Fins Across Florida: Public Art in Service of Environmental Awareness
Organizers aim to display approximately fifty 6-feet fiberglass Tarpon, uniquely decorated by local artists and sponsored by local businesses and individuals, throughout the Tampa Bay Area. The Tampa Bay effort is the first of a planned series of projects across Florida featuring 16 different fish found in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, Florida’s Atlantic Coast and interior lakes. Proceeds benefit Tampa Bay Watch and the Outdoor Arts Foundation.
US Scientist Retracts Assertions Concerning Where the Gulf Oil Went
Our initial skepticism appears to have been justified. From the Guardian:
White House claims that the worst of the BP oil spill was over were undermined yesterday when a senior government scientist said three-quarters of the oil was still in the Gulf environment and a research study detected a 22-mile plume of oil in the ocean depths.
Bill Lehr, a senior scientist at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) departed from an official report from two weeks ago which suggested the majority of the oil had been captured or broken down.
“I would say most of that is still in the environment,” Lehr, the lead author of the report, told the house energy and commerce committee.
Dan Froomkin took things a step further and contacted 7 of the 11 scientists who supposedly reviewed the NOAA’s August 4 report:
…all the scientists on that list contacted by the Huffington Post for comment this week said the exact same thing: That although they provided some input to NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), they in no way reviewed the report, and could not vouch for it.
Brutal Seal Slayings off of the British Coast
Julia Whitty at Blue Marble spares us some of the more graphic images, but the story is chilling enough with out them:
Scores of dead seals are washing up on British shores eviscerated and skinned with ghastly corkscrew injuries, as if passed through a giant pencil sharpener, reports the UK’s Daily Mail. Police and scientists are investigating the disturbing phenomenon… Similar unsolved seal deaths have been reported off the Atlantic coast of Canada in the past ten years…
Is Anthropogenic Climate Change a Factor in the Pakistan Floods and Russian Wildfires
From PBS and the Climate Desk:
Need to Know’s Alison Stewart speaks with Dr. Kevin Trenberth, the head of climate analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. He explains the meteorological dynamics at work and speaks of the larger implications of climate change — both problems and possibilities.
San Francisco Green Film Festival: Call for Entries
Entries are now being accepted for the 1st San Francisco Green Film Festival, March 3-6, 2011. The festival will showcase the latest innovative film and media that explore the environmental, cultural, and socioeconomic aspects of living sustainably on this planet.
Plastic In the Atlantic: Good News and Bad
John Collins Rudolph in the NYTimes Green:
Global production and disposal of plastics of all kinds has grown roughly five-fold since the early 1980s, but that increase is not reflected in the amount of plastic debris found in the western North Atlantic, according to a study published Friday in the journal Science…
That plastics may be deteriorating faster in the water than previously believed is in some ways good news for seabirds and marine life, which can be choked or poisoned by consuming plastic debris, which they mistake for food. But as plastic decomposes, it also releases toxic compounds into the water, which can interfere with animal reproduction and cause other problems.
