Stay cool this summer with the latest research summaries and sustainability tips!
JULY 4: RESEARCH SUMMARY - DEEP WATER, DEEP PROBLEMS
You may have heard of shark liver oil, or squalene, before - shark liver oil is used in a variety of products from cosmetics to health supplements.
Deepwater sharks have more squalene in their livers than their coastal counterparts, making them a more ideal target for liver-oil fisheries. Unfortunately, a recent analysis has revealed that about half of all deepwater sharks and rays are threatened with extinction, and their potential for recovery is much lower than shallow-water species due to their slow growth and other factors.
JULY 9: SUSTAINABILITY TIP - SKIP THE SQUALANE
Like other complex issues, there is no one-size-fits-all solution to overfishing deepwater sharks and rays. More specific trade and fishing regulations are one way to minimize the risk to deepwater sharks and rays. You can reach out to your government representatives and ask them to support fishing and trade policies or sign petitions relevant to your country!
Another option is to check your products for squalene, which is likely listed as squalane (the hydrogenated version of squalene). There are plant sources of squalene, such as olives, but it can be impossible to tell from an ingredients list if a product’s squalane is from shark liver or plants. If a product is 100% vegan, you can reasonably assume the squalane is plant-derived but if not, don’t be afraid to ask a company directly!
JULY 31: RESEARCH SUMMARY - A NEW KIND OF LIFE
There are entire ecosystems that exist so deep in the ocean that the cornerstone nutrient cycles supporting them are no longer light-based! Their nutrients come from deep sea vents, which are sort of like extreme hot springs on the ocean floor.
There is life on the bottom of the sea that is COMPLETELY disconnected from all of the life cycles we are familiar with. To understand just how wild this is, up until the late 1970s, we thought that ALL life was light based. The bottom of the food tree is plants, which require light to undergo photosynthesis. However, in 1977, scientists discovered areas at the bottom of the ocean, which is otherwise nearly freezing, that spiked to nearly 750 degrees F. W\ith this discovery, we learned that there are bacteria converting the toxic minerals coming out of these vents into usable forms of energy through a process called chemosythesis, providing food for other unique and rare deep sea organisms
AUGUST 4: SUSTAINABILITY TIP - IT'S DANGEROUS TO GO ALONE (LET'S JUST NOT GO)
The deep sea is facing increasing threats from humans and the greatest concern is the potential use of these areas for commercial mineral extraction of massive sulfide deposits in the Area Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ). Future extraction efforts will likely take place at inactive vents, but current exploration encompasses all sites. Only 16 of the 258 currently known active vents in the ABNJ are under conservation interventions.
Very little is understood about the ramifications of deep sea mining, which is all the more reason we ought to prevent it. Head over to https://defendthedeep.org to contact your representatives and support a moratorium of deep sea mining.
AUGUST 12: RESEARCH SUMMARY - REPAIRING RELATIONSHIPS
Marine social science is an emerging field of study that looks at the complexities of human-ocean relationships with the goal of influencing evidence-based policy and environmental management to better conserve and protect marine resources. It’s a growing field where understanding important ocean issues serves as a vital base for making true change in today’s political world. Marine social science could be our ticket to making blue economy a reality!
AUGUST 12: SUSTAINABILITY TIP - USE YOUR VOICE
Want to make real life changes in our policy around ocean economics? Don’t be afraid to speak up! Get involved in politics, call you local legislator, sign petitions, and have those tough conversations with friends, family, and even strangers. You never know when you might inspire someone to care about the ocean as much as you do! (:
AUGUST 19: RESEARCH SUMMARY - WATTS IN A NAME
Scientists are working to understand what the electricity demands and carbon footprint of millions of users globally using AI could be. This is complicated because not all AI models are created equal. Some are simpler models designed for a single task, such as the AI that corrects spelling and grammar mistakes in an email. Others, like ChatGPT, are much more complicated and designed to perform a wide range of tasks. Because of the increased complexity of larger models, they require more energy to perform the same task that a simpler model can, and even among different models designed to perform the same task, some are more energy efficient than others. All of this makes it difficult to estimate the energy needed to power a day in the AI age. What scientists do know for sure so far is that any kind of generative task, such as creating an image based on a prompt or writing an essay to answer a question, takes many times more energy than non-generative tasks, like correcting spelling. A great example of this from Luccioni and Strubell is that per 1000 uses, the most efficient text generation model uses as much energy as 9% of a full smartphone charge, while the least efficient image generation model uses as much energy as 522 smartphone charges, or around half a charge per image generation
RESEARCH: Power Hungry Processing: Watts Driving the Cost of AI Deployment? Luccioni & Strubell, 2024.
AUGUST 19: SUSTAINABILITY TIP - WATT TO DO
Although it’s still difficult to get exact numbers on how much more energy intensive using AI is compared to a regular Google search, it is clear that using AI to create works of art or text uses a lot more energy. Global energy demand is expected to double in the next two years, in large part due to AI, and not all of this demand can be met by clean energy production. Although you likely can’t escape AI entirely, you can help reduce your energy demand by thinking twice before using AI to create images, write a recipe for you, or do your homework. It’s also good to consider if you really need that new gadget with built in AI, considering how much energy it uses.
AUGUST 28: RESEARCH SUMMARY - RECYCLE SYMBOL
The recycle symbol♻️on plastic was placed there by the plastic industry to make folks feel ok about using their products, but they have always understood their products will end up in landfills. In fact, that’s how they get their money. The industry has not only put lots of money into our politics, but also into propaganda materials like commercials to sway the public’s perception of plastic.
RESEARCH: “Recycling, Is it BS?” How to Save a Planet Podcast. Deia Schlosberg, Sarah Paiji Yoo, Alex Bloomberg. June 2021.
SEPTEMBER 4: SUSTAINABILITY TIP - TAKE ACTION
What can you do today to hold the plastic industry accountable? For true change, we need laws that ban companies from including unnecessary single use plastics. But that may take a while, so in the meantime, choose a drink that comes in an aluminum can or a glass bottle. Doing so not only reduces plastic entering our oceans, but also reduces the amount of carbon emissions entering our atmosphere and warming our planet. And then make sure to recycle the aluminum or glass!
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