March 1 is World Seagrass Day, which celebrates the flowering plants that look like blades of grass waving in our oceans and in Puget Sound. The United Nations created World Seagrass Day as an opportunity “to promote and facilitate actions for the conservation of seagrasses in order to contribute to their health and development.”

Jennifer Ruesink, University of Washington professor of biology, studies the relationship between the environment and marine organisms, including eelgrass, the primary species of seagrass that resides in the waters in and around Washington.

In honor of World Seagrass Day, Ruesink explains what seagrass is and what makes the seagrasses in Washington unique.

What is seagrass and why is it important? 

Jennifer Ruesink: Seagrasses are “land plants” that have moved into ocean habitats. They have roots, stems, leaves, flowers, fruits and seeds. There are only about 70 species of seagrasses, representing just 0.02% of all flowering plant species.

Seagrass matters to humans in many ways. It cycles nutrients and carbon, provides habitat for fish and decapods, and it anchors sediment in place, which contributes to shoreline stabilization. It’s a sentinel species for good water quality — in fact, impaired water quality from nutrient pollution, coastal building and erosion are its biggest threats.

Beyond these utilitarian values, seagrass is “wonderful” in the truest sense of that word — the way it grows, moves and shapes the environment provides a continual source of wonder.

What makes seagrass different from seaweed and other ocean plants?

JR: In addition to seagrasses, there are many other photosynthetic organisms that live in the ocean. Collectively they provide half of our global oxygen. But the others are different from seagrasses: Seaweeds, also known as macroalgae, do not make roots or flowers. Tiny microalgae live on ocean surfaces, even on the seagrass leaves themselves. Other photosynthetic organisms, such as phytoplankton, drift as single cells or small colonies in the water.

Seagrasses are colloquially called “grasses” because many have grass-like shapes with long strap-like leaves that grow from the base, and their stems move horizontally underground. From an evolutionary perspective, seagrasses do not group with the terrestrial grass family but instead have unique families or share relatives with freshwater plants.

What does seagrass look like in the ocean?

JR: If you think of a prairie on land, it is full of different plant species that grow to different heights, flower at different times, and extract light and nutrients with different efficiencies. Seagrass meadows are the prairies of the ocean, but they frequently consist of just one seagrass species. Because the number of seagrass species is so small, much of the dramatic variability occurs within single species, rather than across multiple species. Here in Washington we mostly have the same species — eelgrass, or Zostera marina — that’s found from 23-70 degrees north latitude on both sides of the Pacific and Atlantic Ocean.

Tell us about eelgrass in Washington.

JR: The remarkable thing is that there is so much of eelgrass variability present within our state. For example, some populations have shoots that replicate solely by branching, making genetic copies of themselves as they go. Other populations have shoots that never branch, but instead germinate, flower and die within a summer, overwintering as seeds. Shoots in Washington range from a diminutive 0.7 feet to nearly 6.5 feet long.

You can find eelgrass at low tide in the intertidal zone and as deep as 50 feet in the clear water along the Strait of Juan de Fuca. It lives in places that have ocean salinity, but it also lives near rivers where the winter salinities drop to about 85% freshwater. The eelgrass bed protected by the Padilla Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve is estimated at 8,000 acres, and Willapa Bay on the coast contains nearly 14,000 acres. Eelgrass also grows in a narrow “bathtub ring” on steeper soft-sediment shorelines throughout the state.

It makes sense that this diversity within a species is a product of evolving in the varied environments of Washington’s vast and convoluted shoreline. We think this variability should confer resilience to change, but that’s an ongoing exploration.

Washington also has two seagrass species other than Zostera marina: Ruppia maritima, which is a fast-growing species characteristic of brackish channels in saltmarshes, and Nanozostera japonica, which was established in the state in the 1950s after being inadvertently introduced from Japan. You can find them all growing together in a few places.

How would you suggest that someone celebrate World Seagrass Day?

