Recent Blog Posts

This week, Oceana's corporate partner Nautica invited us to Key West Race Week to spread the word and gather support for our opposition to Congressional efforts to open up Florida’s coasts to offshore drilling.

In the American Clean Energy Leadership Act of 2009, there’s a proposal that would open up currently protected areas in the eastern Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas drilling.

Climate change has a number of negative effects on the ocean including warmer waters, rising seal levels, and increased ocean acidification. Warming waters and rising sea levels disrupt the ocean ecosystem in a number of ways. For example, warm waters lead to coral bleaching and kill off which impacts the entire coral-dependent ecosystem. Melting sea caps disrupt both coastal and arctic habitats, harming populations of polar bears, mangroves, and coral reef, and seal turtles, and disrupting the migration patterns of ocean species

The impacts of ocean acidification are less obvious to the human eye, but no less harmful. The ocean has always been an important carbon sink though absorbing carbon dioxide at the surface and converting it into carbonic acid. However, as atmospheric carbon dioxide rises, rate of absorption, and therefore acidification by the ocean is also increasing. This increased acidification has a harmful affect on many kinds of ocean life from mollusks to mammals. This recent article in Scientific American highlights the harmful effects of acidification on dolphins.

Now the summer season is over and the numbers are out. A record number of vessels, mostly sailing boats, but everything from from rowboats to cargo ships, traveled through the Northwest Passage this year, according to the Canadian Coast Guard, to a total of 23, up from 17 last year. The trips in the Northwest Passage "included a rising number of adventurers from around the world keen to explore the fabled Arctic waterway," said Jean-Pierre Lehnert, the officer in charge of the Coast Guard's marine communication and traffic services center in Iqaluit.

"The increase is mostly due to the adventurers, that number increased a lot. And also, we had those two cargo vessels that made the Northwest Passage."

Research continues in hopes of lessening the degree of damage all this ship traffic will ultimately cause. The Open Passage Expedition successfully sailed through the Northwest Passage with the goals of telling the story of how climate change is affecting Arctic communities. The Arctic is garnering global attention today because climate change is causing its sea ice to melt at a rapid pace, affecting the region's communities and the wildlife they rely on for food and livelihood.

This week in Denmark, the Copenhagen Climate Treaty Summit gets underway. Officials from more than 190 countries have gathered in hopes of producing a new agreement to curb climate change.

US Sailing , the governing body of the sport here in the US, today announced that OCYC Commodore Kristen Berry is the US Sailing Sailor of the Wee k. 

"It is a great honor to be recognized, and I am happy to be in the company of so many great sailors who are doing so much for the sport."  said Berry.

THIS STORY WAS USED FROM NPR

December 8, 2009

Cuba has some the most extensive coral reefs in the hemisphere, but political strains between Washington and Havana largely have kept American scientists away.

A new partnership for marine research is trying to change that at one of Cuba's most remote places, far from people and pollution.