Ocean Stories

In celebration of World Oceans Day, people crowded into the Baird Auditorium at the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC last Friday afternoon. Dr. Sylvia Earle Skyped from the podium with a team of Living Oceans scientists on their research vessel, Golden Shadow, anchored off of Darwin Island in the Galapagos.

Dr. Earle spoke with the research team about how coral reefs in the Galapagos cope with threats including temperature change, ocean acidification and bleaching events. Audience members learned about current studies looking at rare coral reefs and how some coral species in the Galapagos hold hope that corals have the resilience to cope with global climate change. Following the live skype call with the Galapagos, Dr.…

Last week, marked a pivotal moment in the effort to establish a network of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in California’s open coast waters.
After eight years, numerous public meetings, workshops, and input from the scientific community, the California Fish and Game Commission of California has approved the redesign and establishment of MPAs in five key regions along California’s coast: The Central Coast region, the San Francisco Bay region, the North Central region, the South Coast region and the North Coast region.
“These MPAs will be the biggest network of protection in the United States” said Stephan Wertz, Senior Environmental Scientist at the California Department of Fish and Game.
The MPAs were developed to be consistent with California’s Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA).…

Famed cartoonist Jim Toomey is best known for his comic strip Sherman’s Lagoon, which stars a lazy great white shark named Sherman and his undersea pals.
Recently Jim Toomey teamed up with the United Nations Environment Programme to create a series of six two-minute videos intended to raise awareness of the importance of oceans and the coastal environment.
We are pleased to present the first video in the series, “Two Minutes on Oceans: Blue Carbon” here.

The video was launched on World Oceans Day, June 8th, at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History as part of a special World Oceans Day presentation, “Drawing Inspiration from the sea.” The presentation included a brief talk about why Toomey writes a comic about the ocean and where he gets his ideas.…

To celebrate World Oceans Day, our friends at One World One Ocean have unveiled an animated tale of two young ocean explorers who circle the globe exploring some of the ocean’s most exotic places while featuring an original song set to the tune of Gotye’s popular “Somebody That I Used to Know.”
“The Ocean We Want To Know” follows Mitzi and Ferdie as they make intriguing discoveries, weaving their way through amazing ocean ecosystems, before returning to their school, where they share what they learned with their class.

“Our goal in making this video was to truly celebrate the wonders of the ocean with stunning facts about our connection to the planet’s lifeline, specifically targeting younger audiences, the majority of whom have never heard of World Oceans Day,” said Managing Director of One World One Ocean and the video’s Executive Producer Shaun MacGillivray.…

By Mera McGrew
Today is World Oceans Day — a day to celebrate and honor the oceans that connect us and provide us life. Oceans cover 71 percent of Earth’s surface and makes up 99 percent of the planet’s living space. The ocean is the blue heart of our planet. It plays an essential role in all life on earth, home to 97 percent of all life in the world. The ocean is also the lungs of our planet as it supplies the oxygen we take in every second breath. The ocean drives climate and weather and it also stabilizes temperature and shapes the Earth’s chemistry.
This year’s World Oceans Day falls at a crucial time as ocean advocates across the world seek to ensure that 2012 is a milestone year for the ocean.…

On Being with Krista Tippett (http://onbeing.org) is a public radio show and podcast that explores the animating questions at the center of human life – from the boldest new science of the human brain to the most ancient traditions of the human spirit.

Now available to hear on the On Being website, this insightful interview with Dr. Earle will also be broadcast in many areas of the US over the weekend – perfect timing for World Oceans Day. …

World Ocean Day marks the official launch of MPAtlas. An online digital map that assembles key information on marine protected areas (MPAs) around the world, it is a project of the Marine Conservation Institute, in partnership with the Waitt Foundation. We protect our future by protecting the ocean. By safeguarding vital marine habitats/areas/places, we refuel the engine of our blue planet, enriching our culture, society and economy. The stories of vibrant ocean places are cataloged on MPAtlas.

In a world where fisheries and marine biodiversity are declining, marine protected areas are an essential tool to alter the oceans’ downward trajectory. Scientists have repeatedly shown that MPAs rapidly improve the biomass and diversity of ocean life in both tropical and temperate ecosystems.  …

By Mera McGrew
Famed cartoonist Jim Toomey and the United Nations Environment Programme are teaming up to produce a series of short videos to raise awareness of ocean and coastal conservation issues.
Toomey, whose daily comic strip “Sherman’s Lagoon” appears in more than 150 North American newspapers, recently released a video adding his voice in support of the Bermuda Blue Halo Initiative and has now partnered with the UNEP Regional Office for North America (UNEP RONA) to create a series of six two-minute videos intended to raise awareness of the importance of oceans and the coastal environment.
The first of six videos, Blue Carbon, will be launched on June 8, World Oceans Day, at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.…

Dr. Earle spoke at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute (BUEI) last Thursday  to emphasize the importance of Bermuda’s role in conserving the Sargasso Sea — what Dr. Earle has called “the golden rainforest of the ocean.” 
The Sargasso Sea is an open-ocean ecosystem that supports a large and extraordinary whorl of golden-brown Sargassum seaweed that spirals within the North Atlantic sub-tropical gyre near Bermuda. Large mats of Sargassum float over an area comparable to the size of the United States and provide vital habitat, spawning and feeding grounds, and migration routes to numerous species – many of which are endangered, endemic, and/or commercially important (Sargasso Sea Alliance, 2012).
 

Dr. Earle’s talk at BUEI was hosted by the Bermuda Young President’s Organization, and coincided with ongoing efforts by the Pew Environment Group (who sponsored the evening lecture) and Bermuda’s Government to create a large “donut-shaped” marine reserve within Bermuda’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) to protect the Sargasso Sea and Bermuda’s other vital and threatened marine resources – a project called the “Bermuda Blue Halo initiative.”…

By Mera McGrew
Today is likely the last chance for those of us currently living to see the planet Venus pass in front of the sun. The transit of Venus is among the rarest of astronomical events — after this crossing, the transit will not occur again until 2117.
Historically, tracking the transit of Venus was a watershed moment in international scientific collaboration. The astronomer Edmund Halley had predicted in 1678 that the transit event could be used to calculate the distance between the Earth and the sun if observers were stationed at the proper places on the globe. So it was in 1761, the scientific community came together to solve a key problem.
Australian artist Lynette Wallworth is determined to use this rare occurence to create a sense of perspective and get people to think about the global problems that the world’s ocean currently faces — problems that require the cooperation of global governments, scientists and the international community.…