.  
• 10 February

  8 mangrove zones cleared of 400 tonnes plastic waste

  

  Every day, since January 1, groups of green warriors reach mangrove stretches along the shores of Mumbai and Navi Mumbai and start picking up waste materials that have been choking the area.  
• 9 February

  An international plastics treaty could avert a ‘Silent Spring’ for the seas

  

  Globally, millions of metric tonnes of plastic waste enter the ocean each year. In 2010, for example, between 4.8 million and 12.7 million metric tonnes of plastic hit the water. That’s equivalent to dumping a garbage truck of plastic into marine waters every minute.  
• 9 February

  Plastic waste ‘building up’ in Arctic

  

  Plastic waste is building up in the supposedly pristine wilderness of the Norwegian Arctic, scientists say.  
• 8 February

  In­flu­ence of car­bon di­ox­ide leak­age on the seabed

  

  Storing carbon dioxide (CO2) deep below the seabed is one way to counteract the increasing concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. But what happens if such storage sites begin to leak and CO2 escapes through the seafloor?  
• 8 February

  Native fish are being ‘annihilated’ by council-run pumps

  

  Large numbers of native eels are being killed while swimming through council-run pumping stations, according to several new reports. The issue has been discovered in Waikato and likely extends throughout the country, where hundreds of pumps may be killing native fish.  
• 7 February

  Mistake in fisheries statistics shows false increase in catches

  

  Countries’ improvements to their fisheries statistics have been contributing to the false impression that humanity is getting more and more fish from the ocean when, in reality, global marine catches have been declining on average by around 1.2 million tonnes per year since 1996.  
• 7 February

  A ticking time bomb of mercury is hidden beneath Earth’s permafrost

  

  According to a new study published Feb. 5 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, theremay be more than 15 million gallons (58 million liters) of mercury buried in the permafrost of the Northern Hemisphere. And if global temperatures continue to rise, all that mercury could come pouring out.