A study in Science says climate change, fishing, pollution and other human factors have exacted a heavy toll on almost half of the marine waters.
Only remote icy areas near the poles are relatively pristine, but they face threats as ice sheets melt, they warn.
The authors say the data is a ‘wake-up call’ to policymakers.
Lead scientist, Dr Benjamin Halpern, of the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis in Santa Barbara, US, said humans were having a major impact on the oceans and the marine ecosystems within them.
‘In the past, many studies have shown the impact of individual activities,’ he said. ‘But here for the first time we have produced a global map of all of these different activities layered on top of each other so that we can get this big picture of the overall impact that humans are having rather than just single impacts.’
GetUp’s Executive Director Brett Solomon reflects upon Monday’s candle ceremony.
Laid out before the most powerful institution in the country, the Australian Parliament, 4000 candles flickered spelling out the words ‘Sorry, the first step’.
Over fifty GetUp members in Canberra spent the day laying out the candles on the 60m x 80m lawn. Hard work on a hot day, but as new volunteers arrived with fresh enthusiasm, we managed to prepare the site in time for sunset.
The first candle was lit by Lorna Fejo, a Warumungu woman and member of the Stolen Generations who was taken from her family at 4 years old. As she lit the candle she said, ‘A big relief…at least I’m alive to hear it, I’m one of the lucky ones’.
Japan’s whalers are going broke and have been forced to slash prices because no one wants to eat their growing mountain of whale meat.
The farcical truth of Japan’s whaling industry was exposed yesterday by Japanese media reports that the Institute for Cetacean Research is struggling to repay $37 million in government subsidies.
The report came as Japanese embassy officials made a stern protest in Canberra over the Federal Government’s release of shocking whaling photographs.
The ICR, responsible for Japan’s lethal ‘research operation’, is flooding Japan with cheap whale meat that it cannot sell, according to the reports in respected newspaper Asahi Shimbun.
Australia experienced its hottest January on record this year, with the dry continent heating up as part of the global warming process, according to the bureau of meteorology.
Temperatures rose by between 1.0 and 2.0 degrees in most parts of the country, with the national average hitting 29.2°C (84°F) for the summer month, said the bureau’s head of climate analysis, David Jones.
‘It’s a remarkable number certainly. Averaging, as we did across the whole country 1.3 degrees above average is the highest temperature we’ve seen in our history of records for Australia in January,’ he said.
George Bush and Dick Cheney, while visiting a primary school class, found themselves in the middle of a discussion related to words and their meanings.
The teacher asked both men if they would like to lead the discussion of the word ‘tragedy.’ So Mr. Cheney asks the class for an example of a ‘tragedy.’
One little boy stood up and offered: ‘If my best friend, who lives on a farm, is playing in the field and a runaway tractor comes along and knocks him dead, that would be a tragedy.’
‘No,’ said Mr. Cheney, ‘that would be an accident.’
The lonesome whale shark comes from the world’s biggest fish species, characterised by a wide flat mouth and covered in white stripes and spotted skin.
It is a highly migratory species, but to be seen off Stradbroke Island in Queensland’s south is extraordinary.”