JR: There are plenty of public-access shores around Seattle — including Golden Gardens and the south side of Alki Point — where you can see eelgrass growing. At this time of year, you might see black brant nearby. These small geese feed on eelgrass to fuel their migration. To see eelgrass, you need a low tide since it can’t handle staying out of the water very long. On World Seagrass Day, good low tides occur after dark — around 9 p.m. in the Seattle area. If you do find seagrass, you can take a picture and help data collection about its distribution by uploading your information to iNaturalist.

Any time you’re at the beach, you might find eelgrass washed up on shore: Keep an eye out for the leaves — green, flexible rectangles — especially if they’re connected to chunky brown cylinders — the stems, or rhizomes. Each node on the rhizome is the scar of a former leaf. This is fun to think about because it helps demonstrate the dynamic lifestyle of this plant: Each leaf lasts a couple of months before it’s left behind on the rhizome and decays. Meanwhile the production of a new leaf every couple of weeks both turns over the biomass and moves the shoot along the sediment.

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Along the cold Pacific waters of British Columbia, Canada sea otters float belly-up, cracking shellfish on their chests. They look playful and carefree, yet inside their bodies something far more troubling is happening. A recent study of 11 dead sea otters found along B.C.’s coast revealed that every single one carried high quantities of eight different “forever chemicals” in both liver and muscle tissue.

These PFAS compounds—used in everything from food packaging and cosmetics to non-stick pans, water-repellent outdoor gear, and electronics—do not break down in nature. Over time they accumulate in the food chain, becoming more concentrated as they move from small organisms to fish and ultimately to top predators like otters.

One compound, perfluorooctanesulfonamide (PFOSA), once a key ingredient in Scotchgard, stood out. Its presence in multiple tissues signals long-term environmental exposure and a chemical load that these animals had no way to escape. Sea otters are more than charming coastal icons; they are keystone predators that keep kelp forests alive by controlling sea urchin populations.

When otters become sick or die, entire marine ecosystems begin to unravel. Their contamination is not a side note. It is a warning.

The danger does not end at the tide line. Humans eat the same shellfish and fish, swim in the same waters, and breathe the same coastal air. PFAS chemicals are already linked to fertility problems, hormone disruption, immune system suppression, cancer, and developmental issues in children. If sea otters are saturated with these chemicals, it raises a blunt question: what is happening in our own bodies?

While Canada has taken preliminary steps to regulate PFAS, efforts lag behind those in parts of Europe and the United States, where governments are moving to phase these chemicals out almost entirely. Here, the pace is slower, and monitoring remains limited. Meanwhile, each rainfall carries more PFAS into rivers and coastal ecosystems, and each product we buy that claims to “repel water or stains” brings the problem closer to our homes and oceans.

Saving sea otters is not simply about protecting a beloved species. It is about defending the health of coastal communities, marine food webs, and future generations. The toxins building up in otters are the same ones that build up in us, and their decline is a message we would be foolish to ignore. In the slick sheen of their fur and the stillness of their bodies on the shoreline lies a truth about modern life: we have filled our ocean with chemicals designed never to disappear, and now they are coming back to us through the creatures that depend on those waters to live.

If we want healthy oceans, healthy seafood, and healthy children, we must act before the kelp forests fall silent and the otters vanish from the Pacific coast. Their fate is tied to ours, and time is running out to change course.

Read more on forever chemicals and the sea

Two tons of micro-plastics on Israel’s Mediterranean Sea coast

Microplastics you breathe from dust in the desert

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Microplastics are tiny bits of plastics less than 5mm in size and they are everywhere. More than 10 years ago we championed reporting on the issue, covering the growing plastic gyres the size of countries in the Pacific Ocean – remember when we interviewed David de Rothschild about it? Microplastics are choking the seas, they are rolling around deserts where we breath them in, and recently are being found in the stool (poop) of newborns.

