The race to defuse an oil ‘time bomb’ disaster threatening the Red Sea – Grist Magazine
Ten days ago, the crew of a ship called the Nautica lifted anchor in Djibouti and motored north in the Red Sea. Two tugboats met the vessel about five and a half miles off the coast of Yemen, then guided it into place alongside the FSO Safer, a crumbling, abandoned oil tanker thought to hold 1 million barrels of crude.
Thus began an operation that’s the ecological equivalent of placing the pin back into a hand grenade…
Angry Greeks Take Back Public Beach Movement Grows, State Reacts – the National Herald
The spread of take back public beaches movement in rebellion against private interests blocking access and charging for renting sunbeds and umbrellas has spurred Greece’s government into promising violators would be punished.
The ruling New Democracy has, like previous governments, done little to prevent the takeover of public beaches that has proliferated, especially on islands, in a bid to lure more foreign tourists, enriching the companies using public lands…
Is this ‘age of the delta’ coming to an end? – Knowable Magazine
The land near the mouth of the Mississippi River is barely land at all. Muddy water forks into a labyrinth of pathways through a seemingly endless expanse of electric-green marsh grass, below skies thick with birds. Shrimp and crabs wriggle in the water below, and oak and cypress sprout from wet soils on higher grounds. Stretching for more than a hundred miles along the coast of Louisiana, this is one of the world’s largest, and most famous, river deltas…
Long Story Shorts: How Do Whales Withstand Ocean Pressure? – Hakai Institute
The deeper you go into the ocean, the more pressure there is to contend with. So how do deep-diving whales—air-breathing mammals like us—survive life in the deep?
Managed Retreat? Please, Not Yet – Hakai Magazine
Salt water is already seeping through gardens, under homes, and among the headstones on Serua Island, Fiji. As climate change rolls on, and as the sea level continues to rise, this low-lying island off the southern coast of Viti Levu, one of the country’s two largest islands, seems like an obvious candidate for relocation efforts—and its inhabitants the latest face of climate refugees. Fiji’s national government has offered its support to help the island’s 100 or so inhabitants move. Yet almost all are choosing to stay put…