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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.
Research for the new study was conducted only on the two islands. But across the world each year, up to 14,000 tons of sunscreen lotions are discharged into coral reef, and much of it “contains between 1 and 10 percent oxybenzone,” the authors said. They estimate that places at least 10 percent of reefs at risk of high exposure, judging from how reefs are located in popular tourism areas.
Sounds like "as long as I get my wants met, the short time I'm on this planet, screw future generations" attitude
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How we are all contributing to the destruction of coral reefs: Sunscreen
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.
Research for the new study was conducted only on the two islands. But across the world each year, up to 14,000 tons of sunscreen lotions are discharged into coral reef, and much of it “contains between 1 and 10 percent oxybenzone,” the authors said. They estimate that places at least 10 percent of reefs at risk of high exposure, judging from how reefs are located in popular tourism areas.
Discuss...
**************please familiarize yourself w/ the Environment sub-forum rules before posting mkay thanks
(IOW- NO TROLLING)
ok, that's just the impression I got.Sounds like "as long as I get my wants met, the short time I'm on this planet, screw future generations" attitude
Sent from my BN NookHD+ using Tapatalk
Must be nice to be perched in the Holier Than Thou throne all the time. .Did I say that I LIKED to pollute pristine beaches and enviros? Used to be lifeguard in Florida.. I HATE sunscreen. But I sold TONS of it to make dating money... And to keep from scraping tourists off of deck lounges and putting them in ambulances at the end of the day..
"contributing factor" Ever heard of that term? If not, do a web search.How we are all contributing to the destruction of coral reefs: Sunscreen
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.
Research for the new study was conducted only on the two islands. But across the world each year, up to 14,000 tons of sunscreen lotions are discharged into coral reef, and much of it “contains between 1 and 10 percent oxybenzone,” the authors said. They estimate that places at least 10 percent of reefs at risk of high exposure, judging from how reefs are located in popular tourism areas.
Discuss...
**************please familiarize yourself w/ the Environment sub-forum rules before posting mkay thanks
(IOW- NO TROLLING)
What? You mean it isn't global warming as we have all been told for so long? That's funny. Whenever a claim is made for global warming, very soon a real scientist comes along and finds out that it wasn't global warming at all and some other agent.
Thanks for posting this!
Research for the new study was conducted only on the two islands. But across the world each year, up to 14,000 tons of sunscreen lotions are discharged into coral reef, and much of it “contains between 1 and 10 percent oxybenzone,” the authors said. They estimate that places at least 10 percent of reefs at risk of high exposure, judging from how reefs are located in popular tourism areas.
more from the study:
How we are all contributing to the destruction of coral reefs: Sunscreen
Research for the new study was conducted only on the two islands. But across the world each year, up to 14,000 tons of sunscreen lotions are discharged into coral reef, and much of it “contains between 1 and 10 percent oxybenzone,” the authors said. They estimate that places at least 10 percent of reefs at risk of high exposure, judging from how reefs are located in popular tourism areas.
Ooooooohhhh so regulating human activity is a good way to protect the reefs? Who would have fucking thunk it.From the abstract to the paper referenced in the article..
Toxicopathological Effects of the Sunscreen UV Filter, Oxybenzone (Benzophenone-3), on Coral Planulae and Cultured Primary Cells and Its Environmental Contamination in Hawaii and the U.S. Virgin Islands - Online First - Springer
The LC50 of planulae exposed to oxybenzone in the light for an 8- and 24-h exposure was 3.1 mg/L and 139 µg/L, respectively. The LC50s for oxybenzone in darkness for the same time points were 16.8 mg/L and 779 µg/L. Deformity EC20 levels (24 h) of planulae exposed to oxybenzone were 6.5 µg/L in the light and 10 µg/L in darkness. Coral cell LC50s (4 h, in the light) for 7 different coral species ranges from 8 to 340 µg/L, whereas LC20s (4 h, in the light) for the same species ranges from 0.062 to 8 µg/L. Coral reef contamination of oxybenzone in the U.S. Virgin Islands ranged from 75 µg/L to 1.4 mg/L, whereas Hawaiian sites were contaminated between 0.8 and 19.2 µg/L. Oxybenzone poses a hazard to coral reef conservation and threatens the resiliency of coral reefs to climate change.
LC50 and LC20 refer to the concentrations that kill 50% or 20% of the test specimens..
The tip-off here is the HUGE RANGE that they "found" in the US Virgin Isl..
To go from 75uG/L to 1.4mG/L is a huge range. And my bet is -- those largest concentrations --- if accurate, where taken in small ISOLATED areas where tourists rent snorkels and fins and float over a small portion of reef.
Situations like that are EASILY remedied by requiring showers before renting the gear and advising on wearing tee shirts or other covering instead. I'll bet a big one that those readings that are high enough represent EXTREMELY tiny portions of coral reef habitat..
