ocean acidification

Image from Wikimedia

There really is no respite for our battered coral reefs. As much as I'd like to say that there has been some good news on this front, the latest headlines have been growing bleaker by the week. Now a new report released by NOAA, hardly your alarmist types, has revealed that close to half of all U.S. coral reefs are in "poor" or "fair" condition -- a direct result of anthropogenic activities such as coastal development and overfishing and climate-influenced ef...

Image from uhuru1701

In 1999, California passed the landmark Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) which directed the state to create and manage the state's first network of marine protected areas (MPA) along the coastline. The move was seen as a necessary countermeasure to widespread coastal loss and degradation, which had already resulted in over 90 percent of the state's wetlands being lost and in la...

It's generally accepted that increasingly acidified oceans could prove disastrous for most forms of marine life. We say most - coral reefs, certain phytoplankton species and larger organisms - because oceanographers are still hard at work studying the effects of higher carbon dioxide levels on individual species. Many, in fact, have now concluded that higher levels of dissolved carbon dioxide could help some species thrive over others. ...