Tue, 14 Apr 2009 5:12 pm – Posted by Alison Ballance | 4 Comments
Guest Blogger: Radio New Zealand’s Our Changing World environment reporter, Alison Ballance
Last week I interviewed two NIWA scientists – Philip Boyd and Cliff Law – about ocean fertilisation, or iron enrichment. Most of us have heard about this ambitious plan, to help solve global warming by dumping large amounts of iron into the ocean, generating phytoplankton blooms which die and sink, effectively sequestering carbon in the deep ocean. I imagine most people thought as I did: that there is an international cabal of scientists and entrepreneurs who are pushing ahead with experiments to test out this grand theory despite concerns and fears about negative side effects, especially those related to unintended biological consequences.
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Published in: Climate Change, General
Tags: carbon sink, Climate Change, experiment, global warming, iron enrichment, NIWA, ocean fertilisation
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Tue, 03 Feb 2009 1:50 pm – Posted by Kirstie_Knowles | 2 Comments
Google has just announced a new tool that allows viewers to take a glimpse under the sea, which goes a long way to addressing our “out of sight – out of mind mentality” currently plaguing marine conservation efforts.
Having just rolled out google sky following the ever-popular google earth, google is now giving us a chance to dive into an area that occupies 2/3 of earth’s surface.
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Published in: General, Marine and Coastal
Tags: Climate Change, marine
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Sat, 17 Jan 2009 1:34 pm – Posted by Kirstie_Knowles | 15 Comments
While the impacts of climate change on land are hotly discussed, its effect on our oceans and marine life tend to fall into the ‘out of sight out of mind’ black hole. Yet the effect of increased carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere is likely to have significant impacts both on our marine life and on us - our society and our economy.
Our oceans are one of our most important carbon sinks – absorbing around a third of the carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted by burning fossil fuels. When CO2 is dissolved in water, a new compound is formed – carbonic acid. High concentrations of carbonic acid can have effects on other compounds in our waters – calcium carbonate being one of them.
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Published in: General, Marine and Coastal
Tags: carbon sink, Climate Change, ocean acidifiation
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Mon, 29 Dec 2008 12:54 pm – Posted by Brent Barrett | 4 Comments
On the holiday beach and around your favourite café tables, there’s a conversation that needs having. It’s about the future of nature and other minor details affecting you and your only planet.
It seems increasingly odd, that the best hours of the best days of the best years of many environmentalist’s lives have been absorbed in a peculiar effort, using human’s position of supremacy to pit bits of nature against each other.
Like many things, it began with the pursuit of profit. In the day, who could argue against a profitable possum industry?
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Published in: General
Tags: Climate Change, pest control, sustainable business
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Thu, 27 Nov 2008 4:06 pm – Posted by Debs | 6 Comments
So Solid Energy nearly got a face full of custard … fired at them by environmental protestors at their AGM.
Solid Energy has been literally trying to put the fires out over recent months on many fronts and this latest embattlement is symptomatic of an industry that hasn’t got a future. Problems with their safety record on the extensive coal sites on the West Coast have lead to emergency measures to reduce staff incidents.
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Published in: General, Top of the South
Tags: Climate Change, coal, habitat destruction, powelliphanta snail
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