More worrying is that microplastics themselves are not inert, and they have the ability to pull along other environmental toxins with them, amplifying the toxicity effect, finds a new research study. 

“Microplastics are a kind of magnet for environmental pollutants, ferrying them through our digestive tract, and releasing them in a concentrated form in certain areas – thus causing increased toxicity,” report researchers in the journal Chemosphere. 

The researchers in the study from Tel Aviv University found that microplastics absorb and concentrate toxic organic substances at sea and increase this toxicity by a factor of 10, which may lead to a severe impact on human health. The study was led by Ines Zucker together with Ph.D. student Andrey Eitan Rubin. 

What exactly are microplastics again?

Microplastics are a general name for plastic materials that appear in a configuration of particles and microscopic fibers the size of tens of microns and up to a few millimeters. 

Microplastics are found almost everywhere: in water wells, in soil, airborne in deserts, in food products, in water bottles, and even in glaciers at the North Pole. The researchers explain that since plastic is not a natural material, it decomposes very slowly in nature, over thousands of years. Throughout the process, the microplastic particles encounter environmental pollutants that attach to plastic surfaces, and as a pair, they may pose a threat to the health of the environment and to humans.                  

Heading towards the Great Pacific Garbage Patch                                              

Zucker explains: “In this study we showed that even very low concentrations of environmental pollutants, which are non-toxic to humans, [stick] to the microplastic result in significant increase in toxicity.

Andrey Eitan Rubin adds: “The amount of waste dumped into the ocean every year is enormous – the best known example is the plastic island in the Pacific Ocean, which has an area 80 times larger than the State of Israel. But this is not just a remote problem – from our preliminary monitoring data show that Israel’s shores are among the most polluted with microplastic waste.”

Each of the microplastic particles secreted in these areas has tremendous potential for harm as they serve as an effective and stable platform for any pollutant that they may encounter on their way to the human body, the researchers point out. 

How to avoid microplastics?

The solution?

Zero Waste Shops

Stop buying plastic in all sorts of ways. In Canada and Europe zero-waste stores encourage the refilling of your own brought-from-home bags, jars and containers. In Israel my friend Alison has started a company called WeFill where you subscribe to a service that delivers dry goods and cleaning products in reusable sacks and containers that you send back with your new order every week. That’s a great way to start.

Google “refilling station for household and personal care products” and you will find a location that may do the same near you.

Water

Use tap water and purify it with a filter and refill stainless steel or glass bottles for everyday use.

Toys and Household

Avoid buying Dollar Store items (which emit other kinds of toxins) and purchase things you’d be happy to pass down. Toys made from wood and bamboo are a good start.

Fashion

Avoid synthetic clothing – which is hard to do. According to Plastic Soup: As consumers, we often feel hopeless when we hear about problems on such a global scale. Replacing your plastic bottle with a reusable one will not be enough this time. Make sure you ventilate and vacuum your home frequently to ensure that the plastic fibers are being collected. 

When purchasing clothing or textiles for your home, choose sustainably sourced natural materials as much as possible. Try to stay away from fast fashion, as this model only encourages overconsumption of clothes, especially synthetic ones like polyester.

Or ask your favorite fashion brand to take responsibility for the clothes they put on the market. They must guarantee that their products do not put our environment, ourselves, and, most importantly, the next generations at risk.

The post Microplastics are pairing up with pollutants. This is bad news. appeared first on Green Prophet.

Bloomberg news and analytics company has picked 12 companies to watch that could decarbonize our planet. BloombergNEF is a strategic research provider covering global commodity markets and the disruptive technologies driving the transition to a low-carbon economy. 

They help commodity trading, corporate strategy, finance and policy professionals navigate change and generate opportunities. The winners of the annual contest were selected as their innovations fill important gaps in optimizing long-haul freight, making sustainable materials, tracking greenhouse gases, valuing carbon sinks and reducing energy and chemical use.

