The World Is Running Out of Male Sea Turtles – Science Alert
Green sea turtles are already an endangered species, mainly due to humans hunting them, harvesting their eggs, degrading their habitats, or entangling them in garbage of some kind. But they also face another, more insidious threat from people: the loss of male hatchlings from the species…that this is partly caused by rising temperatures due to climate change – but a new study has now unveiled another human-caused problem driving this trend. Certain pollutants may promote feminization in sea turtles, explains lead author Arthur Barraza, a toxicologist with the Australian Rivers Institute at Griffith University…
The Bay Area faces an imminent threat from sea level rise — but it’s different from what you think – San Francisco Chronicle
Dangerous chemicals hiding in the ground around the Bay Area are due to be released by groundwater as it’s pushed closer to the surface with sea level rise, a new study has found. In many cases, it can happen without warning as cancer-causing volatile compounds escape into schools and homes, experts say…
“Groundwater rise and sea level rise are gradual processes that are accelerating,” said Kristina Hill, associate professor at UC Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design, lead author of the study. “It’s a problem tomorrow, and it’s a problem today…”
Even at the Bottom of the World, the Ocean is Belching Plastic – EOS Magazine
In a recent study published in Environmental Science and Technology, researchers report a mist of microplastics is constantly drifting across the country’s largest city.
“We don’t produce large amounts of plastics here in New Zealand,” said Joel Rindelaub, a research fellow at the University of Auckland in New Zealand who led the study. “But we did see large amounts of plastics falling out of the sky in Auckland…”
EPA shuts polluting Caribbean refinery reopened under Trump
The Environmental Protection Agency has ordered an oil refinery in the US Virgin Islands to pause all operations, citing “at least four incidents” in which the facility significantly affected St Croix residents.
Plastic gets to the oceans through over 1,000 rivers
The problem with plastic waste just got more complicated—and so did the effort to stanch its flow into the world’s oceans.
How do sewage spills and failures pollute coastal watersheds?
Despite all the benefits that clean water and healthy beaches provide coastal communities across the county, coastal water quality continues to be threatened by discharges of stormwater and sewage.
Thousands of barrels of suspected toxic DDT found dumped in California ocean
Marine scientists say they have found what they believe to be as many as 25,000 barrels possibly containing DDT dumped off the southern California coast near Catalina Island, where a massive underwater toxic waste site dating back to the second world war has long been suspected.
If it’s safe, dump it in Tokyo. We in the Pacific don’t want Japan’s nuclear wastewater
Earlier this month, the Japanese government announced plans to discharge 1m tonnes of radioactive wastewater accruing since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011 into the Pacific Ocean.
Biden vows to slash US emissions by half to meet ‘existential crisis of our time’
Joe Biden has called upon the world to confront the climate crisis and “overcome the existential crisis of our time”, as he unveiled an ambitious new pledge to slash US planet-heating emissions in half by the end of the decade.