climate change

Sea sponges. They’re not exactly the cuddliest of creatures. They don’t have eyes, limbs, ears, a mouth or even a brain. They can’t move and some of them look a bit like Wotsits.

What pops into your head if I suggested you buy an electric car? For most people, it conjures up a host of stereotypes.

Killing whales for food has been happening for millennia. But it was commercial whaling – turning whales into barrels of oil for profit – that led to the wholesale destruction of most of the world’s populations of big whales.

Delegations from global governments, and representatives from NGOs are currently on their way to Slovenia for the biennial meeting of the International Whaling Commission meeting – so here’s a quick synopsis of what to expect from the meeting:

In the ocean, plankton is food.

There are two types of plankton – tiny plants (phytoplankton) and tiny animals (zooplankton).

Zooplankton includes some eggs and larvae of things like fish and crabs, as well as some minute animals that feed on phytoplankton. That makes them the first link in any food chain, and the basis for all of the ocean’s food webs.