The oceans throughout history provided seemingly inexhaustible fish for people brave and skillful enough to exploit them. Whenever fish catches declined, fishers would sail farther and farther from home to meet their needs.1 Nowadays the entire global ocean is accessible. Large factory ships and the magic of refrigeration have allowed fishers to venture out for months or years, and more efficient and diverse ways of fishing have increased catches with little care or understanding about the incremental reduction of fish stocks.2 Before the middle of the twentieth century, no one but a few scientists worried about how long the bounty could last, until suddenly, everything began to collapse. Mini wars over fishing rights between Iceland and the United Kingdom in the 1960s and 1970s, along with increasingly protective measures by other nations, led to the unilateral establishment of exclusive economic zones (EEZs) to keep foreign fishers away, the legitimacy of which were formally recognized in 1982 under the auspices of the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea. Yet even still, as in Newfoundland, fisheries kept collapsing, with tragic consequences for entire communities.

The great majority of fisheries data come from coastal ecosystems including estuaries, marsh and mangrove wetlands, seagrass meadows, kelp forests, and coral reefs. In spite of great differences in their inhabitants, the dominant predators in each of these environments were historically large animals, including some combination of killer whales, sharks, seals, crocodiles, predatory fishes like tunas and sharks, and seabirds.3 Nowadays, however, most of these animals are so severely depleted as to be ecologically extinct. Humans have taken their place as the dominant predators at almost all trophic levels above the zooplankton.4 There is even a major fishery for krill in Antarctica, which are critically important for the survival of whales, without the necessary ecological data for an adequate stock assessment to know what is sustainable.5

Biomass of groundfish and sharks has been diminished by an order of magnitude in the northwest Atlantic.6 Similar depredations have affected coral reefs, kelp forests, estuaries and coastal seas, and the high seas.7 Many fisheries biologists originally claimed that the depletions of fish stocks were overstated, but a detailed assessment by the US National Research Council strongly supported the original claims.8 It is now generally accepted that two-thirds of global fisheries are overfished and getting worse, while many of the remaining, better-managed fisheries are not yet sufficiently recovered to be economically viable.9

Global fish catches are declining in spite of increased capacity supported by misguided government subsidies that only accentuate the problem.10 The greatest losses are for large-scale industrial fisheries, whereas artisanal catches appear to be more sustainable. Risks of biological extinction are also increasing for large animals.11 Caribbean Monk seals have already been lost, and their Hawaiian and Mediterranean counterparts are gravely threatened.12 Killer whales are rapidly diminishing globally, especially those species that depend on highly specific overfished prey like salmon.13 Caribbean sea turtles have declined in abundance 100-fold, and Caribbean crocodiles are threatened to endangered throughout most of their range.14 Sharks are globally threatened with losses of numerous species exceeding 90% or more.15

The oceans have long been the terminal point for our garbage, excrement, and chemicals. Coastal pollution most obviously began in the stench of estuaries like New York Harbor, which by the nineteenth century had become serious hazards to human health.16 Soon afterwards, entire semi-enclosed seas like the Baltic and Adriatic seas, Chesapeake Bay, and embayments of the Mississippi Delta were so polluted by excess nutrients and organic matter that oxygen levels declined, and fish kills were commonplace.17 More recently, the industrial pollution of toxic chemicals and greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels have extended to the farthest reaches of the oceans and the atmosphere, poisoning tuna and swordfish with mercury and littering the oceans with plastic.18

There are currently more than 500 coastal hypoxic dead zones worldwide that are largely due to massive increases in nutrient runoff from intensive agriculture made possible by cheap nitrogen fertilizer manufactured from petroleum.19 Excess nitrogen runoff fuels population explosions of phytoplankton far beyond the capacity of zooplankton and other suspension feeders to consume them. As a result, the excess phytoplankton die and sink to the seafloor where they are metabolized by microbes, a process that consumes most or all of the oxygen in bottom waters. Animals including fisheries species that cannot swim away die from asphyxia, except for a very few species that can survive in extremely low oxygen conditions.

The structural integrity of coastal marine habitats, from the tropics to the temperate zone, is dependent on the abundance of a small number of structurally dominant species of mangroves, saltmarshes, seagrasses, kelps, and reef corals that stabilize sediments and provide critical shoreline protection from storms.20 They are also important sites of carbon deposition and sequestration, and are important nursery habitats for fisheries.21 Coastal development and climate change effectively kills the environment, reducing biological structural stability and complexity. Global losses have been alarming, reaching 50% for mangroves and 30% for seagrasses.22 Global declines in living coral cover on reefs is also highly variable but commonly exceeds 50% throughout the Caribbean and Indo-Pacific.23

Other increasingly widespread forms of anthropogenic habitat change are more immediately destructive in reducing habitat complexity and biodiversity.24 The most damaging include dynamite fishing on coral reefs to harvest the fish that float to the surface; seabed trawling for shrimp, scallops, and groundfish that transforms biodiverse underwater forests into depauperate level bottoms of mud; and deep seafloor mining that, if it is allowed to proceed, will inevitably destroy seafloor ecosystems for decades and possibly centuries.25 Container ship traffic is also increasing almost exponentially and carries the double risk of fatal collisions with endangered whales and sound pollution that is dangerous for all cetaceans.26 Seismic oil and gas exploration causes even more severe sound pollution that can cause mass mortalities of whales and dolphins.27

Introductions of exotic species are also increasing due to expanding ship traffic, which discharge ever-increasing volumes of ballast water that contain larval stages of invertebrates, fishes, plankton, and pathogens.28 While the data are mostly circumstantial, the first mass mortality of the sea urchin Diadema antillarum occurred next to the Caribbean entrance of the Panama Canal, and the first widespread outbreaks of coral diseases in the Caribbean were recorded from nearby Colombia and adjacent Netherlands Antilles.29 Coral diseases are exacerbated by global warming, but these first Caribbean disease outbreaks occurred two decades before the first reports of coral bleaching due to extreme warming events.30 Introductions also occur due to deliberate or accidental release from aquaria, as with the Indo-Pacific lionfish that has devasted native fish populations of the Caribbean.31

Farmed salmon bones preserved in a laboratory in collaboration with palaeontologists at the University of Bergen, Norway. Michelle-Marie Letelier,Outline for The Bonding (Still #3), 2017. 16mm film transferred to HD. Image courtesy of the artist.

Impacts of climate change due to the burning of fossil fuels are also both direct and indirect, including rising average temperatures, extreme heating events, declining oxygen, ocean acidification, disease outbreaks, and intensification of extreme storms.32 Sea surface temperatures are rising globally, but disproportionately, with the greatest increases in polar seas and semi-enclosed basins in the temperate zones, such as the Gulf of Maine. The latitudinal limits of myriad species are rapidly increasing in response, as in the case of the Humboldt squid, whose northern limit shifted from southern California to the Gulf of Alaska in just a few decades due to a combination of climate change and overfishing that reduced the abundance of predators.33 Most species range shifts are more gradual but pervasive, with great implications for fisheries.34 For example, optimal conditions for Atlantic and Barents Sea cod are moving northward out of traditional fishing grounds and into different international jurisdictions, further exacerbating the consequences of historical overfishing.35 Tropical reef corals are also migrating towards higher latitudes, most strikingly along the southwest coast of Australia, where kelp forests are dying off and being replaced by subtropical species including reef corals.36

As oceans continue to warm, species characteristic of colder polar conditions have nowhere else to migrate and are at risk of extinction. Arctic species and entire ecosystems are increasingly threated by the loss of summer sea ice.37 Populations of polar bears, which historically fed on seals captured at breathing holes, are plummeting, and starving bears are showing up around human settlements where they forage on garbage and potentially whatever else.38 Other effects on polar food webs are still poorly understood, but the collapse of Antarctic krill, for example, would have grave impacts on the baleen whales that feed upon them.39

Global warming is also causing increases in the magnitude and frequency of extreme heating events wherein sea surface temperatures may rise 2 to 3C above normal maxima in just a few months.40 Consequences for reef corals can be catastrophic.41 Healthy reef corals exist in symbiosis with the dinoflagellates within their tissues that are critical to coral nutrition and calcification.42 Extreme heat breaks down this symbiosis, whereby corals evict the symbiont (which leaves them ghostly white, hence bleached). This is commonly fatal to the corals unless symbiosis is reestablished within a matter of weeks. Mass bleaching events are increasingly frequent and severe, raising questions about the very survival of coral reefs. The most recent extreme example was in 20152016 when most corals along the northern Great Barrier Reef bleached and died, and similar mass bleaching and mortality occurred across the Pacific.43 Another example is the enormous blob of hot water that appeared in the northeast Pacific in 2014 that was associated with collapses in species abundance and outbreaks of diseases.44

Climate change also sets off a cascading series of indirect effects that magnify its impact. The impact of coral diseases has greatly increased, especially in connection with mass bleaching events.45 Outbreaks of coral diseases are especially impactful on polluted reefs and those where overfishing has resulted in population explosions of fleshy algae, which have been shown experimentally to increase the vulnerability of corals to disease.46 In contrast, disease outbreaks are comparatively rare on unpolluted reefs in marine protected areas with abundant grazing fishes. Lobsters along the northeast coast of North America are also more vulnerable to shell wasting disease as waters warm, effectively wiping out the fishery in Long Island Sound.47

Oxygen concentrations are declining in the open ocean because warming surface waters makes them lighter, which in turn slows down the vertical mixing of the oceans; a runaway process that decreases the rate of oxygen transport to the deep sea and upwelling of nutrients to the sea surface.48 The process is especially striking in the equatorial Pacific, and in the Arctic ocean where the cover of summer sea ice is rapidly decreasing.49 Sea ice is highly reflective, dispersing heat back into the atmosphere, whereas seawater absorbs heat and sets up a positive feedback that is effectively irreversible. Reduced nutrient upwelling and declining oxygen are strongly associated with decreases in open ocean productivity, which is the basis for high seas fisheries.50

The ocean is also becoming more acidic. Solution in seawater of increasing atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide has resulted in a global reduction in ocean pH of 0.1 units over the past century.51 The biologic consequences of acidification are still poorly understood and controversial, but could affect the reproduction, physiology, growth, and development of a wide variety of plants and animals. The most obvious impacts are on organisms that form their skeletons of calcium carbonate, which is more easily dissolved under more acidic conditions. This is already affecting shellfish aquaculture industries in the state of Washington, where pH has been steadily declining.52 Aquaculturists have been forced to raise vulnerable juvenile clams and oysters under less acidic conditions in aquaria on land before placing them in the ocean.53 Reef corals are also vulnerable to increasing acidity. Corals grown under present-day more acidic conditions grew 15% more slowly than corals where pH was maintained at historically less acidic conditions.54

Bird watchers were pioneers in the early rise of the conservation movement, with organizations such as the Audubon Society fighting to stop the slaughter of herons and egrets for womens hats.55 Similarly, its not just important for tourism that increasing numbers of people pay good money to see whales up close in the wild and increasingly to SCUBA dive with sharks.56 Besides the thrill of witnessing their power and grace, whale and shark watchers learn about the lives and behavior of these animals and how they fit into ocean ecosystems which, in turn, leads to increased support for their protection.

Horror at the slaughter of whales was a major factor in the establishment of the International Whaling Commission in 1946 which, despite persistent opposition from a few countries, has resulted in dramatic recoveries of most whale species.57 In addition to the ethical issues inherent in the mass slaughter of such animals, we now know that the great whales were once (and increasingly are now again) vitally important ecosystem engineers, as predators of massive amounts of fish and invertebrates, prey for other large predators, highly mobile reservoirs of carbon and nutrients, and as carcasses, sources of energy and habitat in the deep sea.58

Similar public concerns about the loss of other marine mammals were a driving factor in the enactment of the United States Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972, which prohibits the killing, harm, harassment, or collection of any marine mammal in US territorial waters or by US citizens anywhere else. It also forbids the importation of any marine mammal products or parts. Populations of most marine mammals have varyingly recovered, although their comparative success is strongly associated with their life histories, habitat requirements, and geographic range.59 The depletion of essential forage fish due to overfishing also inhibits their recovery.60 One obvious manifestation of success is the greatly increased abundance of seals along the east and west coasts of the US, where their activities and real or perceived impacts on fisheries are not always welcome. Their rebound has also led to increases in great white sharks near shore, restoring a degree of balance to marine food webs while generating new questions about perceived risks to humans and potential impacts on endangered species.61

Increased tourist revenues have also led to the banning of shark fishing on coral reefs by entire nations because the sharks are vastly more lucrative alive than dead. Economic analysis for the government of Palau demonstrated that diver tourism provides 39% of the countrys total GDP, and that 21% of divers come principally to dive with sharks. The approximately 100 sharks in prime shark dive sites are each worth about US$180,000 per year in tourist revenue, or US$1.9 million during their lifetimes, versus about $110 for their fins and meat.62 Shark diving is a burgeoning global industry that is not without its environmental concerns, although if it is done responsibly, the net conservation value appears to be generally positive.63

New studies of the remarkable behavior and migrations of ocean species are also increasing public support for increased protections.64 The electronic tagging of thousands of individuals of different species of Pacific whales, seabirds, seaturtles, tunas and other large fish, and sharks has revealed striking transoceanic migrations of some species versus others that move much smaller distances.65 Bluefin tuna, for example, move back and forth across the Atlantic and Pacific, hanging out for up to a year or more in the same general location before moving on.66 In contrast, eastern Pacific great white sharks move back and forth between the California coast where they feed on burgeoning seal populations and an area of deep ocean halfway between Baja California and Hawaii dubbed the White Shark Caf, where they feed on vertically migrating fishes and invertebrates.67 Over 200 of these sharks have been tagged and followed for up to twenty years.68

Wild salmon eggs at Arna Sport Fishermens Association, Norway. Michelle-Marie Letelier,Outline for The Bonding (Still #5), 2017. 16mm film transferred to HD. Image courtesy of the artist.

Marine protected areas (MPAs) are an increasingly popular and effective conservation strategy for biodiversity and habitat protection when effectively financed, administered, and enforced.69 Unprotected paper parks, however, can do more harm than good by lulling people into thinking everything is fine when it is not.70 MPAs are also controversial from the perspective of fisheries management, with some arguing that MPAs are the most effective tool available versus those who believe that other management tools such as catch shares and gear restrictions are more effective in most cases than simple area closures.71

Cabo Pulmo in the southern Sea of Cortez is one of the most spectacular success stories of an effectively enforced MPA.72 Although it was severely overfished at the time, Cabo Pulmo was designated as a Mexican marine national park in 1995 on the basis of its coral populations. Protections did not become effective until local villagers self-organized to enforce the entire park as a no-take area in the late 1990s. Fish biomass was less than one metric ton per hectare in 1999, comparable to other unprotected areas or paper parks throughout the Gulf of California. Subsequent to the villagers protection, biomass increased over the following ten protected years to about 4.5 metric tons, while all other areas failed to increase. Biomass and diversity have fluctuated since 2009, in large part due to the community evolving towards a more natural composition that includes greater populations of schooling fishes as well as more abundant corals. The greatest potential threat to Cabo Pulmo is its notorious success, which attracts burgeoning numbers of tourists and development.