Since the inception of the BNEF Pioneers program more than a decade ago, cheap, clean technologies such as renewable energy and electric vehicles have changed the world.

Although these technologies will decarbonize large parts of the world economy, there are still significant challenges to address in achieving net-zero emissions and slowing climate change. The 2020s will arguably be an even more pivotal decade in the fight against climate change, and the Pioneers competition this year has recognized transformative technology solutions filling some remaining net-zero innovation gaps. For instance, in:

1. Managing and optimizing long-haul freight
2. Advancing materials and techniques for sustainable products
3. Monitoring and understanding our changing planet

The 2021 BNEF Pioneers are:

Challenge 1: Managing and optimizing long-haul freight

• Convoy (U.S.) provides a digital freight network and moves thousands of truckloads around the United States each day through its optimized connected network of carriers, saving money for shippers and eliminating carbon waste.
• Nautilus Labs (U.S.) advances the efficiency of ocean commerce through artificial intelligence. It provides a predictive decision-support solution that drives sustainability and profitability in global maritime shipping.
• Ontruck (Spain) is a digital transportation company that combines automation and machine learning to drive out waste in the logistics process. Ontruck offers an efficient and low-carbon solution to move freight, helping shippers to reduce transportation costs, increasing earnings for carriers, and removing carbon emissions generated from empty trucks.

Challenge 2: Advancing materials and techniques for sustainable products

• Cemvita Factory (U.S.) engineers microbes that use carbon dioxide or methane as a feedstock for the production of carbon-negative industrial chemicals. These chemicals are used by oil and gas, chemical, mining and aerospace companies that seek to apply nature-inspired technologies for reducing their carbon footprint.
• Pyrowave (Canada) electrifies chemical processes in the circular economy of plastics. Pyrowave uses microwave technology to supply the chemical industry with recycled raw materials that are drop-in substitutes for virgin chemicals.
• Via Separations (U.S.) targets U.S. energy consumption that is wasted each year through the process of separating chemicals, by electrifying energy-intensive steps in chemical production.

Challenge 3: Monitoring and understanding our changing planet

• Pachama (U.S.) uses machine learning with satellite imaging to measure carbon captured in forests. Pachama brings the latest technology in remote sensing, satellite imaging and AI to the world of forest carbon in order to enable forest conservation and restoration at scale.
• Planet (U.S.) provides global, daily satellite imagery and geospatial solutions to better manage risk across various sectors, such as agriculture, forestry, energy and natural resources.
• QLM Technology (U.K.) offers its quantum technology to provide an understanding of greenhouse gas emissions in an affordable, accurate, scalable way using camera systems that visualize and quantify emissions as they occur.

Wildcards:

• 75F (U.S.) is an IoT-based building management system using smart sensors and controls to make commercial buildings more efficient, comfortable and healthier.
• ECOncrete (Israel) provides technology for coastal and marine infrastructure – increasing concrete strength and durability, while creating ecological value and an active carbon sink. Their CEO was sadly killed on a scooter last month in Tel Aviv, but the great idea lives on. 
• Pivot Bio (U.S.) makes nitrogen-producing microbial products that can replace the use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer for cereal crops, giving farmers a crop nutrition solution to achieve more consistent yields and improve air and water quality.

The post Bloomberg picks 12 climate pioneer companies worth investing in appeared first on Green Prophet.

“We cannot keep using marine and aquatic resources as if they were endless. And we cannot keep using our oceans as a waste pool,” he said in remarks made at the Blue Economy Summit (19-20 January, Abu Dhabi), attended by heads of state, environment and fisheries ministers, and other key stakeholders.

Serious threats to ocean health such as pollution, overfishing, and altered weather and rising sea levels resulting from climate change must be tackled in earnest – starting now — argued FAO’s chief executive.

“The health of our planet itself, our health and food security, depends on how we treat the blue world,” he said.

