July 20, 2005
7/21 - Swimmers to Ostreopsis: You make me sick
Bad year for bad algae..
Algal bloom: Kind of artsy, if you're not in it.
7/20 - SB in Chesapeake Fishing - The tyranny of lowered expectations
Here's a classic tale of the incremental, generational lowering of fishing expectations in the Chesapeake Bay (big thanks to Mike Hirshfield of Oceana for spotting this).
Will your grandchildren end up nostalgic for today's reduced catch (when there's nothing remaining)?
July 18, 2005
7/18 - New SB/Surfrider DVD's Are In!
Featuring "Shifting Baselines in the Surf," "Empowering the Grassroots" (the Mark Dowie video), and a number of Surfrider productions ("Sea to Summit," Pet Fish PSA) and Shifting Baselines Productions (PSAs and Groundlings films).
For a free copy, please send us a self-addressed stamped padded envelope to:
Shifting Baselines
5254 Melrose Ave. Ste. D-112
Los Angeles, Ca. 90038
Order Now, While Supplies Last!
July 13, 2005
7/13 - Krill Crisis?
Or is it just inter-annual variation? The San Francisco Chronicle is certainly worried.
Pacific plankton perched on precipice?
July 12, 2005
7/12 - Can Red Tide Make You Sick?
The Surfrider folks have been worrying about the potential health risks of floating in the water for hours (as a surfer) in the middle of a bloom of little phytoplankton cells that produce neurotoxins. In Florida, where they have been having some of the worst red tides in recent memory, there are constant warnings to sufferers of asthma.
Yuck-o.
July 10, 2005
7/11 - Code Red: How come the waters of S. Cal. look funny?
Here's a great article in the latest issue of Surfer magazine that quotes Dr. Peter Franks of Scripps (who gave the greatest guest lecture I've ever witnessed when he came to my biological oceanography class and used nothing but food coloring, water, and a plexiglass tank to make undergrads grasp the most complicated concepts in how phytoplankton blooms occur) explaining why the waters around San Diego lately look so reddish-brown.
"Red waves at morning, surfers take warning?
July 07, 2005
7/7 - SHOW TIME! Mark Dowie's "Is Enviromentalism Really Dead?" talk now on-line
Check it out -- The Research Channel has posted the entire (edited) 48 minute talk by Mark Dowie when we brought him to USC in April for Earth Day. It looks really great on Quicktime.
The tao of Dowie
7/7 - You Bet Your Acid Oceans
It's for real -- the pH of the oceans is declining, so we can add that to the list of global ocean concerns.
Coccolithophores: Now you see 'em, some day you might not.