Tag Archives: submarine

Truck-sized jellyfish and submarine dives

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Biologist Kirk Sato embarks on submarine dives in the Arctic

Watching the Esperanza move across the horizon of the Bering Sea, I realized I was about to embark on an experience of a lifetime. However, my training at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and more recently the research cruise, San Diego Coastal Expedition, prepared me for the field research I was about to conduct with Greenpeace in Pribilof Canyon.

In 2007, a research team led by John Hocevar (Greenpeace) set out to explore Zemchung and Pribilof Canyons for the first time with submersible technology. During these scientific dives, video recordings and collected samples were analyzed by expert biologists around the world. This process was repeated at 36 sites, a new species of sponge was discovered, and new ecological associations were found. Video footage of habitats rich with biodiversity and of unremarkable complexity were documented. We are now exploring the sites missed in 2007 to get a more complete picture of the canyon’s gems. Continue reading →

Our campaign to save the Arctic is just beginning

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The crew of the Greenpeace ship Esperanza in the Bering Sea

As the Esperanza’s tour ends (see our summary and video below), our campaign to save the Arctic is just beginning. Activists around the world have challenged Shell, from its corporate headquarters in the Hague and Houston to gas stations in London and beyond. Supporters all around the world are using social media to expose Shell’s multi-billion dollar Arctic hoax.

Listen to our podcast: Save the Arctic from Shell Oil

This is a global challenge, as the oil industry’s record in the Russian Arctic makes clear; tons of oil are spilled on land each year, and every 18 months more than four million barrels spews into the Arctic Ocean – nearly as much as BP spilled in the Gulf of Mexico. As other oil companies seek to exploit the melting sea ice and begin drilling in Arctic waters, we know we need a global movement to draw a line in the ice and protect this fragile region. More than a million people have come together calling for a global sanctuary in the high Arctic, and a ban on offshore drilling and unsustainable fishing in Arctic waters, and more are joining every day.

Be one of them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNLDDaTslH0&feature=youtu.be

Message from the Arctic: Drilling Disaster Awaits

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I stepped on to the Esperanza, Greenpeace’s ice class A ship, this past weekend for the first time. It will be my home for the next two months, a home that will travel with me as I do this work I feel is so necessary, important enough to leave my beloved family for such a long time. I am heading up to the Arctic to draw a line in the ice, and to say No to Shell as they prepare to drill for greater profits in the Arctic. I know drilling in the Arctic won’t affect the prices that you and I pay at the pump because they are set at a global level. This is about one of the richest companies in the world getting a few billion dollars richer. Continue reading →