Philippines closes ‘cesspool’ tourist island of Boracay
The Philippines has announced a six-month closure of the popular tourist destination of Boracay over concerns the island’s famous beaches and clear blue waters have been transformed into a “cesspool” due to sustained environmental damage.
South-east Asia closes island beaches to recover from climate change and tourism
More popular South-east Asian islands will be off limits to visitors this year as officials seek to protect eco-systems crumbling from warming seas and unchecked sprawl, despite the risk to tourism revenues and tens of thousands of jobs.
Dead zone in Gulf of Mexico will take decades to recover from farm pollution
The enormous “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico will take decades to recover even if the flow of farming chemicals that is causing the damage is completely halted.
Container ships use super-dirty fuel. That needs to change
About 90 percent of everything we buy will travel on ships like these at some point. And all of these behemoths burn fossil fuel, contributing significantly to the warming atmosphere and shifting climate patterns.
The Ship Breakers
After their useful life is over, more than 90 percent of the world’s ocean-going container ships end up on the shores of India, Pakistan, Indonesia, or Bangladesh, where labor is cheap, demand for steel is high, and environmental regulations are lax.
Federal penalties against polluters at lowest level in a decade under Trump
Figures released by the EPA show that 115 crime cases were opened in 2017, down from a peak of nearly 400 in 2009.
Trucking Mud to the Beaches Means More Sand but Dirtier Waters, CA
When Santa Barbara County dumps tons of mud from the catastrophic debris flow of January 9 on the shores of Goleta and Carpinteria, this wasn’t like anything that’s happened before. So residents are asking, “Will there be long-term effects? Might there be other locations that can share the impacts..?”
Can the World Find Solutions to the Nitrogen Pollution Crisis?
More and more nitrogen keeps pouring into waterways, unleashing algal blooms and creating dead zones. To prevent the problem from worsening, scientists warn, the world must drastically cut back on synthetic fertilizers and double the efficiency of the nitrogen used on farms.
“We have one ocean,” Josh Stein says, threatening offshore drilling legal action
North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein has assembled a coalition of attorneys general from 11 other coastal states calling for the U.S. Interior Department to cancel the Trump administration’s plan to expand offshore drilling.