All posts tagged: barrier

Japan’s Mount Fuji barrier delayed

Japan’s Mount Fuji barrier delayed

Published by skeptic

The barrier made of netting is meant to measure 2.5m by 20m and the requisite poles have been in place since early May. Lawson issued a statement on Sunday to “deeply apologise to the local residents, store customers, and the many other people who have been inconvenienced and troubled” by the popularity of the vantage point. The convenience store chain said it had “dispatched staff from Lawson headquarters” and “put up signs, in multiple languages, stating that crossing the street in front of the store is prohibited.” It is also considering deploy private security staff. Record numbers of overseas tourists are travelling to Japan, where monthly visitors exceeded three million in March for the first time. But as in other tourist hotspots, this has not been universally welcomed. In Kyoto, locals have complained of tourists harassing the city’s famed geisha. Meanwhile, hikers using the most popular route to climb Mount Fuji this summer will be charged US$13 each, with numbers capped to ease congestion and improve safety. Source link

Driver dies after crashing into security barrier around the White House complex, authorities say

Driver dies after crashing into security barrier around the White House complex, authorities say

Published by skeptic

WASHINGTON — A driver died after a vehicle crashed into an outer perimeter gate of the White House complex, and the incident late Saturday was being investigated as a traffic crash, police said. President Joe Biden was spending the weekend in Delaware, and the Secret Service said there was no threat to the White House. The male driver, who was not immediately identified, was found dead in the vehicle following the crash shortly before 10:30 p.m., according to a Secret Service statement. The Metropolitan Police Department said the vehicle crashed into a security barrier at the intersection of 15th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW. Police were called to the scene at 10:46 p.m. and said one adult male was pronounced dead from the crash into a security barrier around the complex. The Secret Service said security protocols were put in place and that there was no threat to the White House. The Secret Service and police will continue to investigate. Source link

A Driver Dies After Crashing Into a Security Barrier Around the White House Complex, Authorities Say

A Driver Dies After Crashing Into a Security Barrier Around the White House Complex, Authorities Say

Published by skeptic

WASHINGTON (AP) — A driver died after a vehicle crashed into an outer perimeter gate of the White House complex, and the incident late Saturday was being investigated as a traffic crash, police said. President Joe Biden was spending the weekend in Delaware, and the Secret Service said there was no threat to the White House. The male driver, who was not immediately identified, was found dead in the vehicle following the crash shortly before 10:30 p.m., according to a Secret Service statement. The Metropolitan Police Department said the vehicle crashed into a security barrier at the intersection of 15th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW. Police were called to the scene at 10:46 p.m. and said one adult male was pronounced dead from the crash into a security barrier around the complex. The Secret Service said security protocols were put in place and that there was no threat to the White House. The Secret Service and police will continue to investigate. Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, …

Great Barrier Reef’s worst bleaching leaves giant coral graveyard: ‘It looks as if it has been carpet bombed’ | Great Barrier Reef

Great Barrier Reef’s worst bleaching leaves giant coral graveyard: ‘It looks as if it has been carpet bombed’ | Great Barrier Reef

Published by skeptic

Beneath the turquoise waters off Heron Island lies a huge, brain-shaped Porites coral that, in health, would be a rude shade of purplish-brown. Today that coral outcrop, or bommie, shines snow white. Prof Terry Hughes, a coral bleaching expert at James Cook University, estimates this living boulder is at least 300 years old. “If that thing had eyes it could have looked up and watched Captain Cook sail past,” he says, back on the pristine beach of this speck of an island 80km offshore at the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef. It is not just Heron’s grand old bommie that is freshly bleached. The surrounding tangle of staghorn corals, or Acropora, are splashed in swathes of white, or painted a dappled mosaic of greens and browns that betray the algae and seaweeds growing over the freshly killed coral. Hughes estimates 90% of those branching corals are dead or dying. Terry Hughes inspects the coral around the Heron Island research station Snorkelling above these blighted coral thickets evokes the imagery of forests annihilated by …