Time to act

On average, nearly 17 percent of animal protein consumed worldwide comes from fisheries and aquaculture, and in many small island developing states the figure is much higher.

At the same time, the livelihoods 12 percent of the world’s population depend on fisheries and aquaculture, mainly in the developing world.

But 30 percent of world fish stocks are estimated to be overexploited, depleted or recovering from depletion, with economic losses in marine fisheries resulting from poor management, inefficiencies, and overfishing adding up to $50 billion per year, FAO studies show.

And now climate change is posing new challenges to populations who rely on the oceans, by modifying the distribution and productivity of marine and freshwater species, affecting biological processes, and altering food webs.

Weather changes due to climate change are also taking a toll on many ocean-reliant communities, while the threat of rising sea levels is poised to have major impacts, in particular for small island developing states (SIDS). (Learn more about the challenges facing small island developing states, and how they are organizing to meet them.)

The last thirty years have seen some 80 different commitments on dealing with various ocean threats promulgated at the global level, Graziano da Silva noted, adding: “We not only need to commit, we need to act.”

A blue economy

The concept of a “blue economy” that came out of the 2012 Rio+20 Conference will have an important role to play in achieving the post-2015 global sustainable development goals, Graziano da Silva said during his remarks.

The blue economy model emphasizes conservation and sustainable management, based on the premise that healthy ocean ecosystems are more productive and represent the only way to ensure sustainable ocean-based economies. It also aims to ensure that small island developing states and developing world coastal states equitably benefit from their marine resources.

To support a shift to this new approach, FAO is establishing a new Blue Growth Initiative, through which the Organization will assist countries in developing and implementing blue economy and growth agendas.

The initiative will aim to foster partnerships and act as a catalyst for policy development, investment and innovation in support of food security, poverty reduction, and the sustainable management of aquatic resources.

The post Climate change and the sea appeared first on Green Prophet.

This is not an Orson Welles-esque prank, but real and scary: An international panel of marine scientists is demanding urgent remedies to halt ocean degradation based on findings that the rate, speed and impacts of change in the global ocean are greater, faster and more imminent than previously thought.

“The health of the ocean is spiralling downwards far more rapidly than we had thought. We are seeing greater change, happening faster, and the effects are more imminent than previously anticipated.  The situation should be of the gravest concern to everyone since everyone will be affected by changes in the ability of the ocean to support life on Earth,” says Professor Alex Rogers of Somerville College, Oxford, and Scientific Director of the IPSO.

This is the conclusion made by the latest International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO)/IUCN review of science on anthropogenic stressors on the ocean. Predictions go beyond the conclusion reached by the UN climate change panel the IPCC that the ocean is absorbing much of the warming and unprecedented levels of carbon dioxide and which warned that the cumulative impact of this with other ocean stressors is far graver than previous estimates.

What’s happening? Decreasing oxygen levels in the ocean caused by climate change and nitrogen run-off, combined with other chemical pollution and rampant overfishing are undermining the ability of the ocean to withstand these so-called ‘carbon perturbations’, meaning its role as Earth’s ‘buffer’ is seriously compromised.

The findings, published in the peer review journal Marine Pollution Bulletin, are part of an ongoing assessment process overseen by IPSO, which brings together scientists from a range of marine disciplines.

Among the latest assessments of factors affecting ocean health, the panel identified the following areas as of greatest cause for concern:

De-oxygenation: the evidence is accumulating that the oxygen inventory of the ocean is progressively declining.  Predictions for ocean oxygen content suggest a decline of between 1% and 7% by 2100. This is occurring in two ways: the broad trend of decreasing oxygen levels in tropical oceans and areas of the North Pacific over the last 50 years; and the dramatic increase in coastal hypoxia (low oxygen) associated with eutrophication.  The former is caused by global warming, the second by increased nutrient runoff from agriculture and sewage.

