Coming in
globalbriefs
February News and resources to inspire concerned citizens to work
together in building a healthier, stronger society that
works for all.
Acidic Oceans
Global Warming Wreaking
Havoc
The world’s oceans have absorbed
roughly half the carbon dioxide emit-
ted by human activities since pre-in-
dustrial times. But today, the rate of the
greenhouse gas CO
2
dissolving from
the atmosphere into seawater is ex-
ceeding the ocean’s natural buffering capacity. As a result, “The waters of the upper
ocean are now undergoing an extraordinary transition in their fundamental chemical
state at a rate not seen on Earth for millions of years,” state scientists at the Monterey
Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) in Geophysical Research Letters.
A recent Royal Society report notes that the resulting formation of carbonic acid
Create the
makes it more difficult for sea life like corals and starfish to form shells and skel-
etons. More, endangered reefs increase tropical islands’ vulnerability to storms.
MBARI also estimates “that sound already may travel 10 percent farther in
Life You
the oceans than it did a few hundred years ago,” and may travel as much as 70
percent farther by mid-century. Seawater acidity favors transmission of low- to
mid-frequency sounds; this has unknown consequences for marine mammals that
Want
rely on sound to communicate and to find food and mates.
“Ocean acidification is likely to have an ecological cascade effect right up to
parts of the food web that are important to human beings, such as fish and shell-
fish,” says Dr. Will Howard, of the Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems Cooperative
Research Centre.
Ask what makes
Quiet Wonder
Yellowstone to Banish Snowmobiles
you come alive,
Yellowstone, the granddaddy of America’s
and make it
national parks, is cleared to develop a plan to
immediately reduce snowmobiling to a level
come true.
that ensures the protection of clean air, tranquil-
ity and wildlife. The goal is to cut snowmobile
traffic by half this year and then phase down
over the next few years.
Start by exploring the
The victory came when the U.S. District
February edition of
Court for the District of Columbia invalidated
a Bush Administration decision to authorize
Natural Awakenings.
nearly 550 snowmobiles per day in this national
treasure. The judge respected the findings of
four separate National Park Service studies since
For more information
1998, all concluding that snowmobile usage
about advertising and how
significantly increases noise and unhealthy exhaust, disrupts the experiences of
visitors and harasses wildlife.
you can participate, call
The development of four-stroke snowmobiles has helped reduce air and noise
540-789-5550
emissions, compared with the more common two-stroke engines. But pollution
from even the newer models remains greater than that of modern automobiles.
Yellowstone’s preferred motorized winter sightseeing option is snowcoaches.
1 Southwestern Virginia
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