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Choking the Oceans With Plastic - NYTimes.com - 3 views

www.nytimes.com/...g-the-oceans-with-plastic.html science oceans ESS plastic environment pollution TOK
shared by Lawrence Hrubes on 25 Aug 14 - No Cached
  • I have just returned with a team of scientists from six weeks at sea conducting research in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch — one of five major garbage patches drifting in the oceans north and south of the equator at the latitude of our great terrestrial deserts. Although it was my 10th voyage to the area, I was utterly shocked to see the enormous increase in the quantity of plastic waste since my last trip in 2009. Plastics of every description, from toothbrushes to tires to unidentifiable fragments too numerous to count floated past our marine research vessel Alguita for hundreds of miles without end. We even came upon a floating island bolstered by dozens of plastic buoys used in oyster aquaculture that had solid areas you could walk on.
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Chris Jordan - Midway - 0 views

www.chrisjordan.com/...midway TOK art photography ethics nature environment ecology birds
shared by Lawrence Hrubes on 10 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • Lawrence Hrubes on 10 Oct 13
     
    "On Midway Atoll, a remote cluster of islands more than 2000 miles from the nearest continent, the detritus of our mass consumption surfaces in an astonishing place: inside the stomachs of thousands of dead baby albatrosses. The nesting chicks are fed lethal quantities of plastic by their parents, who mistake the floating trash for food as they forage over the vast polluted Pacific Ocean. For me, kneeling over their carcasses is like looking into a macabre mirror. These birds reflect back an appallingly emblematic result of the collective trance of our consumerism and runaway industrial growth."
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What to Call a Doubter of Climate Change? - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...te-change-whats-in-a-name.html TOK language science climate skepticism
shared by Lawrence Hrubes on 13 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • People who reject the findings of climate science are dismissed as “deniers” and “disinformers.” Those who accept the science are attacked as “alarmists” or “warmistas. ” The latter term, evoking the Sandinista revolutionaries of Nicaragua, is perhaps meant to suggest that the science is part of some socialist plot.
  • The petition asks the news media to abandon the most frequently used term for people who question climate science, “skeptic,” and call them “climate deniers” instead. By Degrees A column by Justin Gillis about our changing climate. 3.6 Degrees of Uncertainty DEC 15 A Tricky Transition From Fossil Fuel NOV 10 Shining Star Power on a Crucial Subject SEP 22 In the Ocean, Clues to Change AUG 11 Picking Lesser of Two Climate Evils JUL 7 See More » Climate scientists are among the most vocal critics of using the term “climate skeptic” to describe people who flatly reject their findings. They point out that skepticism is the very foundation of the scientific method. The modern consensus about the risks of climate change, they say, is based on evidence that has piled up over the course of decades and has been subjected to critical scrutiny every step of the way.
  • In other words, the climate scientists see themselves as the true skeptics, having arrived at a durable consensus about emissions simply because the evidence of risk has become overwhelming. And in this view, people who reject the evidence are phony skeptics, arguing their case by cherry-picking studies, manipulating data, and refusing to weigh the evidence as a whole.The petition asking the media to drop the “climate skeptic” label began with Mark B. Boslough, a physicist in New Mexico who grew increasingly annoyed by the term over several years. The phrase is wrong, he said, because “these people do not embrace the scientific method.”
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Donut Holes in Law of the Sea-who controls what? - 0 views

donutholes.ch history economics ethics perception bias
shared by sleggettisp on 24 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • sleggettisp on 24 Apr 14
     
    Any littoral state claims the area stretching 200 nautical miles from its coast. This area becomes an Exclusive Economic zone (EEZ). Complex bathymetry of the ocean marries the Law of the Sea to shape quite convoluted maritime borders. You can view an accurate representation of seabed or and hover over the disputed sectors.
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Aboriginal legends reveal ancient secrets to science - BBC News - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...world-australia-32701311 religious knowledge systems language science
shared by Lawrence Hrubes on 19 May 15 - No Cached
  • Scientists are beginning to tap into a wellspring of knowledge buried in the ancient stories of Australia's Aboriginal peoples. But the loss of indigenous languages could mean it is too late to learn from them.
  • "They describe this gigantic wave coming very far inland and killing everybody except those who were up on the mountaintops, and they actually name all the different locations where people survived," says Mr Hamacher. He and Mr Goff took core samples from locations between 500m and 1km (0.6 miles) inland, and at each spot, they found a layer of ocean sediment, about 2m down, indicating that a tsunami likely washed over the area hundreds, or possibly thousands, of years ago. The samples need further analysis but Mr Hamacher says it is a "very exciting" result that suggests the legend could be true.
  • They also employ a rigid kin-based, cross-generational system of fact-checking stories, involving grandchildren, parents, and elders, which Mr Reid says doesn't seem to be used by other cultures.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • But there is a problem - Indigenous languages are dying off at an alarming rate, making it increasingly difficult for scientists and other experts to benefit from such knowledge. More than 100 languages have already become extinct since white settlement.
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