A network of nine well enforced no-take MPAs and two partial-take MPAs was established around four of the northern Channel Islands off the coast of California in 2003 and revisited ten years later.73 The biomass of preferred fisheries species approximately doubled within MPAs at three of the four islands, but non-targeted species showed little response. The biomass of targeted species outside the reserves also increased by about one quarter, possibly because of a spillover effect. Similar results were obtained the Cowcod Conservation Areas established in the southern Channel Islands in 2001, where abundances of six of eight targeted species and four of seven non-targeted rockfish species increased regionally from 1998 to 2013.74 Rising temperatures during the study are a complicating factor. Nevertheless, 75% of targeted species but none of the non-targeted species increased inside compared to outside of the MPAs while controlling for environmental factors.

The establishment of very large marine protected areas within exclusive economic zones has increased the area of ocean within MPAs to only 3.5%, about half of which are under strong protection.75 Meanwhile, most ocean ecosystems are hemorrhaging, as major fishing fleets continue to expand their global operations.76 This may be changing, however, as the international community finally begins to seriously consider international governance of the high seas defined as areas beyond national jurisdictions. The first major achievement in this was the agreement to establish the worlds largest marine protected area by the twenty-five-national-member Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources.77 The agreement protects all wildlife and bans fishing for overfished krill and Patagonian and Antarctic Toothfish in 600,000 square miles in the Ross Sea for thirty-five years. Much more will have to be done, however, to preserve populations around Antarctica where these species are threatened by overfishing and rapid climate change and have ripple effects on the marine mammals and penguins that depend upon them.

The scientific case for closing the high seas to fisheries is strong. Nearly 98% of global seafood production comes from the exclusive economic zones (EEZs) of individual nations and aquaculture. What does come from the high seas is mostly luxury species such as tuna and billfishes, yet their commercial value is even less.78 Moreover, most high seas fisheries are heavily dependent on government subsidies by a small number of wealthy countries that can afford the enormous costs.79 Closure of the high seas to fishing would therefore have great economic and social benefits in addition to environmental protections of fish stocks and the long-distance migration routes of marine megafauna.80 Most compellingly, the overwhelming majority of high seas fishery species are also major components of fisheries within national EEZs, which means that closure of the high seas to fishing would produce a vast MPA where commercially important species could prosper, reproduce, and spill over into EEZs whose potential catches would increase.81 Further advantages would include simplification of policing the rampant problem of pirate fishing and transfers at sea.82

While commonly overshadowed by bad news, concerted actions to reduce pollution and protect keystone species have resulted in many recoveries of marine populations and ecosystems.83 The installation of modern sewage systems and the reduction in nutrient runoff have varyingly improved water quality, reduced excess planktonic productivity and toxic algal blooms, and restored seagrass meadows, salt marshes, and fisheries in estuaries around the world.84 These efforts demonstrate that even greater progress could be achieved in stabilizing coastal ecosystems if adequate measures are taken to eliminate or greatly reduce pollutant runoff, and most importantly agricultural nutrients.85 Serious efforts to do so have not yet materialized, however, because farmers dont have to pay for what they pollute. There is also a problem of scale in semi-enclosed seas like the Baltic because nutrient buildups in sediments are already so great that simply reducing nutrient runoff may not suffice.

Banning the use of fish pots around Bermuda in 1990, where fish populations had collapsed due to overfishing, resulted in rapid rebounding of fish populations dominated by schools of large parrotfish.86 Since then, abundances have remained high except for the large predatory fish that remain overfished. Coral populations also have steadily increased due to the control of algal populations by the abundant parrotfish. Caribbean coral reefs are generally extremely overfished, but the few places where both fishing and pollution are effectively controlled uniquely support high coral abundance.

Detail of farmed salmon scales, Norway. Michelle-Marie Letelier,Outline for The Bonding (Still #2), 2017. 16mm film transferred to HD. Image courtesy of the artist.

Despite important accomplishments, comprehensive policies are lacking to address the unsustainability of the modern economy that is driving ecosystem collapses and threatening human wellbeing.87 Nature is a complex system, and much of that system as we knew it is irreversibly breaking down.88 Environmental perturbations in one place almost inevitably have repercussions down the line, be it agricultural pollution in the US cornbelt causing the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico or the effects of runoff and overfishing on outbreaks of disease affecting reef corals. Huge energy and investment in projects to restore populations of corals in Florida and on the Great Barrier Reef are making much progress in terms of the technical details of raising, breeding, and growing corals, but they are also absurdly expensive and small scale, not to mention that putting the corals back into the same nutrient polluted environments and expecting them to somehow survive is folly. More fundamentally, they are bandaids to address the symptoms of ocean decline rather than addressing the fundamental root causes of the ocean crisis: global warming, overfishing, and land-based pollution.89

The most encouraging development towards adapting to and managing these realities is that large scale efforts to decarbonize the global economy are beginning to gain traction despite political intransigence, not least because, in addition to its obvious advantages for human health and the environment, green energy is financially a better option than heavily subsidized fossil fuels.90 California, the fifth largest global economy, is committed to be carbon neutral by 2045 and is well on track, and electric cars are becoming a more practical alternative to gasoline and diesel. The outstanding question is how rapidly opposition can be overcome to speed things up and take actions on the appropriate scales.

This paper is adapted from a presentation at the University of Utah submitted to Island Press. The author is grateful to Jennifer Jacquet for her helpful review of the manuscript.

Oceans in Transformation is a collaboration between TBA21Academy and e-flux Architecture within the context of the eponymous exhibition at Ocean Space in Venice by Territorial Agency and its manifestation on Ocean Archive.

Jeremy Jackson is Senior Scientist Emeritus at the Smithsonian Institution and Professor of Oceanography Emeritus at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Link:

Revaluing the Oceans - Architecture - E-Flux

Captain Flameheart has unleashed his Ashen Lords against players inSea of Thieves.These fire-wielding generals are dangerous opponents, and taking them down is no easy challenge. You can find the Ashen Lords by searching the high seas for them and looking to the skies to see a large, red tornado circling the middle of an island.

It wont be challenging to find where one of the several Ashen Lords is being summoned. When you look to the skies and search the horizon, you should see where the ritual is happening by the massive tornado lifting up from the middle of an island. The large islands include:

The Ashen Winds event is a rotating world event that can occur on any of the large islands inSea of Thieves.You may need to wander the seas to find any of them. When you do encounter the world event and enter the eye of the storm, you have to fight one of the four Ashen Lords: Captain Grimm, Old Horatio, Red Ruth, or Warden Chi. Each of them has different abilities you need to be careful about, but they reward you an Ashen Lords skull for defeating them.

Continued here:

How to find Ashen Lords in Sea of Thieves Ashen Winds update - Gamepur

Sea of Thieves has a new feature that should help players who fear the dark depths of the ocean. Earlier this month, Rare added an auto float feature that doesn't let the player sink below the surface.

"Should you leap off a high ledge or a cannonball forces you out of the crow's nest and into the deep blue, this option will automatically see you bob to the surface," the studio wrote in a post on its official site. Players can activate the feature by going to the settings menu and turning "Automatically Float in Water" on.

This option could help players with thalassophobia--which includes the fear of being in deep bodies of water, fear of the vast emptiness of the sea, of sea waves, sea creatures, and fear of distance from land--as well as other similar phobias.

Other studios have implemented accessibility features that help players with phobias play more easily. Obsidian implemented a new type of arachnophobia mode in its sandbox survival adventure Grounded. It lets players adjust how many legs, eyes, and other spider-like features the giant creepy crawlies have in-game.

Rare has added all sorts of new features and content to Sea of Thieves since it launched in 2018. GameSpot's Michael Rougeau broke down how much the game has improved in his updated review of Sea of Thieves.

"Since the game's launch over two years ago, Rare has worked continuously to build on Sea of Thieves' strong framework, and the countless features and systems they've added have all enhanced that core, undeniable truth. They still have work to do, and for some players, it will never be enough. But there are open seas and clear skies ahead. For the current and future Pirate Legends out there--and even for the players who will never reach that level, but simply want to make some of their own tall tales out on the unforgiving waves--Sea of Thieves is finally a voyage worth embarking on."

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Sea of Thieves Adds Auto Float Accessibility Option To Help Players With Underwater Phobias - GameSpot

In a normal year, this is the part of summer movie season where titles start to dry up, blockbusters start to lumber away from screens, and film fans start taking risks on sleepers and lesser-known flicks. But 2020 is not a normal year, and summer movie season basically doesn't exist. But that doesn't mean we're about to suffer any appreciable lack of filmed entertainment to enjoy. On the contrary, there's drive-in delights, new discs (that's right! Physical media is still around!), and because it's a new month, that means a ton of new (and old) titles are coming to streaming platforms. Oh yeah, all that and Beyonc, too. Here's our guide to the best Things to Watch this weekend!

Want to stay in the loop? Follow Mercury EverOut on Facebook to get the latest updates about things to do in Portland.

Ghostbusters and The Karate KidPull up in your car, turn up your speakers, and let the 99w Drive-In fill your windshield with their latest throwback double-feature, a one-two-punch (or kick, if you will) of mid-'80s blockbuster phenomena. The night starts with the sci-fi/thriller/workplace comedy Ghostbusters, which began life as a weird Dan Aykroyd fever-dream and wound up a barely-contained nuclear bomb of one-liners memorized by 40-year-old-men everywhere, and finishes with a satisfying foot straight to the face courtesy of Mr. Miyagi and Daniel-San in The Karate Kid. It's a cruel summer, indeed, but this makes it feel a little better.99w Drive-In

50 First DatesIf you don't mind the drive south (more opportunities to memorize the Hamilton soundtrack on the way, really), you can visit Silverton's Oregon Garden and take in this Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore... classic? Is that the right word for it? Remember that weird period of time about 20 years ago where Sandler and Barrymore were almost as big as Hanks and Ryan when it came to romantic comedies? Well now you don't have to remember! You can witness it firsthand on the Garden's big screen!The Oregon Gardens

GreaseYou could head east, if you wish, and find an oasis of drive-in magic in The Dalles, where the Sunshine Mill has hung one really big screen on the side of their parking lot and turned it into a theater, one which will be screening the "How in the hell did this become family-friendly-entertainment" blockbuster musical Grease, which is really kind of a sleazy and gross story about greaser assholes constantly mistreating the women who have the bad luck to hove into the cone of their horny gaze. But the music is still great, the dance numbers still pop, and seeing a bunch of late 20-somethings pretend to be teenagers is always amusing! This is your chance to watch John Travolta get his dick slammed in a car door at the drive-in, at the drive-in! Life was not meant for wasting such opportunities!Sunshine Mill

The Man from Hong Kong w/ Live Commentary from Brian Trenchard-Smith and the Hollywood Theatre's Dan HalstedAre you missing the Hollywood Theatre? Of course you are, you're a sane, rational human being who loves independent cinema and the sort of care in presentation that Dan Halsted and the Hollywood staff provides. Especially when they schedule gonzo kung fu classics like they regularly do. This stream is a great opportunity to capture some of that magic in your living room as Dan teams up with director Brian Trenchard-Smith to watch and discuss 1975's The Man from Hong Kong, starring Jimmy Wang Yu as a "master crime fighter" called in by the Australian cops to stop a massive drug-smuggling ring led by former Bond (On Her Majesty's Secret Service) George Lazenby. Mustafa Shaikh, co-founder of 36 Chambers, will moderate the screening.Hollywood Theatre

Gremlins: A Puppet StoryLegendary effects specialist (or special effects legend? Either/or) Chris Walas leads this behind-the-scenes journey made especially for Hollywood Theatre viewers, walking the audience through how Gremlins got made, and featuring very rare photos and video from his own personal archive.Hollywood Theatre

John Lewis: Good TroubleThe late civil rights activist and Georgia congressman John Lewis fought for voting rights, gun control, healthcare reform, and immigration over the course of his long career. Using archival footage and interviews from his late years, Dawn Porter's documentary explores Lewis's childhood, his 1957 meeting with Martin Luther King, Jr., and his lasting legacy on the social justice movements of the present.Cinema 21

Lucky GrandmaIn this crime caper set in New York's Chinatown, a recently widowed 80-year-old woman follows a fortune teller's advice and heads to the nearest casino to win some big bucks. But things don't go so great, as they often don't at casinos. When two gambling gangsters show up at her door and start demanding money, she and her newly acquired bodyguard do what must be done: kick ass for the duration of the film.Clinton Street Theater

2020 Sundance Film Festival Shorts TourSundance presents this virtual tour highlighting six short films accepted to the fest for 2020. Previous years featured new shorts from up-and-coming talents like Wes Anderson, Spike Lee, Lake Bell, Todd Haynes, and Taika Waititi. What household name will be discovered this year?Hollywood Theatre

Wonder Woman: The Complete CollectionSometimes revisiting your nostalgic past is an exercise you shouldn't indulge. In fact, it's safe to say that's the case most times. Which makes our culture's predilection towards subsisting solely on nostalgia a weird choice. ANYWAY: This box-set collecting all three seasons of the Lynda Carter-starring Wonder Woman TV series that ran from 1975 to 1979 is definitely worth indulging, because its camp delights have only gotten better and more worthy of appreciation in the decades since. Boy, superheroes used to be fun, didn't they?

The Outsider: The Complete First SeasonSo, the guy who wrote Lush Life and worked on The Wire (Richard Price) decided he wanted to take a crack at adapting Stephen King, and went about it in a really interesting way: He completely rewrote one of King's most popular characters (Holly Gibney), cast Cynthia Erivo to play her, and then stuck Holly in the middle of a supernatural possession story filled with people who are operating as if it's a regular ol' crime procedural instead of a freaky little campfire tale. Yes, this is also streaming on HBO Max, but if you really want to appreciate the cinematography and direction on display (which is stunning every episode), this blu-ray collection is the only way to go.

SpartacusSpeaking of appreciating cinematography: Stanley Kubrick's widescreen epic Spartacus comes to 4K UHD for the first time, and is easily the best the film has ever looked short of being one of the very few people who saw it opening night back in 1960. If you have a UHD player and a 4K display prepare to see Kirk Douglas' oiled, phenomenal chest like you've never seen it before. Oh, that and it's also one of the last legitimately great Hollywood swords-and-sandals blockbusters before Hollywood imploded and filmmakers like Kubrick, Ashby, Peckinpah, and Altman began really changing the game.

