Oceans

Before you head out for a pricey sushi dinner, you might want to check out a recent blog by our friends at simplesteps.

There’s quite a lot happening on the sonar front as of late. After a federal judge finally and triumphantly imposed a strict set of rules on the Navy’s use of mid-frequency sonar off the coast of Southern California, the Bush Administration attempted, in the name of the ever-vexing “national security”, to nullify the protections. The case has since been returned to the district court for consideration where a federal judge has kept part, but not all, of the original restrictions.

It seems like with every leap forward, there is almost surely a leap backwards, and nothing could be more true than the recent news that the President has tried to all but negate a recent ruling enacted to protect marine life that could be potentially harmed by Navy sonar exercises off the coast of Southern California. Using an "emergency waiver" under both federal and state law the Bush Administration is exempting the Navy from completely plausible safeguards that could help protect a rich biological area.

File this under: Didn't see that coming. On Tuesday China announced that they're cracking down on plastic shopping bags. The sudden, surprising announcement calls for a total ban on ultra-thin plastic shopping bags, and disallows retailers from handing out any free bags to customers, starting June 1st.

Read this NRDC press release:

http://www.nrdc.org/media/2008/080103.asp

Apparently when we’re not overfishing or polluting our oceans, we’re blasting them with military active sonar so loud that it’s causing mass whale stranding and deaths.