Oceans | Grist

Obama unveils ocean protection plan 8
Posted 3 weeks ago
President Barack Obama on Friday set up a task force to craft the first US national policy for sustainably managing the country's oceans, drawing praise from environmentalists who said the move was long overdue.
Shut Your Mouth!

13 badass greens 17
Posted 3 weeks, 3 days ago
Think all greens are wimps and weenies? Think again.
A video interview with model Amber Valletta 1
Posted 3 weeks, 3 days ago
Good Fish, Bad Fish

Is your favorite seafood unhealthy for the planet? 4
Posted 3 weeks, 4 days ago
A new Sustainable Seafood Guide from the Natural Resources Defense Council can help me -- and you -- make better choices about what we eat. It provides seven basic guidelines to follow when shopping for seafood or ordering at a restaurant, as well as specific advice about America's five favorite types of seafood, from shrimp to tuna to fish sticks.
A disturbing fish tale

‘The End of the Line’ is a compelling indictment of industrial fishing 2
Posted 3 weeks, 4 days ago
"The End of the Line" does for the fish what Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" did for the climate: scare the pants of the viewer. The documentary deftly makes the case that industrial exploitation of the world's fish stocks will result in the end of seafood by 2048, if not sooner, and that some species may already be in collapse.
Ask Umbra’s video advice on sustainable seafood 2
Posted 3 weeks, 5 days ago
Jellyfish Fry

On World Oceans Day, consider the jellyfishburger and fries 3
Posted 3 weeks, 5 days ago By Carl Safina, Marah J. Hardt
Around the world, fishermen and swimmers are running into a problem: jellyfish. The slick, stinging blobs are showing up in increasing numbers, earlier in the year, and in more places than ever before. Is there a reason for the jellyfish invasion? Unfortunately, yes -- and like most reasons for ocean decline, it relates to how we are changing the environment.
Ch-ch-ch-changes

‘Sea Change’ documentary highlights threat of ocean acidification 9
Posted 3 weeks, 5 days ago
The documentary film 'A Sea Change' follows one man's quest to learn about climate change and ocean acidification -- but is it a horror flick or a love story?
Media matters

‘The Next Wave’ chronicles the climate change refugees 0
Posted 4 weeks, 1 day ago
"The Next Wave" by Jennifer Redfearn and Tim Metzger follows the Carteret islanders as they take steps to relocate their South Pacific community in the face of rising seas.
Come Fry With Me

A sizzling test of seven eco-sunscreen brands 3
Posted 1 month ago
You know you need protection from the sun's rays, and you don't want a product that will harm you or the planet. So what should you slather on? Grist staffers expose their flesh to help you figure it out.
Come sail away

Around the Americas mission raises sails—and awareness 0
Posted 1 month ago
The crew aboard the Ocean Watch aim to educate as they navigate 25,000 miles around North and South America.
a watery end

Oceans’ alarm: what the sea is trying to tell us 0
Posted 1 month ago
Whether you believe in end times or not, the oceans are sending clear signals that they are in distress.
Documentary touches the heart of ocean acidification

A Sea Change on film 0
Posted 2 months, 2 weeks ago
"A Sea Change" is a new documentary on ocean acidification that follows retired educator Sven Huseby on a mission to Norway and Alaska to investigate the problem of too much atmospheric carbon and its detrimental acidifying effect on the marine food chain.
Response to Mark Bittman

Food writers and the state of the oceans 9
Posted 2 months, 3 weeks ago
Fishing for trouble

Bittman takes a bite out of the ocean 20
Posted 2 months, 3 weeks ago
Mark Bittman's a great food writer -- and that's why it pains me to call him out for pushing red snapper in his latest "Minimalist" column in The New York Times.
Kind of Bluefin

Umbra advises on tuna and mercury 6
Posted 2 months, 4 weeks ago
Which is safer for you and the planet: mature tuna, juveniles, or none at all?
Icier Depths

Q: How much can West Antarctica plausibly contribute to sea-level rise by 2100? 0
Posted 3 months ago
Exxon redux

The ocean does represent a major source of energy, just not the one you’re thinking of 0
Posted 3 months, 1 week ago
In the minutes after midnight on March 24, 1989, the Exxon Valdez poured 10.8 million gallons of oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound. The spill turned pristine spruce-lined waters into a sticky death trap for countless animals, including a quarter of a million birds.
Water out of fish

Why the foodie press needs to do better work on seafood 0
Posted 3 months, 1 week ago
I recently finished Taras Grescoe's wonderful, vitally important book Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood. Everyone who loves seafood and would prefer to be able to enjoy it in 20 years must read it.

Basic message: overfishing, pollution, climate change, and abusive aquaculture practices threaten to turn the oceans into vast pools of jellyfish, seaweed, slime and little else, within our lifetimes -- unless we change things fast.

And changing things fast means being hyper-conscious about what seafood we eat. For Grescoe, that means focusing mainly on so-called "trash" fish -- utterly delicious, low-on-the-food-chain stuff like anchovies and sardines. These magnificent creatures now get harvested en masse, to be ground into meal and oil to feed the ravenous maw of the aquaculture industry and its flavorless "salmon," "shrimp," etc.

Other good choices are farmed oysters and stuff that you know comes from artisanal fishermen. It turns out that small-scale fishermen who supply their nearby communities tend to be much better stewards of the seas than the vast industrial fleets that dominate fisheries.

Of course, relying on individual consumer choice to save the globe's fisheries is likely futile. The problems are so dire and immediate that we need concerted, global governmental intervention, as Grescoe makes clear in his conclusion.

Until that happens, there's an urgent need to educate the public about the dismal state of the oceans. The effort starts with food journalists -- people who have a direct impact on the public imagination about fish.

It seems to me that food journalists have generally failed at this task. I see examples all the time of foodie articles blithely extolling the culinary virtues of this or that fish species, without considering the impact of consuming them.

In an extremely evocative piece in last Sunday's New York Times Magazine, NYT culture editor (and former food-section editor) Sam Sifton goes in search of the perfect homemade fish taco. The piece certainly isn't the most egregious example of ocean-blithe foodiness I've ever seen. But given Sifton's position, he should do better -- so I'll take him to task.
California has much to lose from rising sea levels, study says 0
Posted 3 months, 3 weeks ago