HUMP! Greatest Hits - Volume 1Have you just watched your first HUMP! and are now in a post-coital glow, wondering just what the hell the past festivals must have looked like? Well GOOD NEWS, EVERYONE: After getting permission from filmmakers to bring their films online, we're bringing you several volumes of our (and audience) favorites from 2005-2018. Get ready for HUMP! Greatest Hits! You will see films that shock you, that make you laugh, that turn you on, and ou will also be touched by the sincerity and vulnerability with which these films are lovingly made. HUMP!'s main mission is to change the way America sees-and makes and shares-porn.Portland Mercury

Black is KingDo any other words beyond "A Film by Beyonc" need to be written in order to prompt folks to make the most of that Disney+ subscription this weekend? The question isn't "Will this rule all pop-culture discussion for the next week." The question is probably "Will this break every record that Hamilton only just set last month?"Disney+

SummerlandIFC Films continues to bring the indie goods to VOD, this week premiering Summerland, Olivier Award-winning director Jessica Swale's debut film, set during World War II, about a reclusive English writer (Gemma Arterton) who ends up becoming an adoptive mother to a boy who escaped the London bombings, while also finding herself falling in love with Gugu Mbatha-Raw, like, you know, everyone does when they're around Gugu Mbatha-Raw.VOD

Fast ColorHey, while we're talking about Gugu Mbatha-Raw: A whole bunch of people completely slept on the superhero movie she made last year with writer/director Julia Hart. It's been streaming on Hulu for a little bit now, and the less you know about how it's a superhero story, or what this superhero story is actually about, the better. Just hit play, open yourself to this slow-burn of a drama, and remember to tell your friends about it next time they start in on whether Thor 2 is better than X-Men 8 or whatever.Hulu

I'll Be Gone in the DarkThis weekend sees the finale of HBO's new documentary series, based on the late Michelle McNamara's true-crime book about her life, and her fixation on figuring out the Golden State Killer's identity and bringing him to justice. Directed by Liz Garbus, and using interviews, archival footage, and police files, all narrated using original recordings of McNamara and actor Amy Ryan reading from her book, the series alternates between examining the effect this hunt had on McNamara, and the effect the Killer himself had on California communities in the '70s and '80s.HBO Max

InceptionCelebrate this movie's 10th birthday (it's been a decade since it came out? Damn.) by giving it a spin now that it's been added to Amazon Prime. Inception's surreal, jarring visuals are nothing short of breathtaking; when paired with Nolan's gorgeous, visceral soundscapes (BRAMMMMM), they're riveting to discover and impossible to forget.Amazon Prime Video

Being John MalkovichIt took writer Charlie Kaufman about a decade to get this movie off the ground due to the necessity of having Malkovich in a central role. Malkovich loved the script. He even wanted to produce it, but he wouldn't be in it. Kaufman refused to make the film with anyone else, and Malkovich eventually came around to the idea that a film about an unemployed puppeteer who discovers a portal into John Malkovich's brain wouldnt be the end of his career. Also: Its so difficult to separate the character of Craig Schwartz (John Cusack) from the picture of David Foster Wallace on the back of A Supposedly Fun Thing Ill Never Do Again. This movie will never not secretly be the story of David Foster Wallace finding a portal into John Malkovich's brain. That's just the situation.Netflix

The Umbrella AcademyNetflix premieres the second season of their superhero dramedy based on the stylish, punchy comic written by My Chemical Romance singer Gerard Way and drawn by Brazilian artist Gabriel B. Lovers swoon, time-space gets ripped apart, and theres a lot of shooting and punching; The Umbrella Academy captures the same heightened sensation offered by My Chemical Romances music: operatic melodrama, given life by gleeful riffs and catchy hooks.Netflix

Top GunMuch in the same way Die Hard's status as a Christmas movie started as a cute observation that came to swallow it whole, Top Gun's innate gayness was once just a knowing, winking in-joke among film dorks, but now has become the aspect that defines Tony Scott's glistening, teeth-clacking ad for the US Navy. You can try to watch it as it was presumably intended it be seen in the repressed-yet-beefy heart of the Reagan '80s. But those abs! Those butts! ("I want butts!") The volleyball game. 30 years of time has reframed Top Gun entirely, and unlike Die Hard's redefinition, this glossy, fetish-friendly framework has helped make the film more entertaining. We may not be getting Tom Cruise's Maverick sequel this year like we were hoping, but being able to take the highway to the Danger Zone whenever we want is a nice consolationAmazon Prime Video, Hulu

Child's PlayMuch like Freddy and Jason before him, Chucky survived the artificial extension of his celluloid lifespan by descending into self-aware, gloryhallastoopid self-parody as the sequels stacked up. But Chucky also shares with those two titans of horror a (comparatively) more low-key introduction1988's Childs Play introduced the idea that a doll could get possessed and kill the living shit out of you with way more seriousness than the premise ever deserved. Thanks to horror veteran Tom Holland's solid direction and Brad Dourif's sheer force of will, Chucky embodies a successful perversion of innocence that isn't just smirky and smug, it's also legitimately scary.Hulu

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the WorldThe year is 1805 and Napoleon is running roughshod over Europe. The only thing stopping France from infecting the whole of the continent is the tiny island of England, which may be lacking in ground forces, but kicks ass on the high seas. Master and Commander may not be sexy, but it's extremely realistic, filling its ship with lashings, maggot-filled food, dirty stinking sailors, and the occasional goat. It's also the last great film by Australian writer/director Peter Weir (Witness, Dead Poets Society, Fearless).Hulu

Idiocracy: Extended VersionIn 2006, 20th Century Fox looked at Mike Judges follow-up to Office Space and decided whatever Idiocracy was, it wasnt good enough for theatrical distribution. They abandoned it in a couple theaters for a week, stuck it on DVD, and called it good. But the film not only found an audience on home video, that audience spent the next decade proselytizing on its behalf. Idiocracy was no longer a sloppy-yet-satisfying satire of our cultures inability to handle progressit was a prophetic vision of how access to all the information in the world doesnt matter if the people accessing it dont give a fuck about reading. Except now, on the other side of the shit-smeared, Trumpian looking glass, Idiocracy seems quaint more than anything. A lot of the jokes still land, yeah. But the belly-laughs are a little more sour and sad than you might remember. For example: Terry Crews was, in retrospect, playing this role a little too well. Damn.HBO Max

Legends of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'HooleBefore Zack Snyder was allowed to turn the DC Universe into an objectivist nightmare starring Ben Affleck and Jesse Eisenberg, he was given the keys to a children's book series about warmongering owls with abs and knives strapped to their feet. Maybe the books didn't have the abs and knife-feet, but the movie does, and that's why Zack Snyder is a "visionary." If you're thinking this Ga'Hoole thing sounds like film executives with too much money saw Snyder's adaptation of 300 and thought "What if this, but owls?" you are correct. That's what this is. If you don't have any drugs this weekend but want to feel like you've smoked something dangerous and are now utterly lost and bewildered in an incomprehensible visual wilderness, stream this.Hulu

Deep Blue Sea 3At long last, our national nightmare is concluded. No longer will we as a people have to live under the knowledge that a complete Deep Blue Sea trilogy eludes our grasp. This weekend, the saga concludes! And in grand style, as a sunken island town watched over by an "eminent marine biologist" (Tania Raymonde of LOST) is unduly terrorized by genetically enhanced bull sharks who seek to mate with Great Whites to become the most ultimate of all killer fish. Ponder this, dear reader: Is any other movie premiering this weekend going to have sex-crazed homicidal genetic freak sharks wreaking havoc underneath a rickety town made almost entirely out of houses on stilts stuck in the water? No. The answer to that question is No.VOD

And if you're not feeling any of the above options (crazy!) don't forget to check out our guide to 2020's most Emmy nominated shows, and maybe binge a couple highly-acclaimed series this weekend!

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The Best Movies and Shows to Watch in Portland This Weekend: July 30-Aug 2, 2020 - The Portland Mercury

As one YouTube commenter put it, the "pretty people on a boat show" is set to return as Netflix's Spanish original, 'High Seas' aka 'Alta Mar', returns in August with its third season. The plots of the first two seasons were almost completely set on the ship, Brbara de Braganza, which was making its way from Spain in Europe to Brazil in South America in the 1940s after the end of the World War II. It seemed like 'High Seas' had everything: Nazis, ghosts, stolen gold, to name a few but the new season is set to take a different direction since the ship docked in Brazil. However, it will still involve the Brbara de Braganza as an important site, albeit with a new mystery and new characters.

Read on to know more details about the Spanish show's return.

The third season of 'High Seas' / 'Alta Mar' will be available to stream on Netflix on Friday, August 7, at 12 am PST.

After disembarking in Brazil, sisters Eva and Carolina Villanueva find themselves in the middle of a new mystery in Season 3. Viewers might remember that their maid, Francisca fell off the top deck of the boat after it was revealed that Francisca killed Rosa Marin so that Carolina could marry Fernando Fabregas. The final few minutes of the Season 2 finale revealed Francisca was taken in an ambulance to the hospital but we don't know yet whether she survived. Meanwhile, the season's end also brought heartbreak for Eva after Nicolas Vzquez was reunited with his long-lost wife whom he thought was killed by the Nazis during the war.

Perhaps there's new romance lying ahead for Eva. In the promo for the new season, we are introduced to a new character who works for the British government's intelligence service. Eva teams up with this new British spy to uncover someone who is holding a "deadly virus". To stop the man from killing millions, they must find him on the Brbara de Braganza before the ship docks at its destination. While it looks like there may be some romantic developments between Eva and this new character, we are still hoping that Nicolas and her patch up their relationship.

The official synopsis for the new season is as follows: "When the Brbara de Braganza sets sail from Argentina to Mexico, a new mystery emerges again. The Brbara de Braganza sails off Buenos Aires and it will be up to the Villanueva sisters to find and stop a scientist carrying a deadly secret on board."

Ivana Baquero

Ivana Baquero plays the character of Eva Villanueva. She is best known for her roles in Pans Labyrinth and The Shannara Chronicles. In 'High Seas', she plays the role of the inquisitive Eva who steals the heart of the officer, Nicolas, played by Jon Kortajarena. She is instrumental in solving the mysteries on the ship. As such, in Season 3, she is roped in to help solve yet another mystery by a handsome British spy.

Marco Pigossi

Marco Pigossi is a Brazilian actor best known for his work on 'Edge of Desire', 'Land of the Strong', and Netflix's 'Tidelands'. In 'High Seas', he plays the new character of a British spy who ropes in Eva to help uncover a dastardly scientist's plot to release a deadly virus in Mexico.

Alejandra Onieva

Alejandra Onieva is a Spanish actress best known for her roles in 'Ella es tu padre' and 'Presunto culpable'. She plays the role of Carolina in 'High Seas', Eva's older sister who gets married on the ship in the first season.

Jon Kortajarena

Jon Kortajarena is a Spanish actor and model best known for his roles in 'Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga', 'A Single Man', and 'Quantico'. He plays the role of Officer Nicols Vzquez, a suave officer aboard theBrbara de Braganza, who helps Eva with her investigations.

Created by Ramn Campos and Gema R Neira and written by Ramn Campos, Gema R Neira Daniel Martn Serrano, Curro Novallas and Jos Antonio Valverde, the series was directed by Carlos Sedes who also serves as executive producer with Teresa Fernndez Valds and Ramn Campos. The team previously developed Netflix's 'Las Chicas del Cable' aka 'Cable Girls'.

'Cable Girls'

'Elite'

'Grand Hotel'

'Hache'

'Toy Boy'

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'High Seas'/'Alta Mar' Season 3: Release date, plot, cast and all you need to know about the show's return - MEAWW

High Seas is an amazing series on the streaming program Netflix in May 2019. The thriller series is from the creator by Ramon Campos and Gema R. Neera. The show has two amazing seasons that have been loved by many fans, and they all are now asking for the third season.

The thriller series will get the shows next season. The revival of the series was formally reported in November 2019, and shooting for the upcoming season started around the same time. The thriller series has been booked for August 2020.

It was reported that the creators have just begun recording for the third season. Indeed, it is said that they have additionally begun the improvement of the next season. The creation group behind the thriller series shared that they are set up to deliver 16 amazing episodes.

Source: The Justice Online.com

These will be additionally separated into two parts in eight exciting episodes each. As detailed, the third run of the series will arrive on August 7, 2020. So far it isnt affirmed will this be the last season or not, however, a great deal of amusement and drama is confirmed which the fans will be found in Season 3.

The followers of the series are trusting that the cast individuals from the previous season could be found in the next season.

The occasions of High Seas, as the name insights, occur onboard an extravagance journey transport, visiting from Spain to Brazil all through the 1940s. Two sisters are likewise part of this excursion, yet things take an insidious turn when an unavoidable passing opens up a pandora box of perilous, filthy insider facts

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Alta Mar High Seas season 3: Are We Getting It Soon Or We Have To Wait - The Digital Wise

The iconic image of the current pandemic's frontline has been hospitals overflowing with ICU beds. Health care workers are, rightfully, getting their fair praise as first responders. But away from the spotlight, some 1.2 million seafarers, or ship crew members, quietly toil without any adoration from the mainland, keeping trade flowing at the expense of their health and safety and preventing a humanitarian crisis on a less heralded frontline.

Consider that shipping, which accounts for 90 percent of international trade, is the lifeblood of the global economy and food supply. Countries have been able to avert a full-blown food crisis thanks to these crews that move food from where it is produced to where it is needed.

Many of these essential workers have been stranded at sea since March, when countries threw up travel restrictions to contain the virus.

The inability to conduct crew changes, which ensures safe working hours and crew welfare in accordance with international maritime regulations, is an escalating crisis that could result in food shortages. With a global recession underway, a major disruption to supply chains would not only cripple national economies but also make food less affordable, whether a country is poor or rich.

Governments have ignored recent calls from the shipping industry and the UN to designate seafarers as essential workers. This would exempt them from coronavirus travel restrictions. Normally, 100,000 seafarers change over each month. Yet now, due to visa restrictions and stringent health protocols at ports, some 400,000 of them are overdue for a changeover. Half of them have been onboard for 15 months, way past the 11-month maximum legally allowed. They are tired, stressed and depressed, which is dangerous. Seafarers typically work four to six months at a time. At sea, they work a 12-hour shift, seven days a week on tasks that require them to stay alert. What is happening is the equivalent of requiring truck drivers to work double shifts with no sleep or rest stops.

The other half is the replacement crew that havent been able to get onboard due to travel restrictions.

Even as countries cautiously ease their lockdowns, only a dozen nations that have deemed seafarers essential workers, including Canada and Ireland, have allowed crew changes. In the rest, crew change is either prohibited or restricted. Many ports require a mandatory 14-day quarantine. This is impractical and unfeasible, given that roughly two-thirds of the vessels are on voyages under 14 days. Some ports have refused to let crew members disembark even for emergency medical treatment. In the Netherlands, a major shipping hub, a replacement crew of Ukrainian seafarers couldnt get visas on arrival and werent allowed into the country.

