Brace Yourself for the Next Environmental "Crisis"

[InTheLight]

The sunscreen that snorkelers, beachgoers and children romping in the waves lather on for protection is killing coral and reefs around the globe. And a new study finds that a single drop in a small area is all it takes for the chemicals in the lotion to mount an attack.

The study, released Tuesday, was conducted in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Hawaii several years after a chance encounter between a group of researchers on one of the Caribbean beaches, Trunk Bay, and a vendor waiting for the day’s invasion of tourists. Just wait to see what they’d leave behind, he told the scientists – “a long oil slick.” His comment sparked the idea for the research.

Not only did the study determine that a tiny amount of sunscreen is all it takes to begin damaging the delicate corals — the equivalent of a drop of water in a half-dozen Olympic-sized swimming pools — it documented three different ways that the ingredient oxybenzone breaks the coral down, robbing it of life-giving nutrients and turning it ghostly white.

Yet beach crowds aren’t the only people who add to the demise of the coral reefs found just off shore. Athletes who slather sunscreen on before a run, mothers who coat their children before outdoor play and people trying to catch some rays in the park all come home and wash it off.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...een-protects-humans-it-massacres-coral-reefs/
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How this will all tie together?

1. We wouldn't need as much sunscreen if there wasn't a thinning ozone layer.
2. If we weren't so vain we wouldn't mind prematurely aging skin from UV exposure.
3. Because of global warming climate change, we wouldn't need to relieve ourselves of the incessant heat by going swimming.

So, it's all our fault. We are destroying the planet. Blah, blah, blah. etc. etc.

I'm not seeing a way that the oil companies will be blamed. Can someone help me out?

 

[dyanmarie25]

I think each one of us has somehow contributed to pollution and global warming. No one is to be blamed but ourselves, but instead of trying to look for the person who's at fault here, let us just try to save the planet earth in our own simple way.

 

[pwarbi]

The world seems to lurch from one global, environmental crisis to another, but in our day to day lives, we don't really seem to be affected. Maybe that's why people don't take it seriously? Maybe it's because we get sick of being told what we should and shouldn't be doing, either way in a few months time there will be another report coming out, telling us there's something else wrong with the world and its all our fault.

 

[just-want-peace]

The world seems to lurch from one global, environmental crisis to another, but in our day to day lives, we don't really seem to be affected. Maybe that's why people don't take it seriously? Maybe it's because we get sick of being told what we should and shouldn't be doing, either way in a few months time there will be another report coming out, telling us there's something else wrong with the world and its all our fault.

Chicken Little is alive and well. Sift all her pronouncements through a common sense filter.
Man is NOT as powerful (good OR bad) as the chicken littles want you to think.

 

[poncho]