Acidification: If current levels of CO₂ release continue we can expect extremely serious consequences for ocean life, and in turn food and coastal protection; at CO₂ concentrations of 450-500 ppm (projected in 2030-2050) erosion will exceed calcification in the coral reef building process, resulting in the extinction of some species and decline in biodiversity overall.

Warming: As made clear by the IPCC, the ocean is taking the brunt of warming in the climate system, with direct and well-documented physical and biogeochemical consequences.  The impacts which continued warming is projected to have in the decades to 2050 include: reduced seasonal ice zones, including the disappearance of Arctic summer sea ice by ca. 2037; increasing stratification of ocean layers, leading to oxygen depletion; increased venting of the GHG methane from the Arctic seabed (a factor not considered by the IPCC); and increased incidence of anoxic and hypoxic (low oxygen) events.

The ‘deadly trio’ of the above three stressors – acidification, warming and deoxygenation – is seriously effecting how productive and efficient the ocean is, as temperatures, chemistry, surface stratification, nutrient and oxygen supply are all implicated, meaning that many organisms will find themselves in unsuitable environments.   These impacts will have cascading consequences for marine biology, including altered food web dynamics and the expansion of pathogens.

Continued overfishing is serving to further undermine the resilience of ocean systems, and contrary to some claims, despite some improvements largely in developed regions, fisheries management is still failing to halt the decline of key species and damage to the ecosystems on which marine life depends. In 2012 the UN FAO determined that 70% of world fish populations are unsustainably exploited, of which 30% have biomass collapsed to less than 10% of unfished levels. A recent global assessment of compliance with Article 7 (fishery management) of the 1995 FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, awarded 60% of countries a “fail” grade, and saw no country identified as being overall “good”.

What your government needs to do? The scientists recommend:

·         Reduce global C0₂ emissions to limit temperature rise to less than 2^oC, or below 450 CO₂e.

·         Ensure effective implementation of community- and ecosystem-based management, favouring small-scale fisheries.

·         Build a global infrastructure for high seas governance.

What global citizens can do? Join or start a local chapter of 350; there are many already in the Middle East. Support the actions of green groups like Greenpeace; bike to school and work (yes, you can even cycle in Saudi Arabia!); start up new sustainable businesses and NGOs to support your local oceans and seas.

The post Oceans Spiralling Downward, Threatening Life on Earth appeared first on Green Prophet.

The standards were developed by the the 30-year-old Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE). Now the United Arab Emirates proudly flies blue flags at 24 marinas and beaches. Most of the beaches are in the capital of Dubai, with one in Fujairah.

There are about 4000 Blue Flag beaches and marinas around the world in about 50 countries.

It is considered both hard work and an honor to achieve the flag, which can be removed if any of the eco-conditions are not met. The body makes sure that regular tests are done. If any negatives are reported, the flag comes down. This happened to one beach already for a short time in the UAE.

When I interviewed eco-ocean from Israel about the nine Blue Flags they helped to fly in Israel, they told me that some travellers will choose destinations based on Blue Flags alone, so it is something important for hoteliers and beach managers to consider.

Among the strict conditions that need to be met are third party water testing to make sure the waters are safe for swimming. The beach must include recycling bins, be free of charge and be accessible for the disabled and by bus.

The quality of water quality in the UAE is considered generally good, although the building industry has taken a toll on coastline flow, which has led to a build up of algae and pollutants. The coastline development also kills coral.

We bet this beach in Dubai where hundreds of dead cormorants were found won’t be Blue Flagged, but we admire the initiative over all as a way to educate the public and to get change-makers rolling towards a more sane way to manage beachfront natural resources.

The Blue Flag United Arab Emirates page is not yet updated, but click here to see the beaches that already have the Blue Flag. There are 8 beaches and 4 marinas. In the coming days, this is likely to be updated.

The post Eco Blue Flags Fly at 12 More Green Beaches in United Arab Emirates appeared first on Green Prophet.