This is disrupting global supply chains. Container ships sailing to destinations where crew changes are prohibited are down by 20 percent; in destinations with milder restrictions the decline is 6 percent. More than half of small and medium businesses have reported problems getting ahold of resources, like raw materials, and equipment needed for production.

Seaborne trade is even more important now because airfreights are limited. With most passenger flights canceled, this shifts everything to cargo flights. It has sent air freight ratessoaring. Importers are also forced to place orders at larger volumes to guarantee cargo space, but at a huge risk of not being able to sell them later. All of these contribute to higher prices for high-value commodities like asparagus, fish and flowers.

On June 15, the International Transport Workers Federation, a global union of transport workers, directed all crew members awaiting repatriation to stop working, effectively halting shipments. Only then did 13 countries, including the U.S., Singapore, Greece and the United Arab Emirates, reluctantly say they would recognize seafarers as essential workers and allow crew changes.

This action, while positive, is but a drop in the ocean. Most ports in Africa and Latin America remain closed to seafarers. Every nation has to agree to allow more crew changes. They should waive visa restrictions and reopen ports with more practical health protocols, such as testing of all crew members disembarking and embarking vessels.

Its not surprising that governments facing an unprecedented turmoil like the current pandemic would be slow to respond. Many lack testing capacity and personal protective equipment for their populations, let alone for foreign seafarers coming onshore. Coordinating with the aviation industry to arrange the few remaining flights to repatriate them is another bureaucratic obstacle. While understandable, countries are not being asked to open borders or allow freedom of movement. They merely need to allow a specific group of people whose services have kept food and medicine supply flowing through the crisis transit through their territories.

Governments dont even have to come up with a plan; the shipping industry has already devised a 12-step protocol ensuring safe crew changes and travel during the pandemic with the UNs blessings. The International Air Transport Association, the largest trade association of airlines, has been working with the shipping industry to facilitate crew changes.

Like grocery baggers and delivery men, seafarers are undervalued by society and governments. Their rights are negligible, even though they make it possible for the rest of society to function.

It is high time to throw these stranded essential workers a life raft.

Maximo Torero is the chief economist at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome, Italy. Follow him on Twitter@MaximoTorero.

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Lockdown on the high seas | TheHill - The Hill

Tropical Storm Isaas will develop by Wednesday, and storm warnings are out

An already record breaking pace to the 2020 Hurricane Season will likely increase its buffer room. On Tuesday morning, the National Hurricane Center starts to issue a forecast track on "Potential Tropical Cyclone Nine", which will likely turn into Tropical StormIsaas by Wednesday morning.

As of 11 a.m. Tuesday morning, potential tropical cyclone nine has been issued a forecast track by the National Hurricane Center

The storm already contains maximum tropical storm force winds, at 40 mph. Tropical storm warnings are in effect for the Lesser Antilles and Puerto Rico. The northern coast of the Dominican Republic is in a tropical storm watch.

The National Hurricane Center's forecast takes the storm through the central Atlantic Ocean and have it pass through the Lesser Antilles by the end of the week.

From there, the storm will likely have a track north of Puerto Rico, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The storm could make multiple landfalls on these islands, which would weaken the storm as it passes. The reason for this is a large area of high pressure in the Atlantic Ocean, extending from Spain to Bermuda. The storm will be steered around the high pressure into the weekend.

The tropical wave, marked with an L in the Central Atlantic Ocean, will follow along the southern edge of a sprawling area of high pressure in the ocean.

From there, the forecast becomes less certain. The strength of the high pressure, as well an incoming system from the United States will play a role in its track during the first weekend of August.

More than likely, though, this storm will make a curve to the north as it nears the East Coast of the United States, continuing around the high pressure system.

The spaghetti plots, a group of different model runs places on the same map, shows the storm likely making a turn up the East Coast sometime during the weekend of Aug. 1-2.

If the high pressure is weaker, or further away from the U.S., the storm will likely spin harmlessly out to sea, or impact Bermuda. If the storm is further west, there would be a greater likelihood of an East Coast landfall. The high pressure may also be so strong that it pushes the storm into Florida or the Gulf of Mexico. However, there is no official forecast this far out for the storm.

Yes, but just as much of a chance as any other storm that's in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean 7 to 10 days before making its closest approach, wherever that may be.

The July 7 Atlantic Hurricane season update from Colorado State University has another incre

There have only been 10 tropical storms and hurricanes to make landfall in South Jersey since 1900, but does that include Tropical Storm Fay July 10. That being said, a storm 100-200 miles out can still bring impacts. Hurricane Michael in October 2018, Hurricane Florence in September 2018 and Hurricane Hermine in 2016 are all recent storms that tracked near South Jersey and brought at least high seas, rip currents and coastal flooding. Hurricane Dorian passed well offshore the Jersey Shore, but still bring rain and wind.

Remnants from Hurricane Dorian empty the Ventnor Boardwalk in September.

New Jersey is generally shielded from the worst of tropical activity from North Carolina. Located to the south of the state, storms may strike the Carolina coast and then bring a weakened version of itself to New Jersey. Furthermore, storms may make landfall on the Gulf Coast and bring remnants to the region, instead of the full impacts. Still, though, heavy rain can occur as the tropical moisture is carried hundreds of miles north.

Isaias would be the ninth named tropical system in the Atlantic Hurricane basin. That would continue to outpace the 2005 season for the most active on record.

Hurricane Hanna, which make landfall in South Jersey Saturday, turned into a Tropical Storm on July 23. That was more than two weeks ahead of 2005's pace, which was Tropical Storm Harvey.

Hurricane Irene developed as a tropical storm August 7, 2005, a mark Isaias will almost surely beat out.

The 2005 Atlantic Hurricane season in the most active on record, which goes back to 1851 (though the advent of weather satellites in the 1960s means hurricane seasons before then may not have been accurately calculated). That year 28 named storms developed, exhausting the alphabet list of storms. The NHC then had to turn to the Greek Alphabet for names.

If the names sound familiar, that's because the National Hurricane Center reuses names every 6 years. Though notable storms, like Sandy and Harvey, can be retired by the World Meteorological Organization.

"Isaas" is the Spanish and Portuguese word for the biblical Isaiah. It is pronounced ees-ah-EE-ahs.

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National Hurricane Center monitoring what could be Isaas, may track to the East Coast - Press of Atlantic City

By Levon Sevunts

The sea ice retreat has been especially pronounced off the Siberian coast, leading to a virtually ice-free Northeast Passage by mid-July along nearly all of Russias Arctic coastline from the Bering Sea in the east to the Barents Sea in the west, researchers said.

The record low ice extent in July followed a scorching month of June when a cell of warm air produced extremely high temperatures in Siberia that seriously impacted the sea ice cover in the Russian Arctic, according to the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate, or MOSAiC for short.

According to the U.S.-based National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), on July 15, Arctic sea ice extent stood at 7.51 million square kilometres, 330,000 square kilometres below the record for July 15, set in 2011.

In the Russian Arctic, roughly 1 million square kilometres less of the ocean is covered with ice in July than in the past seven years, according to MOSAiC.

By contrast, ice extent north of Alaska is near the 1981 to 2010 average for this time of year.

This year, temperatures on the East Siberian coast were more than 6 C warmer than the long-term average in May and June, according to MOSAiC.

In June, this warming also led to intensified sea ice retreat in the Laptev Sea, a phenomenon that spread to the East Siberian Sea in early July.

By mid-July this had progressed to such an extent that the Northeast Passage was completely open for the first time in 2020.

Since the beginning of July, a high-pressure cell has settled over the East Siberian and Chukchi Seas, accompanied by unusually warm temperatures up to 10 C above average over the Central Arctic.

Introducing so much warmth into the system so early in the year has accelerated the melting of the ice, said in a statement MOSAiC expedition sea ice physicist Marcel Nicolaus from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI).

This has also been worsened by the low albedo at this time of year, when the sun sits high in the sky during the Polar Day, producing an especially pronounced feedback.

Gunnar Spreen from the Institute of Environmental Physics at the University of Bremen and a member of the sea ice team on the MOSAiC expedition said its still too soon to say whether this trend will continue until the yearly minimum in September, since it is largely dependent on weather conditions.

Nicolaus, who like Spreen is currently in quarantine in preparation for the last cruise leg of the MOSAiC expedition, said he cant wait to start analyzing the expeditions extensive field data.

To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time that the melting has been consistently monitored up to the point at which the ice completely disappears.Marcel Nicolaus, sea ice physicist

Meanwhile, the Polarstern is currently in the Fram Strait between Svalbard and Greenland.

Markus Rex, leader of the MOSAiC Project and an atmospheric physicist at the AWI in Potsdam, said while Polarstern remains firmly encased in ice, all the ice around their ice floe has long-since broken up or been ground into fragments.

Today we measured a balmy 14 C 300 metres above the floe, and the melting is in full swing. For the last phase of MOSAiC, our focus will be on the freezing phase: the last piece of the puzzle in our observations of the Arctics annual cycle.Markus Rex, leader of the MOSAiC Project

Polarstern is expected to move further north in mid-August for the last leg of its expedition, once it completes its resupply and the turnover of the research team and the vessel crew, he added.

This story is posted on Barents Observer as part ofEye on the Arctic, a collaborative partnership between public and private circumpolar media organizations.

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Sea ice extent in the Arctic reaches historical low in July - The Independent Barents Observer

A "protection strategy" for the Galapagos Islands has been set up by Ecuador's president after hundreds of fishing vessels - many of them Chinese - were spotted near the archipelago's exclusive economic zone.

The Ecuadorian Navy has identified around 260 boats and increased patrols to ensure they do not enter the area of the ecologically sensitive islands - the inspiration for Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

In several tweets over the weekend, Lenin Moreno described the Islands as "one of the richest fishing areas and a hotbed of life for the entire planet", and used the hashtag #SOSGalapagos.

He added that former Mayor of Quito, Roque Sevilla, and ex-environment minister Yolanda Kakabadse, along with "more specialists", would be "responsible for designing the Galapagos protection strategy and respect for its maritime resources".

Chinese fishing vessels appear each year near the Galapagos, attracted by marine species such as the hammerhead shark, which is in danger of extinction.

In 2017, a Chinese vessel was captured in the Galapagos Marine Reserve carrying 300 tons of marine wildlife.

"We are on alert, conducting surveillance, patrolling to avoid an incident such as what happened in 2017," defence minister Oswaldo Jarrin told reporters.

"There is a corridor that is international waters, that's where the fleet is located," he said, adding that none had attempted to enter the exclusive economic zone.

Volunteer pressure group, the Blue Planet Society, has said "we are watching the destruction of the ocean in real time".

Spokesperson John Hourston told Sky News: "The threat that the industrial Chinese fishing fleet poses to the unique and spectacular marine life of the Galapagos archipelago cannot be overstated."

He also said the vessels were "sucking the life from this biodiversity jewel".

"Marine life doesn't recognise lines on a map. Unless the high seas are given protection, the ocean is in danger of becoming become a lifeless desert."

The Galapagos Islands are home to a wide variety of marine wildlife, including turtles, giant tortoises, flamingos and albatrosses.

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Galapagos Islands: 'Protection strategy' set up after 'hundreds of Chinese fishing vessels' spotted nearby - Sky News

Like a pack of ghoulish spectators craning their necks at a five-car pile-up, the press had already started calling it Fishtarand Kevins Gateand the most expensive gamble in movie history. This was long before anyone had even seen a single frame of the finished film, mind you. Still, the collective sense of Tinseltown schadenfreude was off the charts. And when it did finally hit theaters, the reactions of both the critics and the audience were brutal. The movie: Kevin Costners 1995 post-apocalyptic turkey Waterworld, of course. And it opened 25 years ago today.

Like any $180 million ego tripespecially one top-lined by a guy who America had decided was overdue for a crash-and-burn bit of karmic comeuppanceWaterworld was doomed to fail before it ever stood a chance. For months, the tabloids had chronicled the films ever-escalating budget, its seemingly endless string of production delays, and the off-screen trials of its star, Costner, whod become ensnarled in a messy private divorce from his wife at the time and an even messier public one from his Waterworld director, Kevin Reynolds. In retrospect, there was really no way that it couldnt have become the biggest cinematic folly of the 90s. But let me propose a possibly heretical idea: What if Waterworld isnt actually that bad? What if its actuallykind of good?

Look, I know what youre thinking. That this is just another one of those insincere, contrarian hot takes where a critic goes to bat for some dinged-up piece of pop-culture flotsam in the hopes of getting a few clicks. If I wasnt writing this, Id probably be thinking that, too. But Im dead serious. I remember seeing Waterworld on opening day 25 years ago and thinking it wasnt all that terrible. And after re-watching it for the first time earlier this week, I think its quite a bit better than that. I want to be clear, I dont think that Waterworld is some misunderstood masterpiece. But I am convinced that enough time has gone by that it deserves its day in the cinematic court of appeals. So I guess you could consider this is the case for the defense.

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For a project that would end in ignominy, Waterworld actually began in irony. The film that would go down as the most expensive in Hollywood history grew out of a pitch meeting in, where else, the offices of the notoriously cheap movie producer, Roger Corman. Peter Rader was a Harvard grad with ambitions to direct. And as he sat in the office of one of Cormans development execs one day in the late 80s, he was told that if he could write a Mad Max rip-off, there might be a South African investor willing to finance it. When Rader left the meeting, the idea began to take seed in his brain and slowly grew into something biggerand more expensiveThunderdome on water. When he went back to Cormans offices, he was told that his new idea sounded too pricey. It might even cost as much as $5 million! Corman & Co. were out.

Rader went off and fleshed the idea out on his own as a spec script. And in 1989, he sold it to producer Lawrence Gordon (The Warriors, 48 Hrs., Predator). Seven drafts later, it found its way into the hands of Costner. He liked it. And so did Reynolds, who had directed Costner in the 1985 road comedy Fandango. Before the two could team up on Waterworld, however, they went off and made 1991s Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. During that film the two had had a falling out in the editing room. A power play, really. And they stopped speaking, with Reynolds walking off the project all together.

Ben Glass/Universal/Kobal/Shutterstock

Now, for most sane people that sort of clash might have been seen as an omen that they shouldnt work together again any time too soon. But Costner and Reynolds both wanted to make Waterworld, so they decided to bury the hatchetkind of. In June of 1994, the two headed off to Hawaii to start filming their epic about a future after the ice caps had melted and the world was covered in nothing but ocean. Drinkable water and oil are precious commodities. People live on garbage atolls. Theres a gang of villains called Smokers (led by a bald Dennis Hopper behind an eyepatch and a Foghorn Leghorn accent). Theres a 10-year-old girl/messiah figure named Enola (Tina Majorino) with a map of a mythical Eden called Dryland tattooed on her back. Shes protected by a woman named Helen (Jeanne Tripplehorn). And finally, theres a mysterious drifter on a catamaran named Mariner (Costner), who has webbed toes and vaginal gill slits behind his ears. He also drinks his own pee, but thats neither here nor there. The Smokers want the girl; a reluctant Mariner wants to protect the girl; and everyone wants the girl to lead them to Dryland.

