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Tear gas is bad for fish. Surprising no one, if you unlawfully unload tons of tear gas into a peaceful crowd of protestors in order to create chaos as a precedent for state violence, that tear gas will eventually find its way into drains and all drains lead to the ocean. And that is bad news for marine life.
More turnover at NOAA. NOAA has appointed meteorologist and climate change contrarian Ryan Maue to replace Dr. Craig McLean as Chief Scientist.
Facebook continues to Facebook. Facebook vowed to fight climate change denial and uplift climate science. Instead, they censored hundreds of climate activism who were protesting the Coastal Link pipeline.
Facebook is a hardware company. This week Oregonian revealed that Facebook quietly abandoned drilling equipment off of the Oregon coast. Fifty feet below the seafloor, heavy drilling equipment designed to lay fiber optic cable was damaged and abandoned by the social media company’s subsidiary. Facebook has no plans to recover the abandoned 1,100 feet of pipe and 6,500 gallons of drilling fluid.
The Crisis in Mauritius. The bulk carrier the ran aground in Mauritius split in two. Though authorities were able to pump out much of the stored fuel oil, the tanker still leaked over 1,900 metric tons into the Indian Ocean. This is projected to be among the worst ecologic disasters in the nation’s history. The captain of the MV Wakashio has been arrested.
New giant deep-sea isopod. Bathynomus raksasa is a newly described species of giant deep-sea isopod found in the water of Indonesia. at 33 centimetres, it doesn’t quite match up with the one true king of giant deep-sea isopods Bathynomous giganteus, but it is a solid contender. And, for your situational awareness, you can catch giant isopods in Animal Crossing.
Upwelling.
Politics aside, just watch the amazing Roll Call Across America from last night’s Democratic National Convention. An absolutely amazing tour of the 50 states and seven territories of the United States.
Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)
The Argentine military submarine ARA San Juan and crew are seen leaving the port of Buenos Aires, Argentina June 2, 2014. Picture taken on June 2, 2014. Armada Argentina/Handout via REUTERS
Fog Horn (A Call to Action)
Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)
Image: James St. John/Flickr Creative Commons
Southern Fried Science has at the forefront of trying to debunk fake news, such as faux documentaries about mermaids or giant sharks. In their article “Fish tales: combating fake science in the popular media” Andrew Thaler and David Shiffman asked that:
“scientists familiarize themselves with common sources of misinformation within their field, so that they can be better able to respond quickly when factually inaccurate content begins to spread”
Image from montana.edu
It’s time for another “philosophy of activism” discussion, in which we debate a tactic that a particular group of activists is using in order to determine if the environmental movement should adopt it. This time, we turn to Facebook.
As a Facebook addict, I’ve noticed a new trend: groups that say “I bet we can find one million people who (insert your cause here)”. Examples include “I bet we can find one million people who support same sex marriage”, “I bet we can find one million people against abortion,” and “I bet we can find one million people who want Japan to stop killing whales”. There are over 1,100 such groups (though some are not political in nature, such as “I bet we can find one million people who hate the Jonas Brothers”. Let’s discuss whether or not these groups help their respective causes.