Greenland Ice Flow (Photo: NASA)

By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

By now you’ve heard the dire predictions for how sea level rise would affect Miami. Basically this city, already imperiled by worsening hurricanes is in the bulls-eye for rising oceans too.

But did you realize that a one meter sea level increase — now believed by many scientists to be a likely outcome of global warming by 2100 — would put Philadelphia underwater?

Yes, the city of Brotherly Love would be among the large family of coastal cities potentially devastated by coastline changes. And not in the too-distance future either.

According to glacier and ice shelf expert Dr. Gordon Hamilton, Philadelphia could experience troubles decades before that 2100 benchmark if storm surges pushed rising oceans inland.

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From Green Right Now Reports

Ocean waves near Freeport, Texas (Photo: National Weather Service)

Ocean waves off the coast of Texas may soon provide the first commercial wave power in the US to generate electricity and desalinate water.

Renew Blue Inc. said today that the Texas General Land Office has granted it the first-ever state off-shore wave energy lease. The company said it will use ocean water and waves to produce desalinated water; the first 100 percent fossil-fuel-free bottled water.

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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

January Jones, star of the Mad Men TV series and an ocean advocate, went to Washington this week to lobby for the Shark Conservation Act of 2009 and stronger US leadership for saving the ocean’s top predators.

“We should be scared FOR sharks, not of them,” said the Golden Globe nominee. “The survival of sharks and the health of our oceans depend on it.”

Jones met with various members of Congress, including Senators Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.).

The actress, best known for her role as Betty Draper in the critically acclaimed Mad Men series on the American Movie Channel, became a spokesman for Oceana’s Save Sharks campaign earlier this year.

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Bay City News
SAUSALITO — Three weeks after their return from exploring a vortex of floating plastic garbage 1,000 miles off the Pacific coast, scientists working on Project Kaisei are focused on how to clean up the giant garbage patch. >> Read the full story

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By Wayne Freedman
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — Concern over global warming has a lot of people concerned with how they deal the very real possibility of rising sea levels. Who better to give advice than those living right now below sea level? The Dutch have discovered that their experience with bad geography might create healthy profits. >> Read the full story

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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

Barbara Ettinger and Sven Huseby knew their documentary about ocean acidification would have to pass a high test to avoid overwhelming a public already challenged to understand many technical facets of climate change.

To sound the alarm about yet another looming global warming catastrophe, the potential destruction of all marine life, their film would have to be engaging, accessible, down-to-earth.

Happily, A Sea Change: Imagine a World Without Fish succeeds on all those levels. Humanizing this critical issue like no previous film or book, it follows the soft-spoken Huseby on an odyssey of discovery as he meets with scientists and activists in Alaska, Seattle, California and Norway trying to understand the phenomenon of ocean acidification.

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By Harriet Blake
Green Right Now

“Don’t let the vacation ruin the destination.”

These words of wisdom hail from environmentalists who have legitimate concerns about ocean pollution due to cruise ship dumping.

Cruise ship vacations have gained in popularity in the last decade, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, which states that the industry has grown nearly twice as fast as any other means of travel during that time frame. And, at the same time, the average ship size has been growing at about 90 feet every five years. Ships used to average about 3,000 passengers, but today some carry as many as 8,000.

So with larger ships carrying more passengers, there is mounting concern about how this growth will affect the ocean’s marine life and water quality.

Recently the World Wildlife Federation’s Baltic Sea chapter recommended that area ports upgrade their facilities to cope with contamination from cruise ship sewage. The WWF said that Baltic-area ports are not keeping their facilities up-to-date in terms of disposing of cruise ship waste and suggested that the money being made by cruise ship tourism be spent upgrading the facilities, according to a report in the Environmental News Service.

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From Green Right Now Reports

A group of island nations, facing an uncertain future amid the threat of rising seas, says it needs the United States to take the lead in pushing for aggressive climate mitigation standards. However, after a week of discussions among the 195 countries that back the Montreal Protocol ozone treaty, the coalition said today it was unable to convince the United States to take a larger role.

The islands have proposed using the Montreal Protocol to phase down production and consumption of a group of super greenhouse gases known as hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). HFCs are projected to grow so fast that they could represent up to 45 percent of CO2 emissions in 2050, assuming the climate treaty is able to stabilize CO2 emissions at 450 ppm by that date.

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From Green Right Now Reports:

Greenpeace followed up the release this week of its latest Carting Away the Oceans scorecard with a friendly and fishy demonstration outside Trader Joe’s stores in San Francisco.

Greenpeace members, two of whom dressed as orange roughy and others who parodied Trader’s by wearing Hawaiian shirts mimicking the store’s trademark uniform, handed out information on why its important to select and buy seafood that can be replenished and also asked prospective customers to sign petition postcards to privately held grocery company.

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By Melissa Segrest
Green Right Now

In 1986, the International Whaling Commission banned the catching and killing of whales for commercial purposes worldwide. Whale populations – such as the North Pacific gray and the North Atlantic right whale – were threatened because of centuries of unrestricted hunting.

That ban is still in effect, with two exceptions: aboriginal peoples whose survival depends on whaling (Alaska, St. Vincent, the Grenadines, Denmark and the Russian Federation) and whaling for scientific purposes.

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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

When you fish for seafood at your local grocery, it can be difficult to tell whether you are supporting sustainable fishing practices.

Was the snapper you selected caught using legal, sustainable fishing practices? Should you even be buying it? Is the Chilean Sea Bass you just purchased on the “Red List” of jeopardized marine species? Does the grocery you’re patronizing buy seafood certified by the Marine Stewardship Council?

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From Green Right Now Reports:

An ocean advocate who has been working to protect coral systems in Florida for three decades and developed a reef-friendly anchor and mooring buoys was honored for his work on World Oceans Day.

John Halas, a marine biologist, received Oceana’s first Ocean Heroes Award, which was created to honor people making a difference in helping preserve the oceans. He was selected from among nearly 500 nominees. Oceana experts chose a list of eight finalists and online members voted for the final winners in May.

In the early 1980s, Halas saw the damage done to reefs by anchors and developed a more environmentally friendly anchor and mooring buoy system. He’s since worked to export this anchorage system to 38 countries.

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