Ben Glass/Universal/Kobal/Shutterstock

This, in short, is the plot of Waterworld. But beneath all of its George Miller-goes-to-Sea World window dressing, Rader (and about five additional screenwriters, including David Twohy and Joss Whedon) also managed to conjure a pretty ahead-of-its-time Al Gore fever dream about global warming, dwindling natural resources, and the three Rs: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Its a stunningly ambitious screenplay that manages to say a lot between the lines when its not stepping on its own feet. Its also an odd project for a big-conglomerate studio like Universal to wager nearly $100 million on (which was its original greenlight budget).

Reynolds shooting schedule called for 96 days. But as storms repeatedly wreaked havoc on the movies pricey floating sets and ambitions ratcheted up rather than scaled down, cameras would keep rolling for 166 days in all, and the budget would nearly double. When they finally returned to L.A. to edit their footage, Reynolds and Costner clashed in the editing room yet again. Past, it seemed, was prologue. Costner, who now had a Best Directing Oscar under his belt thanks to Dances with Wolves, wasnt the kind of guy to take a backseat. And once again, Reynolds walked off the film. Said Reynolds later, In the future, Costner should only appear in pictures he directs himself. That way, he can always be working with his favorite actor and his favorite director.

Thats all backstory. And reading it, you might reach the conclusion: Of course, Waterworld was dead on arrival. But all you have to do is go back and look at the tortured, super-expensive production story on any James Cameron film to understand that not all nightmare shoots automatically lead to box-office disasters. But in the publics mind at least, Waterworld was already toast. And yet, Id argue that theres a lot in the movie to likeif not love.

The ecological themes in Waterworld have proven to be prescient, and Rader and Twohys screenplay is a pretty remarkable feat of world-building. Some of it is hokey, to be sure. But even some of Blade Runners world-building is a little hokey, too. The high-seas action set pieces have a swashbuckling Indiana Jones vibe thanks to the films practical, pre-CGI stunts and James Newton Howards rollicking, trumpet-blast score. Costner, Tripplehorn, and Majorino are all affecting, even if the relationship between latter two feels a little too Ripley and Newt from Aliens. And the Road Warrior-meets-Brazil steampunk aesthetic is pure dystopian eye candy. Youve probably noticed Im referencing a lot of other (better) movies here, but when Waterworld isnt original, its at least borrowing from some primo sources. As for the budget, personally I dont care what a movie costs. Its not coming out of my pocket. But Ill say his for Reynolds and Costner, they put every dollar on the screen. Its as busy and evocative as a Bosch painting.

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Honestly, the only thing that really doesnt work for me in Waterworld is Dennis Hopper as the leader of the Smokers, Deacon. In almost every phase of his career (even the black-out one), Hopper turned in performances that were masterclasses and others that were god-awful. This is one of the god-awful ones. Hes so corny and cartoony and over the top, he doesnt share scenes, he mugs them at gunpoint. Some of the other actors that were reportedly considered for Hoppers role include Gene Hackman, James Caan, Gary Oldman, Laurence Fishburne, Samuel L. Jackson, and Gary Busey. And I can picture all of them giving more interesting performances than Hopperseven Busey, whose Mr. Joshua in Lethal Weapon shouldnt be dismissed.

In the end, Waterworld would mark the beginning of a rough stretch for Costners charmed careerone that hit its nadir with yet another post-apocalyptic message movie, 1997s The Postman. But contrary to popular opinion, Waterworld wasnt the disaster its always been painted as in the press. Yes, the critics dogpiled on it and audiences in America mostly stayed away. But the movie ended up making back its production costs once international receipts, home video sales, and TV licensing were factored in. It wasnt exactly Titanic, but it wasnt Fishtar or Kevins Gate either. Im not saying that Waterworld should have been nominated for a bunch of Oscars. Not by a longshot. I guess what I am saying, though, is that if you give it an honest shot today, minus all of the white noise that accompanied its release 25 years ago, then I think youll end up agreeing that it at least didnt deserve as many Razzie nominations as it got.

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Why Waterworld Was a Failure in the '90s But Is Actually Much Better Than We Remember - Esquire.com

Tropical Storm Isaias will likely develop this week

An already record breaking pace to the 2020 Hurricane Season will likely increase its buffer room. On Monday morning, the National Hurricane Center said its monitoring a tropical wave traveling across the lower latitude of the Atlantic Ocean.

As of 8 a.m. Monday morning, Invest 92L has a 80% chance of turning into a tropical system by Wednesday morning. The next name on the list is called Isaias.

Called Invest 92L, this has an 80% chance of turning into Tropical Storm Iasias by Wednesday morning and a 90% chance of that happening by Saturday morning.

The National Hurricane Center's forecast takes the storm through the central Atlantic Ocean and have it pass through the Lesser Antilles by the end of the week.

From there, the storm will likely have a track north of Puerto Rico, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The storm could make multiple landfalls on these islands, which would weaken the storm as it passes. The reason for this is a large area of high pressure in the Atlantic Ocean, extending from Spain to Bermuda. The storm will be steered around the high pressure into the weekend.

The tropical wave, marked with an L in the Central Atlantic Ocean, will follow along the southern edge of a sprawling area of high pressure in the ocean.

From there, the forecast becomes less certain. The strength of the high pressure, as well an incoming system from the United States will play a role in its track during the first weekend of August.

More than likely, though, this storm will make a curve to the north as it nears the East Coast of the United States, continuing around the high pressure system.

The spaghetti plots, a group of different model runs places on the same map, shows the storm likely making a turn up the East Coast sometime during the weekend of Aug. 1-2.

If the high pressure is weaker, or further away from the U.S., the storm will likely spin harmlessly out to sea, or impact Bermuda. If the storm is further west, there would be a greater likelihood of an East Coast landfall. The high pressure may also be so strong that it pushes the storm into Florida or the Gulf of Mexico. However, there is no official forecast this far out for the storm.

Yes, but just as much of a chance as any other storm that's in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean 7 to 10 days before making its closest approach, wherever that may be.

The July 7 Atlantic Hurricane season update from Colorado State University has another incre

There have only been 10 tropical storms and hurricanes to make landfall in South Jersey since 1900, but does that include Tropical Storm Fay July 10. That being said, a storm 100-200 miles out can still bring impacts. Hurricane Michael in October 2018, Hurricane Florence in September 2018 and Hurricane Hermine in 2016 are all recent storms that tracked near South Jersey and brought at least high seas, rip currents and coastal flooding. Hurricane Dorian passed well offshore the Jersey Shore, but still bring rain and wind.

Remnants from Hurricane Dorian empty the Ventnor Boardwalk in September.

New Jersey is generally shielded from the worst of tropical activity from North Carolina. Located to the south of the state, storms may strike the Carolina coast and then bring a weakened version of itself to New Jersey. Furthermore, storms may make landfall on the Gulf Coast and bring remnants to the region, instead of the full impacts. Still, though, heavy rain can occur as the tropical moisture is carried hundreds of miles north.

Isaias would be the ninth named tropical system in the Atlantic Hurricane basin. That would continue to outpace the 2005 season for the most active on record.

Hurricane Hanna, which make landfall in South Jersey Saturday, turned into a Tropical Storm on July 23. That was more than two weeks ahead of 2005's pace, which was Tropical Storm Harvey.

Hurricane Irene developed as a tropical storm August 7, 2005, a mark Isaias will almost surely beat out.

The 2005 Atlantic Hurricane season in the most active on record, which goes back to 1851 (though the advent of weather satellites in the 1960s means hurricane seasons before then may not have been accurately calculated). That year 28 named storms developed, exhausting the alphabet list of storms. The NHC then had to turn to the Greek Alphabet for names.

If the names sound familiar, that's because the National Hurricane Center reuses names every 6 years. Though notable storms, like Sandy and Harvey, can be retired by the World Meteorological Organization.

"Isaias" is the Spanish and Portuguese word for the biblical Isaiah. It is pronounced ees-ah-EE-ahs.

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National Hurricane Center monitoring what could be Isaias, may track to the East Coast - Press of Atlantic City

The oceans throughout history provided seemingly inexhaustible fish for people brave and skillful enough to exploit them. Whenever fish catches declined, fishers would sail farther and farther from home to meet their needs.1 Nowadays the entire global ocean is accessible. Large factory ships and the magic of refrigeration have allowed fishers to venture out for months or years, and more efficient and diverse ways of fishing have increased catches with little care or understanding about the incremental reduction of fish stocks.2 Before the middle of the twentieth century, no one but a few scientists worried about how long the bounty could last, until suddenly, everything began to collapse. Mini wars over fishing rights between Iceland and the United Kingdom in the 1960s and 1970s, along with increasingly protective measures by other nations, led to the unilateral establishment of exclusive economic zones (EEZs) to keep foreign fishers away, the legitimacy of which were formally recognized in 1982 under the auspices of the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea. Yet even still, as in Newfoundland, fisheries kept collapsing, with tragic consequences for entire communities.

The great majority of fisheries data come from coastal ecosystems including estuaries, marsh and mangrove wetlands, seagrass meadows, kelp forests, and coral reefs. In spite of great differences in their inhabitants, the dominant predators in each of these environments were historically large animals, including some combination of killer whales, sharks, seals, crocodiles, predatory fishes like tunas and sharks, and seabirds.3 Nowadays, however, most of these animals are so severely depleted as to be ecologically extinct. Humans have taken their place as the dominant predators at almost all trophic levels above the zooplankton.4 There is even a major fishery for krill in Antarctica, which are critically important for the survival of whales, without the necessary ecological data for an adequate stock assessment to know what is sustainable.5

Biomass of groundfish and sharks has been diminished by an order of magnitude in the northwest Atlantic.6 Similar depredations have affected coral reefs, kelp forests, estuaries and coastal seas, and the high seas.7 Many fisheries biologists originally claimed that the depletions of fish stocks were overstated, but a detailed assessment by the US National Research Council strongly supported the original claims.8 It is now generally accepted that two-thirds of global fisheries are overfished and getting worse, while many of the remaining, better-managed fisheries are not yet sufficiently recovered to be economically viable.9

Global fish catches are declining in spite of increased capacity supported by misguided government subsidies that only accentuate the problem.10 The greatest losses are for large-scale industrial fisheries, whereas artisanal catches appear to be more sustainable. Risks of biological extinction are also increasing for large animals.11 Caribbean Monk seals have already been lost, and their Hawaiian and Mediterranean counterparts are gravely threatened.12 Killer whales are rapidly diminishing globally, especially those species that depend on highly specific overfished prey like salmon.13 Caribbean sea turtles have declined in abundance 100-fold, and Caribbean crocodiles are threatened to endangered throughout most of their range.14 Sharks are globally threatened with losses of numerous species exceeding 90% or more.15

The oceans have long been the terminal point for our garbage, excrement, and chemicals. Coastal pollution most obviously began in the stench of estuaries like New York Harbor, which by the nineteenth century had become serious hazards to human health.16 Soon afterwards, entire semi-enclosed seas like the Baltic and Adriatic seas, Chesapeake Bay, and embayments of the Mississippi Delta were so polluted by excess nutrients and organic matter that oxygen levels declined, and fish kills were commonplace.17 More recently, the industrial pollution of toxic chemicals and greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels have extended to the farthest reaches of the oceans and the atmosphere, poisoning tuna and swordfish with mercury and littering the oceans with plastic.18

There are currently more than 500 coastal hypoxic dead zones worldwide that are largely due to massive increases in nutrient runoff from intensive agriculture made possible by cheap nitrogen fertilizer manufactured from petroleum.19 Excess nitrogen runoff fuels population explosions of phytoplankton far beyond the capacity of zooplankton and other suspension feeders to consume them. As a result, the excess phytoplankton die and sink to the seafloor where they are metabolized by microbes, a process that consumes most or all of the oxygen in bottom waters. Animals including fisheries species that cannot swim away die from asphyxia, except for a very few species that can survive in extremely low oxygen conditions.

The structural integrity of coastal marine habitats, from the tropics to the temperate zone, is dependent on the abundance of a small number of structurally dominant species of mangroves, saltmarshes, seagrasses, kelps, and reef corals that stabilize sediments and provide critical shoreline protection from storms.20 They are also important sites of carbon deposition and sequestration, and are important nursery habitats for fisheries.21 Coastal development and climate change effectively kills the environment, reducing biological structural stability and complexity. Global losses have been alarming, reaching 50% for mangroves and 30% for seagrasses.22 Global declines in living coral cover on reefs is also highly variable but commonly exceeds 50% throughout the Caribbean and Indo-Pacific.23

Other increasingly widespread forms of anthropogenic habitat change are more immediately destructive in reducing habitat complexity and biodiversity.24 The most damaging include dynamite fishing on coral reefs to harvest the fish that float to the surface; seabed trawling for shrimp, scallops, and groundfish that transforms biodiverse underwater forests into depauperate level bottoms of mud; and deep seafloor mining that, if it is allowed to proceed, will inevitably destroy seafloor ecosystems for decades and possibly centuries.25 Container ship traffic is also increasing almost exponentially and carries the double risk of fatal collisions with endangered whales and sound pollution that is dangerous for all cetaceans.26 Seismic oil and gas exploration causes even more severe sound pollution that can cause mass mortalities of whales and dolphins.27

Introductions of exotic species are also increasing due to expanding ship traffic, which discharge ever-increasing volumes of ballast water that contain larval stages of invertebrates, fishes, plankton, and pathogens.28 While the data are mostly circumstantial, the first mass mortality of the sea urchin Diadema antillarum occurred next to the Caribbean entrance of the Panama Canal, and the first widespread outbreaks of coral diseases in the Caribbean were recorded from nearby Colombia and adjacent Netherlands Antilles.29 Coral diseases are exacerbated by global warming, but these first Caribbean disease outbreaks occurred two decades before the first reports of coral bleaching due to extreme warming events.30 Introductions also occur due to deliberate or accidental release from aquaria, as with the Indo-Pacific lionfish that has devasted native fish populations of the Caribbean.31

Farmed salmon bones preserved in a laboratory in collaboration with palaeontologists at the University of Bergen, Norway. Michelle-Marie Letelier,Outline for The Bonding (Still #3), 2017. 16mm film transferred to HD. Image courtesy of the artist.