Instead, since he responded to our call to save Israel’s Adullam Valley from his (extended) family’s oil shale ambitions and published his crew’s riveting account of the Plastiki adventure across the Pacific, he has been busy with a host of exciting environmental programs. Including Mpact, his latest venture.

Cutting through the noise

A brand new initiative that aims to mobilize humanity’s innate desire to do good, Mpact teaches charities, non-profit organizations and social enterprises such as the Ocean Conservation Society how to get the most support from a growing band of earth-conscious citizens.

Developed under the World Exposure Agency umbrella, Mpact comprises a small team of highly skilled men and women who know how to use digital media and data to rally their own tribe to support worthy environmental and social impact organizations working to generate either awareness or raise funds (or both).

With so many Facebook causes floating around and desperate letters from organizations like the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) seeking help to expose the latest economic and social travesty, it’s hard to decide who to support. As a result, if you’re anything like me, the overabundance of options often causes a terrible case of indecision.

In other words, nobody gets the pledge.

Mpact cuts through the noise with de Rothschild’s signature brand of energized creativity. He, better than most, understands that in order to move people to action, it is essential to empower them with light-hearted facts and storytelling.

Pictures of polar bears floating on melting blocks of ice accompanied with celebrity pleas are no longer compelling enough to get people to click the donate button, since we have become desensitized to these messages, and because we’re inundated by the sadness of it all.

Through his experience with the recycled plastic catamaran he built and sailed across the Pacific and other environmental education programs he has led, David has learned how to communicate the earth’s message to a contemporary, educated audience in a positive, uplifting manner.

He and his team amassed an enormous following with his creative marketing strategies. Thousands of people around the globe waited anxiously for Plastiki to sail out of San Francisco, and kept up with the crew as they struggled with long hours, limited water supply, the psychology of small spaces, and an ocean virtually barren of life.

Now he hopes to infuse other environmental campaigns with a similar vitality in order to maximize their impact.

The facts – gently please

The graphic above comes from the Ocean Conservation Society, which used data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) to demonstrate how long marine debris survives in our oceans.

This simple infographic delivers staggering facts (a fishing line lasts up to 600 years, a disposable diaper 450 years, and plastic rings used to hold soda and beer packs together have a 200 year lifespan before they biodegrade.)

But they are delivered in gentle, soft manner – the way a grandparent might steer their grandchild. And this is what David de Rothschild has always done well. Albeit just 35 years old, this emerging National Geographic explorer focuses his boundless creative agency with sage wisdom that encourages good people to make good choices.

Still in its infancy, Mpact is still being shaped. Head over there if you’d like to learn more.

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The journal Nature reports that a team of ocean researchers have captured the world’s first video of a giant squid (Architeuthis dux) in its natural environment. The video was captured 700 meters (2300 feet) beneath the Pacific near the Ogasawara archipelago,  about 1000 kilometers south of Tokyo Japan. The mission was funded by Japan’s NHK broadcasting commission and the US-based Discovery Channel, both of which will air programs about the giant squid encounter later this month.

Widder’s camera relied on a dim light in the red, near-infrared range. And you can see the results for yourself here:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLRY1cNxL1I[/youtube]

Sailors have known about giant squid for centuries. But ancient whalers and fishermen didn’t carry video equipment and so their fish stories were filed with tales of dragons, mermaids and other sea monsters. The Nordic tales of a sea monster named Kraken may have been based upon rare sightings of the giant squid.

It doesn’t help our believability that these tales were often exaggerated. The Kraken was said to reside in the deep ocean and attract many fish to itself. It was said to only briefly rise to the surface. So far this sounds very much like a giant squid, but the Kraken was also said to be so large that it was sometimes mistaken for an island. Its mouth was described to gape as large as the entrance to a fjord.

