Just yesterday, Stuart Sandin from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography wrote a piece for the San Diego Tribune on shifting baselines and our marine environment.
In older (but still worthy) news, this National Geographic piece explains that scientists estimate that 4,000 to 6,000 metric tons of sunscreen wash off swimmers annually in oceans worldwide, and that up to 10 percent of coral reefs are threatened by sunscreen-induced bleaching. Of course, people only blow the alarm whistle on coral reefs after the reefs are already heavily degraded...
This is your coral. This is your coral on sunscreen. Any questions?
And finally, though Shifting Baselines has not yet made it to the Times' Top 50 Eco Blogs, The Gristmill was ranked Numero Uno and, last Friday, Erik Hoffner posted a piece on Gristmill my recent article Holy Mackerel, which he called Admit it: fish is meat. There is a very cool discussion going on there...
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Hrm, so how would you balance the needs (wants?) to reduce the risks of overexposure to sun with minimizing the damage to coral reefs?
And I ask this as a recreational SCUBA diver who loves to dive inthe open ocean.
Cheers.