Impacts of climate change due to the burning of fossil fuels are also both direct and indirect, including rising average temperatures, extreme heating events, declining oxygen, ocean acidification, disease outbreaks, and intensification of extreme storms.32 Sea surface temperatures are rising globally, but disproportionately, with the greatest increases in polar seas and semi-enclosed basins in the temperate zones, such as the Gulf of Maine. The latitudinal limits of myriad species are rapidly increasing in response, as in the case of the Humboldt squid, whose northern limit shifted from southern California to the Gulf of Alaska in just a few decades due to a combination of climate change and overfishing that reduced the abundance of predators.33 Most species range shifts are more gradual but pervasive, with great implications for fisheries.34 For example, optimal conditions for Atlantic and Barents Sea cod are moving northward out of traditional fishing grounds and into different international jurisdictions, further exacerbating the consequences of historical overfishing.35 Tropical reef corals are also migrating towards higher latitudes, most strikingly along the southwest coast of Australia, where kelp forests are dying off and being replaced by subtropical species including reef corals.36

As oceans continue to warm, species characteristic of colder polar conditions have nowhere else to migrate and are at risk of extinction. Arctic species and entire ecosystems are increasingly threated by the loss of summer sea ice.37 Populations of polar bears, which historically fed on seals captured at breathing holes, are plummeting, and starving bears are showing up around human settlements where they forage on garbage and potentially whatever else.38 Other effects on polar food webs are still poorly understood, but the collapse of Antarctic krill, for example, would have grave impacts on the baleen whales that feed upon them.39

Global warming is also causing increases in the magnitude and frequency of extreme heating events wherein sea surface temperatures may rise 2 to 3C above normal maxima in just a few months.40 Consequences for reef corals can be catastrophic.41 Healthy reef corals exist in symbiosis with the dinoflagellates within their tissues that are critical to coral nutrition and calcification.42 Extreme heat breaks down this symbiosis, whereby corals evict the symbiont (which leaves them ghostly white, hence bleached). This is commonly fatal to the corals unless symbiosis is reestablished within a matter of weeks. Mass bleaching events are increasingly frequent and severe, raising questions about the very survival of coral reefs. The most recent extreme example was in 20152016 when most corals along the northern Great Barrier Reef bleached and died, and similar mass bleaching and mortality occurred across the Pacific.43 Another example is the enormous blob of hot water that appeared in the northeast Pacific in 2014 that was associated with collapses in species abundance and outbreaks of diseases.44

Climate change also sets off a cascading series of indirect effects that magnify its impact. The impact of coral diseases has greatly increased, especially in connection with mass bleaching events.45 Outbreaks of coral diseases are especially impactful on polluted reefs and those where overfishing has resulted in population explosions of fleshy algae, which have been shown experimentally to increase the vulnerability of corals to disease.46 In contrast, disease outbreaks are comparatively rare on unpolluted reefs in marine protected areas with abundant grazing fishes. Lobsters along the northeast coast of North America are also more vulnerable to shell wasting disease as waters warm, effectively wiping out the fishery in Long Island Sound.47

Oxygen concentrations are declining in the open ocean because warming surface waters makes them lighter, which in turn slows down the vertical mixing of the oceans; a runaway process that decreases the rate of oxygen transport to the deep sea and upwelling of nutrients to the sea surface.48 The process is especially striking in the equatorial Pacific, and in the Arctic ocean where the cover of summer sea ice is rapidly decreasing.49 Sea ice is highly reflective, dispersing heat back into the atmosphere, whereas seawater absorbs heat and sets up a positive feedback that is effectively irreversible. Reduced nutrient upwelling and declining oxygen are strongly associated with decreases in open ocean productivity, which is the basis for high seas fisheries.50

The ocean is also becoming more acidic. Solution in seawater of increasing atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide has resulted in a global reduction in ocean pH of 0.1 units over the past century.51 The biologic consequences of acidification are still poorly understood and controversial, but could affect the reproduction, physiology, growth, and development of a wide variety of plants and animals. The most obvious impacts are on organisms that form their skeletons of calcium carbonate, which is more easily dissolved under more acidic conditions. This is already affecting shellfish aquaculture industries in the state of Washington, where pH has been steadily declining.52 Aquaculturists have been forced to raise vulnerable juvenile clams and oysters under less acidic conditions in aquaria on land before placing them in the ocean.53 Reef corals are also vulnerable to increasing acidity. Corals grown under present-day more acidic conditions grew 15% more slowly than corals where pH was maintained at historically less acidic conditions.54

Bird watchers were pioneers in the early rise of the conservation movement, with organizations such as the Audubon Society fighting to stop the slaughter of herons and egrets for womens hats.55 Similarly, its not just important for tourism that increasing numbers of people pay good money to see whales up close in the wild and increasingly to SCUBA dive with sharks.56 Besides the thrill of witnessing their power and grace, whale and shark watchers learn about the lives and behavior of these animals and how they fit into ocean ecosystems which, in turn, leads to increased support for their protection.

Horror at the slaughter of whales was a major factor in the establishment of the International Whaling Commission in 1946 which, despite persistent opposition from a few countries, has resulted in dramatic recoveries of most whale species.57 In addition to the ethical issues inherent in the mass slaughter of such animals, we now know that the great whales were once (and increasingly are now again) vitally important ecosystem engineers, as predators of massive amounts of fish and invertebrates, prey for other large predators, highly mobile reservoirs of carbon and nutrients, and as carcasses, sources of energy and habitat in the deep sea.58

Similar public concerns about the loss of other marine mammals were a driving factor in the enactment of the United States Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972, which prohibits the killing, harm, harassment, or collection of any marine mammal in US territorial waters or by US citizens anywhere else. It also forbids the importation of any marine mammal products or parts. Populations of most marine mammals have varyingly recovered, although their comparative success is strongly associated with their life histories, habitat requirements, and geographic range.59 The depletion of essential forage fish due to overfishing also inhibits their recovery.60 One obvious manifestation of success is the greatly increased abundance of seals along the east and west coasts of the US, where their activities and real or perceived impacts on fisheries are not always welcome. Their rebound has also led to increases in great white sharks near shore, restoring a degree of balance to marine food webs while generating new questions about perceived risks to humans and potential impacts on endangered species.61

Increased tourist revenues have also led to the banning of shark fishing on coral reefs by entire nations because the sharks are vastly more lucrative alive than dead. Economic analysis for the government of Palau demonstrated that diver tourism provides 39% of the countrys total GDP, and that 21% of divers come principally to dive with sharks. The approximately 100 sharks in prime shark dive sites are each worth about US$180,000 per year in tourist revenue, or US$1.9 million during their lifetimes, versus about $110 for their fins and meat.62 Shark diving is a burgeoning global industry that is not without its environmental concerns, although if it is done responsibly, the net conservation value appears to be generally positive.63

New studies of the remarkable behavior and migrations of ocean species are also increasing public support for increased protections.64 The electronic tagging of thousands of individuals of different species of Pacific whales, seabirds, seaturtles, tunas and other large fish, and sharks has revealed striking transoceanic migrations of some species versus others that move much smaller distances.65 Bluefin tuna, for example, move back and forth across the Atlantic and Pacific, hanging out for up to a year or more in the same general location before moving on.66 In contrast, eastern Pacific great white sharks move back and forth between the California coast where they feed on burgeoning seal populations and an area of deep ocean halfway between Baja California and Hawaii dubbed the White Shark Caf, where they feed on vertically migrating fishes and invertebrates.67 Over 200 of these sharks have been tagged and followed for up to twenty years.68

Wild salmon eggs at Arna Sport Fishermens Association, Norway. Michelle-Marie Letelier,Outline for The Bonding (Still #5), 2017. 16mm film transferred to HD. Image courtesy of the artist.

Marine protected areas (MPAs) are an increasingly popular and effective conservation strategy for biodiversity and habitat protection when effectively financed, administered, and enforced.69 Unprotected paper parks, however, can do more harm than good by lulling people into thinking everything is fine when it is not.70 MPAs are also controversial from the perspective of fisheries management, with some arguing that MPAs are the most effective tool available versus those who believe that other management tools such as catch shares and gear restrictions are more effective in most cases than simple area closures.71

Cabo Pulmo in the southern Sea of Cortez is one of the most spectacular success stories of an effectively enforced MPA.72 Although it was severely overfished at the time, Cabo Pulmo was designated as a Mexican marine national park in 1995 on the basis of its coral populations. Protections did not become effective until local villagers self-organized to enforce the entire park as a no-take area in the late 1990s. Fish biomass was less than one metric ton per hectare in 1999, comparable to other unprotected areas or paper parks throughout the Gulf of California. Subsequent to the villagers protection, biomass increased over the following ten protected years to about 4.5 metric tons, while all other areas failed to increase. Biomass and diversity have fluctuated since 2009, in large part due to the community evolving towards a more natural composition that includes greater populations of schooling fishes as well as more abundant corals. The greatest potential threat to Cabo Pulmo is its notorious success, which attracts burgeoning numbers of tourists and development.

A network of nine well enforced no-take MPAs and two partial-take MPAs was established around four of the northern Channel Islands off the coast of California in 2003 and revisited ten years later.73 The biomass of preferred fisheries species approximately doubled within MPAs at three of the four islands, but non-targeted species showed little response. The biomass of targeted species outside the reserves also increased by about one quarter, possibly because of a spillover effect. Similar results were obtained the Cowcod Conservation Areas established in the southern Channel Islands in 2001, where abundances of six of eight targeted species and four of seven non-targeted rockfish species increased regionally from 1998 to 2013.74 Rising temperatures during the study are a complicating factor. Nevertheless, 75% of targeted species but none of the non-targeted species increased inside compared to outside of the MPAs while controlling for environmental factors.

The establishment of very large marine protected areas within exclusive economic zones has increased the area of ocean within MPAs to only 3.5%, about half of which are under strong protection.75 Meanwhile, most ocean ecosystems are hemorrhaging, as major fishing fleets continue to expand their global operations.76 This may be changing, however, as the international community finally begins to seriously consider international governance of the high seas defined as areas beyond national jurisdictions. The first major achievement in this was the agreement to establish the worlds largest marine protected area by the twenty-five-national-member Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources.77 The agreement protects all wildlife and bans fishing for overfished krill and Patagonian and Antarctic Toothfish in 600,000 square miles in the Ross Sea for thirty-five years. Much more will have to be done, however, to preserve populations around Antarctica where these species are threatened by overfishing and rapid climate change and have ripple effects on the marine mammals and penguins that depend upon them.

The scientific case for closing the high seas to fisheries is strong. Nearly 98% of global seafood production comes from the exclusive economic zones (EEZs) of individual nations and aquaculture. What does come from the high seas is mostly luxury species such as tuna and billfishes, yet their commercial value is even less.78 Moreover, most high seas fisheries are heavily dependent on government subsidies by a small number of wealthy countries that can afford the enormous costs.79 Closure of the high seas to fishing would therefore have great economic and social benefits in addition to environmental protections of fish stocks and the long-distance migration routes of marine megafauna.80 Most compellingly, the overwhelming majority of high seas fishery species are also major components of fisheries within national EEZs, which means that closure of the high seas to fishing would produce a vast MPA where commercially important species could prosper, reproduce, and spill over into EEZs whose potential catches would increase.81 Further advantages would include simplification of policing the rampant problem of pirate fishing and transfers at sea.82

While commonly overshadowed by bad news, concerted actions to reduce pollution and protect keystone species have resulted in many recoveries of marine populations and ecosystems.83 The installation of modern sewage systems and the reduction in nutrient runoff have varyingly improved water quality, reduced excess planktonic productivity and toxic algal blooms, and restored seagrass meadows, salt marshes, and fisheries in estuaries around the world.84 These efforts demonstrate that even greater progress could be achieved in stabilizing coastal ecosystems if adequate measures are taken to eliminate or greatly reduce pollutant runoff, and most importantly agricultural nutrients.85 Serious efforts to do so have not yet materialized, however, because farmers dont have to pay for what they pollute. There is also a problem of scale in semi-enclosed seas like the Baltic because nutrient buildups in sediments are already so great that simply reducing nutrient runoff may not suffice.

Banning the use of fish pots around Bermuda in 1990, where fish populations had collapsed due to overfishing, resulted in rapid rebounding of fish populations dominated by schools of large parrotfish.86 Since then, abundances have remained high except for the large predatory fish that remain overfished. Coral populations also have steadily increased due to the control of algal populations by the abundant parrotfish. Caribbean coral reefs are generally extremely overfished, but the few places where both fishing and pollution are effectively controlled uniquely support high coral abundance.

Detail of farmed salmon scales, Norway. Michelle-Marie Letelier,Outline for The Bonding (Still #2), 2017. 16mm film transferred to HD. Image courtesy of the artist.

Despite important accomplishments, comprehensive policies are lacking to address the unsustainability of the modern economy that is driving ecosystem collapses and threatening human wellbeing.87 Nature is a complex system, and much of that system as we knew it is irreversibly breaking down.88 Environmental perturbations in one place almost inevitably have repercussions down the line, be it agricultural pollution in the US cornbelt causing the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico or the effects of runoff and overfishing on outbreaks of disease affecting reef corals. Huge energy and investment in projects to restore populations of corals in Florida and on the Great Barrier Reef are making much progress in terms of the technical details of raising, breeding, and growing corals, but they are also absurdly expensive and small scale, not to mention that putting the corals back into the same nutrient polluted environments and expecting them to somehow survive is folly. More fundamentally, they are bandaids to address the symptoms of ocean decline rather than addressing the fundamental root causes of the ocean crisis: global warming, overfishing, and land-based pollution.89

The most encouraging development towards adapting to and managing these realities is that large scale efforts to decarbonize the global economy are beginning to gain traction despite political intransigence, not least because, in addition to its obvious advantages for human health and the environment, green energy is financially a better option than heavily subsidized fossil fuels.90 California, the fifth largest global economy, is committed to be carbon neutral by 2045 and is well on track, and electric cars are becoming a more practical alternative to gasoline and diesel. The outstanding question is how rapidly opposition can be overcome to speed things up and take actions on the appropriate scales.

This paper is adapted from a presentation at the University of Utah submitted to Island Press. The author is grateful to Jennifer Jacquet for her helpful review of the manuscript.

Oceans in Transformation is a collaboration between TBA21Academy and e-flux Architecture within the context of the eponymous exhibition at Ocean Space in Venice by Territorial Agency and its manifestation on Ocean Archive.

Jeremy Jackson is Senior Scientist Emeritus at the Smithsonian Institution and Professor of Oceanography Emeritus at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

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Revaluing the Oceans - Architecture - e-flux - E-Flux

(MENAFN - The Conversation) Wandering albatrosses have long been considered exceptional creatures. They can fly 8.5 million kilometres during their lifetimes the equivalent of flying to the Moon and back more than ten times. Their three-and-a-half-metre wing span is the same length as a small car and they can weigh as much as 24 puffins. Their body shape means they can effortlessly glide over the ocean waves, flying in some of the strongest winds on Earth. Now research led by the Centre d''tudes biologiques de Chiz in France has found that these seabirds may have promising careers in the fight against overfishing.