Well, fish stories are known for their exaggerations. The giant squid is estimated to grow as large as 15 meters (50 feet) in length, not quite the size of a fjord but something sure to frighten the daylights out of sailor. In his poem, The Kraken (1830), Alfred Tennyson writes:

Below the thunders of the upper deep;

Far far beneath in the abysmal sea,

His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep

The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee

About his shadowy sides; above him swell

Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;

And far away into the sickly light…

In 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Jules Verne writes:

“I stared in my turn and couldn’t keep back a movement of revulsion. Before my eyes there quivered a horrible monster worthy of a place among the most farfetched teratological legends. It was a squid of colossal dimensions, fully eight meters long. It was traveling backward with tremendous speed in the same direction as the Nautilus. It gazed with enormous, staring eyes that were tinted sea green.

Its eight arms (or more accurately, feet) were rooted in its head, which has earned these animals the name cephalopod; its arms stretched a distance twice the length of its body and were writhing like the serpentine hair of the Furies. You could plainly see its 250 suckers, arranged over the inner sides of its tentacles and shaped like semispheric capsules. Sometimes these suckers fastened onto the lounge window by creating vacuums against it. The monster’s mouth–a beak made of horn and shaped like that of a parrot–opened and closed vertically. Its tongue, also of horn substance and armed with several rows of sharp teeth, would flicker out from between these genuine shears. What a freak of nature!”

Like the monster which attacked Captain Nemo’s submarine and the mythical Kraken, the giant squid spends much of its life in the silent darkness of the deep ocean. This is one reason so few have seen it alive. Occasionally a dead one would wash ashore but because this creature is adapted to cold high pressure water of the deep ocean, it quickly decayed on the surface as Tennyson’s poem ends:

Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die

Other clues to the giant squid’s existence are the scars its suckered tentacles leave on sperm whales. These squids are thought to be the only predator large enough to take on a beast of this size.

The first photograph of a giant squid in its native environment was taken by Tsunemi Kubodera of the National Science Museum in Tokyo and Kyoichi Mori of the Ogasawara Whale Watching Association in this same region of the Pacific ocean in the autumn of 2004.

The video taken by this more recent expedition relied on a camera system invented by Edith Widder, founder of the Ocean Research and Conservation Association in Fort Pierce, Florida. Widder believes that the key to this mission’s success was the focus on the squid’s keen sense of sight. Giant squids are accustomed to the darkness of the deep ocean, their eyes, the size of dinner plates, are sensitive to the dim light of bioluminescent prey, so bright camera lights would disturb it and possibly frighten it away.

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Who wouldn’t want their own submarine to enjoy the beauty of undersea life without getting cold and wet?  Seamagine Hydrospace Corporation of the US hopes their luxury submarines will become the latest must-have toys for the wealthy. Seamagine submarines might not have the character or personal craftsmanship as Tao’s sub, but their Undersea Hunter model can carry up to three people to a depth of 1500 feet (475m).  They certainly look like a fun way to spend a million dollars!

For those of us not in that category of wealth, there is another option. There are about 20 tourist submarines in the world.  The Sindbad club of Egypt offers trips aboard their Mark III submarine to tourists of this Red Sea resort. There are also tourist submarines in Tenerife and Cyprus.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/rbSKhH8fzS4[/youtube]

What will submarines mean for the undersea environment? As divers we are told to avoid stirring up the bottom or allowing our fins to touch the coral reef.  But over the years I saw the number of intact fan corals in the Florida keys diminished.

A single fin kick can wipe out hundreds of years of coral growth.

The sheer number of people who dive in these places became clear to me during one dive when my scuba instructor noticed a bubble on a piece of coral and found that it was actually a diver’s lost contact lens!

Will submarines destroy coral reefs just as jet skis destroy sea grass? It is certainly a possibility.  But as Green Prophet’s Laurie Balbo found, more eyes underwater means that the sea bottom is no longer “out of sight, out of mind.”

Submarine photo via Seamagine.com

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