Public urged to join fight for Australia’s Great Barrier Reef

Public urged to join fight for Australia’s Great Barrier Reef

Published by skeptic

sydney —  Analysis of more than 25,000 images from divers, tourism operators and recreational boats on Australia’s annual Great Reef Census is getting under way. Now in its fourth year, one of the world’s fastest-growing conservation projects is helping to gauge the health and degradation of the world’s largest coral system, which is suffering from another mass bleaching event. The Great Reef Census collects a trove of images of what is arguably Australia’s greatest natural treasure. Each picture can contain vital information about the health of the Great Barrier Reef. Together, the images create a vital evaluation of the state of the ecosystem. The barrier reef stretches for 2,300 kilometers down Australia’s northeastern coast. It is under increasing threat from global warming, pollution and overfishing, as well as coral-eating crown of thorns starfish. The surveillance project is urging so-called citizen scientists around the world to help in the analysis of the images. The survey also uses artificial intelligence to scan much of the data. The public is being asked to analyze the images to see …

Culling predatory starfish conserves coral on the Great Barrier Reef

Culling predatory starfish conserves coral on the Great Barrier Reef

Published by skeptic

A diver injecting vinegar into a crown-of-thorns starfish as part of the culling programme CSIRO A culling programme has succeeded in protecting key areas of the Great Barrier Reef from voracious coral-eating starfish. Scientists who analysed the outcome say the effort should be expanded to conserve more of the reef. Crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS) are relentless feeders on nearly all species of coral within Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Each starfish can reach 1 metre in diameter and eat 10 square metres of coral reef each year. The starfish are native to the reef, but it is thought increasing nutrients pouring into the reef’s waters from agriculture and other human factors have increased their numbers and worsened the destruction of corals. Between 1985 and 2012, they accounted for 40 per cent of the region’s coral loss. During a major reef-wide eruption of the starfish between 2012 and 2022, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority carried out a large-scale culling programme. Teams of divers inject the starfish with a single shot of either vinegar or ox bile, …

Most of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is suffering from coral bleaching

Most of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is suffering from coral bleaching

Published by skeptic

Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is experiencing one of its worst bleaching events since monitoring began nearly four decades ago, authorities say, with much of the famed reef showing signs of damage as warming ocean temperatures blight reefs worldwide. Bleaching occurs when heat-stressed coral turn white after expelling symbiotic algae that provide food and color. It’s a result of abnormal ocean temperatures in the past year that scientists worry could represent a major change to Earth systems. In the Great Barrier Reef marine park, 73 percent of the reefs surveyed have prevalent bleaching — which means that more than 10 percent of the coral cover is bleached, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, which manages the area, said Wednesday. Very high and extreme bleaching was observed across nearly 40 percent of the reef system. “Climate change is the greatest threat to the Great Barrier Reef, and coral reefs globally,” said Roger Beeden, the authority’s chief scientist. “The Great Barrier Reef is an incredible ecosystem, and while it has shown its resilience time and time again, …

Extreme coral bleaching could spell worst summer on record for Great Barrier Reef, authority says | Great Barrier Reef

Extreme coral bleaching could spell worst summer on record for Great Barrier Reef, authority says | Great Barrier Reef

Published by skeptic

The Great Barrier Reef is in the midst of what could be its worst summer on record with a widespread and extreme coral bleaching event coming on top of floods, two cyclones and outbreaks of coral-eating starfish, according to an official Australian government report. The “summer snapshot” report released by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and the Australian Institute of Marine Science said: “Compared [with] previous summers, cumulative impacts have been much higher this summer and a widespread bleaching event is still unfolding.” The report says 39% of 1,080 individual reefs surveyed from the air had experienced either very high (61-90% coral cover bleached) or extreme (more than 90%) levels of bleaching. Such high levels had been observed on reefs in all three regions of the park, which is a world heritage-listed natural wonder, but the most heat stress had occurred in the south. The reef marine park, covering an area the size of Italy and including 3,000 individual reefs, is in the middle of a fifth mass bleaching in only eight years …

Aerial video shows mass coral bleaching on Great Barrier Reef amid global heat stress event – video | Environment

Aerial video shows mass coral bleaching on Great Barrier Reef amid global heat stress event – video | Environment

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Scientists have recorded widespread bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef as global heating creates a fourth planet-wide bleaching event. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Coral Reef Watch, 54% of ocean waters containing coral reefs have been experiencing heat stress high enough to cause bleaching ► Subscribe to Guardian Australia on YouTube Source link