Accidental bycatch in fishing lines and nets when fishers unintentionally snare animals they weren''t trying to catch, like albatrosses kills hundreds of thousands of birds and mammals each year .

In the past few decades, countries have worked together to implement cross-border policies to directly address the causes of bycatch, particularly for albatrosses and petrels which have been severely affected . With onboard human observers or electronic devices tracking activity, albatross bycatch rates have fallen dramatically on monitored vessels. But what about illegal fishing boats? Military vessels and aeroplanes patrol the Southern Ocean looking for criminal fishers, but there are no observers or monitoring to ensure these boats are using methods to protect albatrosses, and without these, we know that bycatch rates are very high.

Read more: Small-scale fisheries have unintended consequences on tropical marine ecosystems

Boats that are legally fishing are generally registered and licensed, and so must adhere to laws regarding where and when they fish, and what and how much they can catch. Monitoring fishery activity around land masses is one thing, but beyond these limits, the open ocean is deemed international waters and doesn''t come under the jurisdiction of a single nation. Patrolling this enormous area by ship or air is rarely effective.

But what if there were 100 officers that could cover 10,000 kilometres each in a 30-day stretch? Meet the albatross ocean sentinels who patrol the seas for illegal fishers.

Wandering albatrosses breed on remote islands around Antarctica. These are usually only accessible by boat, and researchers must brave the '' furious 50s '' of the Southern Ocean to get there, across some of the roughest seas in the world.

So many birds were dying as a result of getting caught in fishing lines that researchers started studying the overlap between albatrosses and fishing boats. Understanding where the birds came into contact with fisheries, and which birds followed boats the most, helped explain which parts of the population were most at risk of bycatch.

Researchers mapped the distribution of boats using data transmitted from onboard monitoring systems, but these records are often only available around land and rarely in real time. Given the amount of time the birds spend in the open ocean, this meant that researchers had little idea of how many birds overlapped with fishing boats and for how long.

To address this problem, researchers developed loggers that could be attached to an albatross . The logger detects the radar of boats, collecting information on where boats are in real time. The loggers took years to perfect and I can still remember the excitement of getting the first one back that had successfully detected a boat''s radar.

The data showed how the sex, age or personality of each bird affected how likely the bird was to come into contact with fishing boats. For example, males tend to forage to the south, closer to Antarctica where fishing boats are rarer, while females forage further north, bringing them closer to the tropics and into contact with hotspots of fishing activity. Understanding this variation was the primary aim of the research, to help ecologists understand how deaths in subsections of the population can have dramatic effects on the population as a whole. But the loggers also provided bonus data that could transform fishery management and conservation in the open oceans.

Originally this work began to differentiate between fishing boats and other vessels, to test whether birds were more likely to be attracted to fishing boats. But when we combined the data collected by the loggers with a global map, we could see the location of all boats with an active Automatic Identification System (AIS). This radar allows vessels to detect each other, preventing collisions. But our study found that over 20% of boats within French waters didn''t have their AIS on, rising to 35% in international waters. Since the AIS is intended to keep vessels safe, it''s likely that these vessels operating without it in international waters were doing so to avoid detection, and so could be fishing illegally.

The albatross data had unintentionally revealed the potential extent and scale of illegal fishing in the Southern Ocean.

It''s difficult to imagine a human patrol boat being able to cover enough area to efficiently track illegal fisheries. But each wandering albatross could potentially cover the same area of ocean as a boat, and when its logger detects a fishing boat with its AIS turned off, it can relay that information to the authorities, who can alert nearby vessels to investigate.

Data collection on this scale would not only improve our ability to detect and manage illegal fisheries, but also to identify high risk areas for conservation. This would help conserve fish stocks, protect albatrosses and other seabirds, and manage the marine ecosystem as a whole. As ocean sentinels, albatrosses have a unique ability to collect the data needed for their own conservation. Their pioneering role in animal-led data collection paves the way for other species to track the human activities that risk their persistence in the wild.

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How we recruited albatrosses to patrol the high seas for illegal fishers - MENAFN.COM

Starring and written by Tom Hanks, Greyhound is a VOD war drama. For those looking to binge movies of this genre, check out these recommendations.

Amidst all the films forgoing the theater reason in favor of VOD, Greyhoundis one of the larger-scale projects. The film stars Tom Hanks, who also wrote the script forthisWorld War II drama. Hanks plays the commanding officer of a military convoy of ships crossing the Atlantic without air support.

RELATED:Top 10 Tom Hanks Movies, According To IMDb

Though it is a fairly contained film,it serves as a tense and exciting war story with non-stop threats and effective naval battle sequences. It is a worthy inclusion in the genre of war movies and there are plenty of exciting films from that genre worth checking out if you were a fan of Greyhound.

When seeing Tom Hanks as a commanding officer in World War II, it's hard not to be reminded of Saving Private Ryan. The Steven Spielberg film followed a group of soldiers who go on a dangerous mission to find one soldier who is being sent home.

Once again, Hanks proves to be a completely believable leader and military man who also brings a level of everyman to the role. The battle sequencesare brutal and intense, making Saving Private Ryanone of the most harrowing war movies ever made.

While war is dangerous for all soldiers involved, there is something extra terrifying about being atwar on the high seas, especially inside a submarine. U-571 is a WWII thriller about a group of American soldiers attempting to steal an encryption machine from a damaged German sub. When their own ship is attacked, they must survive onboard the damaged enemy boat.

RELATED:5 War Films From The 00s That Are Way Underrated (& 5 That Are Overrated)

While it plays loose with history, the movie effectively captures the claustrophobic feel of being trapped inside a sub underwater with the enemy above.

It is not just WWII films that share the same intense depiction of naval warfare. Crimson Tide is a modern take on that kind of story, which also deals with the idea of leadership in highly tense situations.

Denzel Washington plays the second-in-command onboard a nuclear sub while the world is on the verge of nuclear war. Cut off from the outside world, Washington begins to question the commands of the captain, played by Gene Hackman.

Most of theactioninGreyhound is seen within the battleship Hanks' officer commands. While the world is at war, it is fascinating to see a war movie that has such a specific focus.

Furyis another WWII film that tells a small-scale story of a tank team in the dying days of the war. Brad Pitt plays the commanding officer, a man very different from Hanks' character yet one with a similar sense of battle. It makes for a unique look at war in a way audiences have rarely seen.

A big aspect of Greyhound, and one of the most interesting aspects of the film, is its look at Hanks' character as a leader of men. This is his first big assignment in the military and he is put in charge of an entire convoy of ships.

RELATED:5 War Films From The 90s That Are Way Underrated (& 5 That Are Overrated)

This focus of the film is reminiscent of the classic war film Patton. George C. Scott plays the titular real-life American general in this glimpse at his campaign in WWII. The film is a fun exploration of his brilliant commanding style and his many flaws.

Since Greyhound deals with the early days of America's involvement in WWII, a great film to watch along with it would be Tora! Tora! Tora!, which deals with the attack on Pearl Harbor that prompted America's involvement.

The film is a spectacular epic, depicting both the American and Japanese side of the story. It makes for a thrilling look into military tactics and one of the most significant military moments in history.

Another film that expertly depicts the many threats and feelings of paranoia involved in naval warfare is the stunning German film Das Boot. The film centers around the crew of a German U-boat, who are battling the stress and anxiety of their position while beginning to question their fight in this war.

Das Bootis a harrowing film that gives rare insight into the other side of the battle. Like Greyhound, it is a film that focuses on the senselessness of war even as the soldiers fight with all their strength.

For a movie that is basically set in one location, Greyhound makes it a pulse-pounding adventure. It is also a unique war film in that much emphasis is put on the importance of survival rather than fighting.

RELATED:10 Great Anti-War Films To Watch If You Like Da 5 Bloods

Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk delivers a similar message. The film depicts the rescue mission of British troops from the beaches of France. There arefew heroic battle sequences, with the film focusing on people trying desperately to survive so they can live to fight another day.

There is a non-stop excitement to Greyhound that few movies can pull off. Asviewers follow Hanks' commander during the several days at sea, he bounces from one threat to another. As one catastrophe is averted, another arises just as fast. It makes for an edge-of-your-seat experience.

Sam Mendes' 1917 pulled off a similar feat. The World War I film follows two soldiers carrying a message across a battlefield. The one-shot look of the filmadds to the suspense and will leave audiences holding their breath until the credits roll.

Naval battles are not often depicted in Hollywood movies. Greyhound manages to make them realistic and exciting throughout the entire film. Another film that achieves this, albeit from a much earlier era, is Master and Commander.

Russell Crowe plays the commander of a British ship during the Napoleonic War as he and his crew do battle with the French on the high seas. Crowe makes for a stirring lead and the battle sequences are spectacular.

NEXT:5 Best & 5 Worst World War II Movies, According To Rotten Tomatoes

Next The Little Mermaid: Ariel's 5 Worst & 5 Best Traits

A writer and film fan. I always enjoy keeping up with the latest films in theaters as well as discovering some hidden gems I may have overlooked. Glad to be a part of Screen Rant's positive and fun community and have the opportunity to share my thoughts with you.

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10 Movies To Watch If You Liked Greyhound | ScreenRant - Screen Rant

China appears to be accelerating its campaign to control the South China Sea and the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. Beijing does itself no favours with the highly ambiguous nature of its claims in the region. Its internationally condemned nine-dash line sometimes appears to be delineating its claims to the island features within it. More ominously, Beijing sometimes insinuates the line as a maritime delineation, carving out sovereign control of the sea itself as well as the airspace above it.

Chinas ongoing militarisation of many artificial features in disputed waters is well known. A less well known, but highly consequential implication of this militarisation is the vastly increased capacity it gives China to project power not only to control the reefs and rocks of the South China Sea, but, in the future, to assert control over the high seas and airspace above it. Beijing is vocal about its opposition to innocent passage and other military activities within its 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zones.

Beijing has tried hard to keep its dispute resolution efforts focused on bilateral negotiations between itself and the various claimants, effectively fracturing a united response by ASEAN. Pushback in the region is only now beginning. Chinas sweeping claims also impact many countries that lie far beyond the shores of the South China Sea. The US, Japan, Australia, India and many others around the world have critical interests in using the sea directly for economic, scientific and military purposes. More urgently, maintaining an open and free system of movement through the high seasand in the future, in outer spaceis of critical importance.

The decisive rejection of Chinas claims in the South China Sea by an arbitral tribunal under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea in 2016 only accelerated Beijings continued bad-faith efforts to construct features, militarise them, and extend administrative control over others presence and activities to the furthest reaches of the nine-dash line. In fact, the ruling decisively rejects both Chinas claims to many rocks and maritime features and the idea that these islands can generate territorial seas and exclusive economic zones.

This studied strategic ambiguity by China (on display on other fronts as well) should encourage the international community to confront an alternative and altogether darker explanation for Beijings behaviourthat it is building forces and positions in the region so that over the long term it can assert sovereign authority over the South China Sea.

This interpretation of Chinas actions, though difficult to accept, should be considered as a possibility in military and strategic planning efforts around the world with an eye towards avoiding this worst-case outcome. It is important to remember that the scope and scale of Chinas claims are unprecedented in international law and have no real analogue anywhere else on earth. An unwillingness to confront this scenario risks ceding Beijing permanent control over economic and military activities over a large and critical section of the worlds oceansand beyond.

The South China Sea is a third larger than the Mediterranean Sea and more than twice as large as the Gulf of Mexico. Acknowledging Chinas sweeping claims to sovereignty over this massive space would increase the possibility of a future international environment in which ever larger portions of the global commons are cut off and controlled by individual nations.

Either the international community believes in maintaining a free and open global commons and protects international law or it doesnt. If it doesnt, then Chinas potential annexation of this vast space will guarantee similar claims over the worlds oceans. To foreclose on this future will require an active and aggressive response by the widest grouping of states possible. Regardless of how individual claims over the various land features in the South China Sea are resolved, the entire globe has a stake in free and open access to the region.

For this reason, the US, along with all major allies and partners, should explicitly link Chinas own access to the global commons with its behaviour in the South China Sea. Washingtons announcement of its rejection of Beijings maritime claims, underscored by the US Navy dual aircraft carrier strike group exercises in the region, is a good beginning. However, operations in the South China Sea play to Chinas strengths. The US and the widest range of allies and partners in the international community should begin to articulate and apply escalating administrative and technical restrictions globally on Chinese shipping, air travel and transport in and through exclusive economic zones around the world by participating countries.

Restrictions on economic and military transit and scientific exploration should be pre-planned and scalable so that they are similar to Chinese moves in the South China Sea. These allied grey zone competitive activities could be problematic for Beijing; they would drastically increase the cost and complication of accessing the Indo-Pacific region and beyond. For example, contiguous US, Japanese and Philippine zones restrict direct Chinese access to the Western Pacific. This possibility should be communicated to Beijing should it attempt to assert sovereign control in the South China Sea through force.

Securing the highest degree of freedom and access throughout the global commons should be the ultimate goal of this international effort. Focused and reciprocal restrictions on China throughout the exclusive economic zones of the world should be coupled with strong assurances that they remain open for participating nations. Moreover, these restrictions on China should be easily and quickly reversible. When Beijing comes to its senses on the use of the South China Sea, its access to the global maritime commons should be both restored and encouraged.

Although this strategic approach to countering Beijings most aggressive designs in the South China Sea appears to be rather drastic, like-minded nations around the world should be prepared to deliver a decisive shock to Beijings calculations about any gains it may achieve by limiting access to the South China Sea and rejecting the free use of the global commons more generally. Even hinting that a global response on this scale is possible should concentrate minds in Beijing on their strong and growing dependence on the global commons to reach their much vaunted centenary goals. Together, allied nations should encourage China to support an open and free global commons today in the South China Sea.

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How to stop China completing its takeover of the South China Sea - The Strategist

Overfishing is one of the greatest threatsto ocean health, yet for decades many governments have paid subsidies to their fishing fleets, helping them fish beyond levels that are biologically sustainable. Its time to end these harmful subsidies, some of which even support illegal fishing activities. Now, new case studies show that World Trade Organization (WTO) measures to end those harmful payments could help local fishers while increasing global catch.

Not all fisheries subsidies are harmful. Some, for example, might help artisanal fishers survive a lean season, and those payments should be maintained. But studies show that governments are spending $22.2 billion per year on payments that encourage overfishing. These subsidies, paid to help offset the costs of vessel fuel, upgrades, port renovations, and other expenses, enable primarily industrial fleets to fish farther from shore and longer than they otherwise would. A June 2018 study found that without government subsidies, as much as 54% of the present high-seas fishing grounds would be unprofitable.

