Tag Archives: Iceland

Environment

Paul Watson: Activist, Pirate, Friend

interview with Rex Weyler (All 5 Podcasts of an FM radio special feature originally airing January 21 -25, 2025).

In December 2024, the environmental activist Paul Watson was freed by Danish authorities from detention in Greenland.  He had been held there due to an Interpol red-notice (warrant) issued against him by the government of Japan. The Danish Ministry of Justice denied official requests to extradite Watson for trial in Japan, and he was released to rejoin his family.

What did Paul Watson do that so angered the Japanese government?  Watson, born in Canada, has spent most of his adult life — ever since the 1970s — protesting against the commercial slaughter of whales and other marine mammals.  He was a founding member of Greenpeace, and participated in their early actions to document and obstruct the Russian whaling fleet in the North Pacific.   One of his shipmates on these early campaigns was longtime Cortes resident Rex Weyler.

In this special feature, we offer an extended interview with Rex Weyler; he offers his personal memories of the early Greenpeace campaigns and of Paul Watson, who became a lifelong friend.

Continue reading Paul Watson: Activist, Pirate, Friend →
Rivers & Oceans

Canada hopes to lure more nations into fighting illicit fishing on the high seas

National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Canada aims to tackle illegal international fishing and lead global commitments on marine protected areas with the close of the United Nations Ocean Conference last week. 

Joyce Murray, minister of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), headed a delegation at the five-day summit in Lisbon with a focus on sharing science and data to solve the ocean crisis driven by climate change, overfishing, biodiversity loss and pollution. 

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Rivers & Oceans

Looking down the throat of a Humpback Whale

Dr. Kelsey Gil is  a postdoctoral researcher at UBC’s department of zoology and the lead author of a paper published in Current Biology that literally peaks down the throat of a lunge whale.

Lunge feeding whales (humpbacks, blue whales and fin whales etc)   open their mouths as they accelerate towards their prey.

Continue reading Looking down the throat of a Humpback Whale →
Environment

Coastal carbon capture project aims to sink emissions in ocean floor and turn them to stone

National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

A team of scientists believes it has a “rock-solid” way to combat the climate crisis by sucking carbon out of the atmosphere and storing it deep below the ocean floor. 

The proposed Solid Carbon project aims to scrub vast amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air and inject it nearly three kilometres beneath the ocean’s surface into basalt aquifers where it will eventually transform into rock. 

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Politics

The World's Most Sustainable Nations

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If one accepts the findings of the  2019 Global Sustainable Competitiveness Index,  the age of colonial states and super powers is over. The World’s two largest economies, the United States and China, are ranked 34 and 37, respectively. Germany leads the G7 nations, but only places 15 overall. Only two non-European nations, New Zealand (12) and Canada (19) are in the top ten. The World’s most sustainable nations are Scandinavian.

Continue reading The World's Most Sustainable Nations →