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Coral Reef Recovery in Fiji

By: Victor Bonito, Director, Reef Explorer Fiji

Over the last three years, coral reefs worldwide have suffered unprecedented damage to coral communities from abnormally warm seawater temperatures. When the US National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced the third global coral bleaching event in October 2015, shallow reef areas along Fiji’s Coral Coast had already experienced two back-to-back years of widespread coral bleaching. Before we received the depressing news about our local reefs, we decided to take action and incorporate lessons learned from previous bleaching events and seawater temperature monitoring efforts.
In late 2015, our  Reef Explorer project team and local youth clubs established five new coral nurseries across our local reefs. We stocked the nurseries with a good diversity of coral species propagated from numerous donor colonies that we suspected had good thermal (heat) tolerance due to their size and placement on the reef. …

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Mission Blue And Citizens’ Climate Lobby Join Forces to Advocate for a Price on Carbon

The fundamental solution to combating ocean acidification and warming is to make a fundamental transition to a carbon-free future. Though it doesn’t have the support of the United States Congress, the most generally recognized solution is to put a price on carbon. At the Paris climate talks last December, countries around the world affirmed carbon pricing as essential. The chart below shows the countries that already embraced pricing. Unfortunately the U.S. is not one of them, and that’s because the U.S. Congress is in denial.

Mission Blue is proud to be partnering with Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL), the only NGO whose sole grassroots advocacy focus is educating Congress about the imperative for responsible Congressional action on climate. Recently, CCL volunteers in 13 districts succeeded in breaking the dam of denial by catalyzing 13 House Republicans to sign the Gibson Resolution, calling on the House to study the causes, effects and solutions to climate change.…

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Sculptural sea creatures invade the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art

COURTNEY MATTISON: SEA CHANGE
january 30 — april 17, 2016virginia museum of contemporary art • 2200 parks ave • virginia beach • va • 23451
Hundreds of intricately hand-sculpted ceramic marine invertebrates currently inhabit the main gallery of Virginia MOCA, comprising two large wall installations and 11 sculptural works that explore the fragile beauty of ocean ecosystems and the human caused threats they face — especially the impacts of our greenhouse gas emissions on coral reefs — in a solo show by Courtney Mattison, a self-described ocean “artivist” (artist/activist) and part of the Mission Blue team.

aqueduct
What if climate change causes tropical sea creatures to migrate towards the poles and invade terrestrial spaces as seawater warms and sea levels rise?…

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A New Years Resolution for the Climate

By Courtney Mattison

The dust has settled following the momentous COP21 climate summit in Paris last month, and now the real work begins. Ministers from nearly 200 countries have voluntarily committed to scale up the global response to climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, backing sustainable development and renewable energy projects, working to eradicate poverty in areas threatened by the effects of climate change, and ratchet up those efforts over time. The 32-page COP21 Paris Agreement even recognizes the ocean—a key driver of climate and weather covering 71 percent of our planet—as an important ecosystem to protect despite the fact that the ocean was not included in the COP21 agenda. What happens next is as important as what has been agreed.…

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Weaving a Tapestry of Hope for Ocean and Earth

By Courtney Mattison

Negotiations at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris are culminating as ministers from nearly 200 countries work tirelessly to finalize an agreement that will influence the future of life on Earth. These high-level meetings on strategies to curb greenhouse gas emissions and enable poor countries to adapt to the impacts of global warming are occurring amid a profusion of public events that has sprung up throughout Paris aimed at inspiring decision makers to act urgently and comprehensively to craft an agreement strict enough to drastically limit the harmful effects of climate change and ratchet up those commitments over time. Among the world-renowned environmental advocates in attendance is Mission Blue founder and National Geographic Society Explorer-in-Residence Dr.…

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Climate Change Movies to Watch

The COP21 climate negotiations in Paris are rallying people around the globe to help solve global warming and adapt to its impacts. Among the world leaders gathering in Paris, however, there is a notable absence: former Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed is behind bars, being held as a political prisoner by his own country. World-famous as the Island President, Nasheed had a profound impact on the COP15 conference in Copenhagen six years ago, during which he represented island nations threatened by sea level rise as an ambassador for the Climate Vulnerable Forum. On November 30th author, climate activist and 350.org founder Bill McKibben called Nasheed a true climate leader in the Guardian:
Six years ago today [Nasheed] was the first head of state to arrive, and he went straight from the airport to a packed meeting hall where he led a giant crowd in chant after chant.…

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Dr. Sylvia Earle Injects Ocean Issues into Climate Talks at COP21

Dr. Sylvia Earle, the world’s leading oceanographer, Mission Blue founder/chairman and National Geographic Explorer in Residence, has confirmed her attendance at the COP21 climate talks in Paris. The objective of Dr. Earle’s visit is to inject ocean conservation issues into the climate debate; the ocean isn’t officially on the agenda of COP21 this year, even though it is the planet’s primary driver of climate, weather and chemistry. Dr. Earle will join world-renowned primatologist and environmentalist, Dr. Jane Goodall, on December 7th from 10:30AM to 11:00AM for a “Tapestry of Hope” conversation event with the UN Foundation at Le Petit Palais (Avenue Winston Churchill, 75008 Paris, France). The two legendary female scientists will discuss efforts to abate climate change both on land, as part of Dr.…

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Speak Up for the Ocean at Climate Negotiations

This winter, the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris will feature one of the largest gatherings of world leaders to ever address global warming. The stage is set for all United Nations member states to come together and create an international agreement on the climate with the goal of keeping warming below 2 degrees Celsius.
Yet the largest factor in our climate cycle isn’t on the COP21 agenda: the ocean.
The ocean is a massive carbon sink that has absorbed nearly half of all human-produced CO2 since the Industrial Revolution. Climate experts warn that the ocean’s ability to absorb so much CO2 may soon hit a tipping point, with the ocean becoming saturated and thus unable to keep this greenhouse gas from rapidly accumulating in the atmosphere, acidifying the sea and throwing climate change into overdrive.…

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Global Coral Bleaching Event puts Reefs at Risk

By Courtney Mattison

Researchers announced this month that a massive global coral bleaching event is jeopardizing the health of coral reefs around the world, and the crisis is still heating up. A triple threat of climate change, El Niño and a climate change-induced “warm blob” in the Pacific is causing the ocean to reach unusually high temperatures, stressing the coral animals that build reefs—the cradles of tropical marine life—and causing them to bleach, a stress response that often causes corals to starve, sicken and die. Researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have gathered evidence suggesting that about 12% of reefs worldwide have already bleached in the last year, and predict that nearly half of those affected (over 12,000 square kilometers, or over 5% of reefs) could disappear forever.…

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Artists & Scientists Return from Arctic Expedition

A team of 60 of the world’s leading marine scientists, photographers, filmmakers and fine artists recently returned from an expedition to the icy waters of Norway, Greenland and Iceland to explore and document the impacts of climate change on the fragile high Arctic region. The two-and-a-half-week Elysium Artists for the Arctic expedition was orchestrated by photographer Michael Aw—director of the Ocean Geographic Society—who co-led the trip alongside Mission Blue founder and National Geographic Explorer in Residence Dr. Sylvia Earle and acclaimed photographers David Doubilet, Jennifer Hayes and Ernie Brooks. The team traveled from North Spitsbergen to North and East Greenland and on to Iceland aboard the 71.61-meter MV Polar Pioneer—a Finnish ice-strengthened research vessel specially charted for the expedition.
The team experienced incredible panoramas of glaciers, icebergs and mountains, went snorkeling and diving in frigid high Arctic waters and documented numerous polar bears, walruses, Arctic hares and kittiwakes.…

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