Environment News - The Maritime Executive

adidas Runs From “Virgin” Polyester

By MarEx 2018-07-17 19:12:24

adidas plans to only use only recycled polyester in its shoes and clothing by 2024. The company will also stop using “virgin” plastic in its offices, retail outlets, warehouses and distribution centers starting in 2018. Eric Liedtke, head of Adidas’ global brands, told the Financial Times that about 50 percent of the material used in the 920 million individual items adidas sells is polyester. “With those kind of volumes, we cannot make the transition overnight.” adidas said its apparel line...

Record: Foreign Kelp Washes Up in Antarctica

By MarEx 2018-07-16 19:09:54

An unexpected find of southern bull kelp on an Antarctic beach has revealed the longest known biological rafting event ever recorded. DNA samples taken from the kelp revealed that one specimen drifted from the Kerguelen Islands in the Southern Indian Ocean and another from South Georgia in the South Atlantic Ocean. The kelp drifted an estimated 20,000 kilometers (12,400 miles), passing through what were thought to be impenetrable currents and winds. New ocean modeling developed by Australian researchers trying to...

Washington State Ferries Joins Green Marine

By MarEx 2018-07-15 19:28:31

Washington State Ferries (WSF) has become the first U.S. ferry operator to join Green Marine, the globally-recognized environmental certification program for the North American maritime industry. WSF is the largest ferry system in the U.S, serving nearly 25 million people a year. It is enrolling all of its operations in the Green Marine program, namely 22 vessels, 19 terminals and a maintenance facility, thereby showing its substantial commitment to sustainable operations. Green Marine is a voluntary industry-led sustainability initiative for...

Sea Shepherd: Icelandic Whalers Slaughter Blue Whale

By MarEx 2018-07-11 20:15:17

Sea Shepherd volunteers monitoring the Hvalur hf whaling station in Hvalfjordur, Iceland, claim to have documented the slaughter of an endangered Blue whale on the night of July 7. The organization says this is the 22nd endangered whale killed for export to Japan by Kristján Loftsson’s commercial whaling company since June 20, 2018. Although the first 21 whales killed were Fin whales – which the Icelandic government has permitted Loftsson’s company to slaughter despite an international moratorium on whaling and...

Gabon: Three Illegal Fishing Vessels Arrested

By MarEx 2018-07-10 03:58:15

Three fishing vessels have been arrested in Gabon, a year after Gabon’s President Ali Bongo Ondimba declared the creation of nine new national marine parks and 11 new aquatic reserves at the United Nations Ocean Conference in New York. The marine conservation group Sea Shepherd is assisting the government in combating illegal fishing in what is now Africa’s largest network of marine protected areas. First, two trawlers, the F/V Jin Li 961 and F/V Jin Li 962, were arrested for...

Watch: Four-Mile Iceberg Calving

By MarEx 2018-07-09 20:06:54

New York University scientists have captured a four-mile iceberg breaking away from a glacier in eastern Greenland on video. The resulting iceberg, broken off from Greenland’s Helheim Glacier, would stretch from lower Manhattan up to Midtown in New York City. Witnessing the phenomenon, also known as calving (the breaking off of large blocks of ice from a glacier), could help create more accurate simulations to help predict and plan for climate change, say the researchers. “Global sea-level rise is both...

Long-Term Global Warming May be Double Earlier Predictions

By MarEx 2018-07-05 20:52:20

Future global warming may eventually be twice as warm as projected by climate models and sea levels may rise six meters or more even if the world meets the 2°C target, according to an international team of researchers from 17 countries. The findings published last week in Nature Geoscience are based on observational evidence from three warm periods over the past 3.5 million years when the world was 0.5°C-2°C warmer than the pre-industrial temperatures of the 19th Century. The research...

Public-Private Partnership to Map Ocean Plastic

By MarEx 2018-07-05 18:39:27

The Institute of Marine Research, shipowner Torvald Klaveness, Kongsberg and the Norwegian Shipowners’ Association have entered into a public-private partnership with the aim of mapping marine plastic and other environmental parameters vital to the health of the oceans. The partners will equip several vessels with advanced sensors to collect data for the Institute of Marine Research. Every minute, about 15 tons of plastic end up in the ocean. If this trend of marine plastic pollution continues, by 2050 there may...

Chinese Shark-Fishing Fleet Released Without Charge

By MarEx 2018-07-04 19:14:17

The fleet of 15 industrial fishing vessels arrested for targeting sharks by Timor Leste authorities in September 2017 has been released without charge. On September 9 2017, Sea Shepherd’s M/V Ocean Warrior supported the Timor Leste National Police (PNTL) in a dawn raid of the Fu Yuan Yu fleet of 15 fishing vessels owned by the Chinese Hong Long Company, operating within the Southeast Asian waters of Timor Leste. The fleet, which had already been banned from Indonesia for illegal...

Extreme Sea Levels Predicted to Increase

By MarEx 2018-07-03 22:56:26

A new study has predicted that future global warming will lead to an increase in extreme sea levels, with consequent flood risks to coastal infrastructure and human populations. Extreme sea levels occur through a combination of high tides and extreme weather events, which can generate storm surges and high wind waves. These phenomena are exacerbated by progressive rises in mean sea level and predicted increases in tropical cyclone activity. Researchers have taken account of all these processes for the first...