Fortunately, the global community has recognized this problem and the need to address it: The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 14 Target 6, which U.N. member governments agreed to in 2015, tasks the WTO with crafting an agreement to end harmful fisheries subsidies. WTO members were on track to finalize this deal at a June meeting but have postponed that conference due to COVID-19.

The new case studies provide the first practical evidence of how curbing subsidy-driven overfishing would improve fishery sustainability and benefit local fishers, their families, and their communities.

To produce the studies, the International Institute for Sustainable Development commissioned researchers to examine fish stock exploitation levels, governance regimes, revenue from landings, income from subsidies, and operating costs in three fisheries: shrimp in Latin America, sardinella in West Africa, and southern longline tuna in the Pacific. The researchers were then asked to examine the economic impacts of possible WTO disciplines, and options for managing these impacts.

Broadly, the studies found that reforming harmful fisheries subsidies could lead to higher yields for local fishers, which in turn could help provide more stable jobs, raise fishers incomes, reduce poverty, and improve food security in local communities.

Incomplete or inadequate reporting often allows governments to obscure the nature of their subsidy programs, creating challenges in evaluating their true impacts. But if governments commit to increased transparency and more complete notifications to the WTO of their subsidy programs, analysts and observers will gain a far better understanding of the potential effects of any new policy.

Here are some of the specific findings from the case studies.

In the Latin American shrimp fisheries:

Key takeaway: WTO disciplines could help artisanal fisheries compete with industrial vessels that may not be profitable without subsidies. Fuel and vessel maintenance subsidies represented 20% to 50% of income for industrial vessels in Mexico and Nicaragua, for example.

In the West African sardinella fishery:

Key takeaway: WTO disciplines could limit the harmful subsidies contributing to the overcapacity and overfishing of sardinella for both sectors. These subsidies cover the costs of fuel, certain capital costs, and access to other countries waters, as well as contribute to allowing illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing, mostly by foreign vessels. Previous studies have estimated that West African fishers are losing up to $2.3 billion in revenue each year due to IUU fishing in the region.

In the western and central Pacific longline tuna fishery:

Key takeaway: Though the impact of WTO disciplines would likely vary in different parts of the fishery, ending subsidies that contribute to overfishing and overcapacity could reduce the overall fishing effort and allow for Pacific island countries to better develop their domestic fishing industries.

WTO members still have a chance to reach a trade deal that could realize unprecedented benefits for the ocean. While new WTO measures might require transition periods to help vulnerable fishers mitigate potential short-term impacts of subsidy removal, meaningful subsidy prohibitions, coupled with improved fisheries management at the national level, could improve economic and environmental conditions in fisheries around the world.

The new case studies show that subsidy reform would improve ocean health and help fishing fleets operate sustainably far into the future.

Isabel Jarrettis a manager and Reyna Gilbert is a senior associate with The Pew Charitable Trusts project to reduce harmful fisheries subsidies.

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Fisheries Subsidies Reform Could Reduce Overfishing and Illegal Fishing, Case Studies Find - The Pew Charitable Trusts

In the foyer of the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, England, stands a ships painted figurehead. It towers well above head height and depicts an armoured knight with a silver chest plate, a raised visor and a thick handlebar moustache. The knights eyes have a faraway gaze in them and well they might. This wooden statue is the sole remnant of a square-rigged ship that once embarked on a three-and-a-half-year voyage to the furthest corners of the globe, reshaping marine science, unearthing all manner of underwater oddities and permanently changing our relationship with the planets oceans. The vessels name was HMS Challenger.

The journey was no simple A-to-B cruise. Between December 1872 and May 1876, the figurehead on the ships prow felt the salty spray of both the North and South Atlantic Oceans as well as vast swathes of the Pacific, even venturing below the Antarctic Circle. The circuitousness of its route paid off. At the voyages conclusion, one of those on board, the prominent naturalist John Murray, declared it the greatest advance in the knowledge of our planet since the celebrated discoveries of the 15th and 16th Centuries. It was some achievement for a ship that was only ever supposed to be a bit-part in a naval fleet.

Built in Englands now-defunct Woolwich Dockyard and first launched in February 1858, HMS Challenger was constructed as a wooden, steam-assisted Royal Navy corvette, or warship. It measured some 61m in length. Just weeks earlier, the completion nearby in London of Isambard Kingdom Brunels colossal SS Great Eastern an iron-hulled steamship more than 210m long had been reported across the globe. The arrival of the Challenger, by contrast, made a relatively tiny splash. This wouldnt always be the case.

The story of its now-fabled world expedition began 150 years ago, in 1870, when an Edinburgh University professor and marine zoologist named Charles Wyville Thompson persuaded the Royal Society of London to support a lengthy voyage of exploration across the worlds oceans. The idea was a novel one. This was a time when the high seas were considered little more than a hindrance to land-based trade and exploration. Life beneath the waves was largely a mystery. Even Charles Darwin, whose own trailblazing voyage on HMS Beagle had taken place around 40 years earlier, had referred to the oceans as a tedious waste, a desert of water.

Government approval for the voyage was sought and subsequently obtained. The Royal Navy lent the venture a strong, sturdy ship that had spent the first decade of its life on active duty: HMS Challenger. Preparations then began in earnest. Fifteen of the ships 17 guns were removed to make space for on-board laboratories and workrooms. Storage areas were created for the marine samples that would be collected on the trip. A crew was assembled, more than 200-strong and skippered by Captain George Nares, who in 1869 had been at the helm of the first vessel to pass through the newly opened Suez Canal. A team of six scientists, headed by Wyville Thompson himself, joined them.

You may also be interested in: Spain's mysterious underwater temple The shipwreck that created a country The newest piece of land on Earth?

By the end of 1872, the revamped Challenger was ready. The ship set sail from Sheerness on Englands south-east coast, on Saturday 7 December. It was leaving behind one of the wettest British winters on record, heading south towards Lisbon and the Canary Islands. Over the following 42 months, the ship would cover around 127,600km on a journey that included no less than 362 stops at intervals as nearly uniform as possible, according to Wyville Thompson to scoop samples from the seabed with weighted nets, study marine life, gauge ocean depths and measure water temperatures.

Thanks to the letters of a young stewards assistant, Joseph Matkin, who was just 19 when the Challenger set off, we have accounts of life on the ship. All the Scientific Chaps are on board, and have been busy during the week stowing their gear away, he wrote on embarkation. There are some thousands of small air tight Bottles, and little boxes packed in Iron Tanks for keeping specimens in, insects, butterflies, mosses, plants, etc. There is a photographic room on the main deck, also a dissecting room.

On-board sustenance, meanwhile, fell some way short of his expectations. I have never been so hungry, Matkin wrote, just weeks after leaving Sheerness. I will tell you what the routine for meals is now: at 6AM Breakfast of Cocoa & hard Biscuit at 11.30, dinner; one day it is salt pork & pea soup the next salt Beef & Plum duff, the next salt Pork again & the 4th Preserved potatoes & Australian Beef in tins if any one can get fat on that in 4 years they must eat more than their allowance.

The findings of the voyage, however, were nothing short of bountiful. The results were later presented in a report that stretched to 50 volumes and 29,500 pages, which gives some idea of the amount of information that was gathered en route. Today, looking through the online collection of its 4,772 physical specimens reveals an extraordinary cornucopia of marine life: sea snails from the Azores; squid from the waters around Japan; tiny filter-feeders dredged from more than 300 fathoms (550m) below the Hawaiian Islands; shark teeth, crabs, sea pigs and snake eels.

These artefacts are today held by museums across the UK, Ireland and the US among them the Natural History Museum in London and the Royal Albert Memorial & Art Gallery in Exeter, England with various items still on display.

Of just as much importance as the specimens, of course, were the thousands of scientific readings the ship was able to obtain by dangling its then state-of-the-art instruments and glass thermometers into the unexplored depths, using long lengths of hemp rope.

The measurements of the Challenger expedition set the stage for all branches of oceanography, explained Dr Jake Gebbie, associate scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, a renowned Massachusetts-based facility dedicated to ocean research. They captured a moment in time that would have otherwise been lost. The report is still used in high-impact research today.

The measurements of the Challenger expedition set the stage for all branches of oceanography

The effect of climate change on water temperatures is just one area in which the voyages findings have proved invaluable. We are currently working on digitising the entire suite of temperature measurements from the Challenger, Dr Gebbie continued, adding that the institute is also seeking to understand the physics that control the ocean on these century-long timescales. Without the Challenger data, he said, this line of research may not have been tractable.

Among its countless other notable discoveries, the expedition was also the first to record the astonishing scale of the Mariana Trench, the Pacific chasm that stretches far deeper than Mount Everest is tall. Indeed, the trenchs lowest point the 10,929m Challenger Deep, a dark abyss of algae-rich ooze and slow-moving flatfish still bears the name of the ship. At the other extreme of human exploration, meanwhile, the ill-fated Challenger space shuttle was also named after the vessel.

The ships journey included port stops everywhere from the Cape Verde Islands and Melbourne to Hong Kong and Yokohama. More often than not, however, its horizons were little more than a rolling, briny blue: a plumbless infinity to be registered and recorded. The voyage was almost inconceivably long, but by the time the Challenger finally arrived back in the UK, on a spring day in May 1876, it was carrying a cargo of scientific contributions that even today continues to shape our understanding of the seas.

But it was more than just a great leap for academia. In the long-term, it was also a voyage that celebrated the oceans and highlighted the rewards of patient sea travel. In his book Endless Novelties of Extraordinary Interest: The Voyage of HMS Challenger and the Birth of Modern Oceanography, author Doug MacDougall includes the writings of one of the ships sub-lieutenants, George Campbell. They give an example of just why, perhaps, the Challengers much-journeyed figurehead, now eternally marooned in Southampton, still stares ahead so intently:

On the night of the 14th the sea was most gloriously phosphorescent, to a degree unequalled in our experience. Astern of the ship glowed a broad band of blue, emerald-green light, myriads of yellow sparkswhich glittered and sparkled against the brilliant cloud below Ahead of the ship, where the old bluff bows of the Challenger went ploughing and churning through the sea, there was light enough to read the smallest print with ease. It was as if the Milky Way, as seen through a telescope, scattered in millions like glittering dust, had dropped down on the ocean, and we were sailing through it.

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Life at sea is sometimes monotonous, sometimes challenging, and always memorable. These sometimes conflicting impulses are certainly well documented in Indian River author and longtime salt Lon Calloways new book Salty.

Calloway, a Well-Seasoned Seadog, is a longtime captain and crewmember, having sailed throughout the United States and beyond on a long list of vessels, from tugboats to ore freighters, and even Mackinac Island ferries.

Salty is the compilation of Calloways regularly raucous, periodically harrowing, and always entertaining stories originally penned to share with family.

For years Id be entertaining my family and friends with sea stories, Calloway says from his part-time home in Sault Ste. Marie, near the famous Soo Locks. And theyd say youve got to write these down.

Eventually he wrote out his stories, sharing them at a family cottage in Wisconsin. Calloways cousin Jill Loree brought her publishing experience to the book, compiling and arranging the stories to highlight the sometimes monotonous, sometimes life-changing experiences of his high seas adventures.

Out of high school, Calloway intended a career in teaching, spending three years at Michigan State University before enrolling at the Great Lakes Maritime Academy in Traverse City. He soon left there for the Coast Guard, however, in part because they promised duty in Alaska, something he considered a gift, but which he soon learned others considered a penal colony.

Calloways first shipboard job actually came when he was still a college student, when he took a brief stint as porter on the Irving S. Olds, a 625-foot iron ore carrier, part of the U.S. Steel fleet. In his chapter on Greenhorn Blues, he explains that when he first boarded the ship, I was frozen in place, mouth agape, watching the hustle and bustle around me.

He soon knew a proud moment on the Olds came when he showed John, a fellow crew member, the Monkey Fist knot he worked hard to perfect, which was tight as a bankers heart and pretty as a mermaids smile.

Calloway soon realized there was more to the shipping life than working for the same company or crewing on the same boat season after season, so he carved a career instead as a relief. He took temporary assignments when and where he could, which included captaining a Mackinac Island ferry boat, sailing first mate on an Alabama tugboat, and many more too.

To be successful at that game, you had to maintain and create a relationship with a dispatcher with all these different unions, he explains. They had to know I would accept a bad job every now and then to get a good job. He says good jobs included working on a university research vessel in Hawaii.

There are disadvantages to a life at sea as well, Calloway admits. The tradeoff is missing a lot of family events, he says. As well, Everybody out there was divorced; it was an occupational hazard, he adds. Sailing relief allowed a bit of a hedge from this downside, however. I was fortunate that as a relief guy I was able to maintain more of a family life, he says.

Over a career that spanned more than 40 years, Calloway says there were many interesting crewmates as well, though some who are memorable for all the wrong reasons. In his chapter One Flew Out of the Cuckoos Nest, he explains how many times you discover youre trapped on a steel island with guys who should be in a mental asylum, such as Stevie, who was certain other crew members were stealing his mail.

Because he more than pulled his weight on deck, the crew overlooked the tinfoil lining in his helmet and his constant efforts to convince whoever he could corner that aliens walk among us, Calloway explains. When Stevie informed the FBI about the imagined mail hijacking, however, the tables turned and the Feds concluded, We found the squeaky wheel on this bus.

In addition to the Calloways colorful tales, he uses the Appendix to include some of the emails he once exchanged with a fifth grade class in Salisbury, Maryland as part of the Adopt-A-Ship campaign sponsored by the Propeller Club of America. Here he tells students about traveling the Great Lakes and visiting such spots as the Welland Canal and the Soo Locks.

From the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of Alaska, Hawaii and beyond, Calloway says he enjoyed a career that allowed for flexibility and adventure. I loved the novelty, he says. It was so much fun for me; I still miss it.

Excerpt from:

High seas adventures and hilarity all part of 'Salty' - Petoskey News-Review

A third of the worlds fish stocks are overfished and another nearly 60 percent cannot sustain any increases in fishing. Despite the critical role that key species play in marine ecosystems and the billions of dollars they generate for the global economy, there are inadequate rules in placeparticularly governing high seas fisheriesto ensure that catch levels are sustainable. Where rules do exist, gaps in oversight allow unscrupulous operators to illegally traffic in valuable catch, and penalties are minimal if they are caught.

It is time for a change. An improved system of rules and consequences would ensure that fisheries are sustainably managed and help governments better address illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing. All participants in the fisheries economyfrom individual vessel owners to government officials and fisheries managersmust work together to improve oversight, from the time a vessel leaves port to the final point of sale.

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Global Fisheries Need Better Governance to Sustain Key Stocks - The Pew Charitable Trusts