Oil companies have known for more then 30 years that burning oil leads to climate change. They have intentionally distributed misleading information by hiring scientists to generate research that was denying the link between burning oil and climate change.

Milieudefensie is not the first organization that sues the oil companies because of their irresponsible behavior, the city of New York started a process against 5 oil companies. And Arnold Schwarzenegger even wants to sue them for murder.

Rogier Cox is the lawyer of Milieudefensie, he was also the lawyer of Urgenda in the climate case.

The Dutch standup comedian Ruben van der Meer is the first co-plaintiff in this lawsuit. Milieudefensie is calling on all Dutch citizens to join the lawsuit. They can register as a co-plaintiff via klimaatzaakshell.nl

Do not do it for us, do it for your children and / or grandchildren.

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Now the makers of The Blue Planet II have filmed a fish that takes a shellfish from outside the reef, goes back into its own territory and then hits the shell against a rock to break it. It is not easy at all without hands. It is the first time that a fish has been seen using a tool.

The series; The Blue Planet II can be seen on BBC. It is a very beautiful series, see and enjoy how beautiful the world is under water. In another episode they found corals that live at great depths in the ocean.

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Because of high temperatures fewer eggs come out and more female sea turtles are born. Because of more rain the temperature in the nest decreases, which stimulates the development of the embryos and at the same time makes it more difficult, because wet eggs are less permeable to oxygen. Global warming and more and heavier rainfall therefore have a negative influence on the chances of survival of sea turtles.

The sex of sea turtles is determined halfway through the incubation period. It differs per type and per region at which temperature males or females are born. For example, Hawksbill sea turtles (Caretta caretta) in the Caribbean Sea the chance of a male or female is 1 to 1 at a temperature of 29 degrees, with a margin of 2-3 degrees that both genders occur. Above 31 degrees only females are born, below 27 degrees only males (Ackerman 1997). If the forecast is that this century the temperature on earth rises 4 degrees, then climate change is a major threat to the survival of sea turtles. Research is currently being conducted into whether the male-female ratio is already shifting, by measuring the temperature in nests. It is also being investigated whether it is possible to determine the sex of the hatched young with the help of the embryonic fluid that remains in the eggs.

Many species of sea turtles are already under threat and are on the IUCN red list of endangered species. This is due to all sorts of other environmental factors: the disappearance of their living and food areas such as coral reefs and seagrass fields, the disappearance of (protected) beaches for nesting, legal and illegal fishing, by-catch in nets, and damage by propellers of shipping. Because sea turtles are migratory species, local protection is not sufficient and international cooperation is desperately needed to solve the bottlenecks as much as possible.

CoralGardening provides information and lectures about the importance of coral reefs as a habitat and food area for, among other things, turtles and aims for more protected sea areas. During our dives for taking protective measures, planting coral and monitoring the CoralGarden and the surrounding reefs, we record our observations of turtles and register them in the local database. This is then shared with regional and national governments, environmental organizations and universities. Sea turtles in the Gulf of Thailand and around Koh Tao, turtle island, are monitored and with citizen science better protective measures can be taken.

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Scientists have some African penguins equipped with cameras and analysed their behaviour. By hunting together, penguins are three times more effective than hunting individually. The researchers noticed that the birds were busy interacting on the surface, before hunting. From this behaviour, they suspect that the penguins discuss their tactics, before starting hunting as a group.

More information:

• The Royal Society
• New Scientist

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We do not know where the males and females meet. For a long time scientists thought that whale shark lay eggs. This is not the case, they are carrying their babies like humans. How long the females are pregnant and where they give birth is not known. Baby whale sharks can be 30 to 60 cm long at birth. In the past a female was found dead with 300 babies in her body.

There are several ongoing researches on these very beautiful animals. If you see a whale shark it is the requested to take a picture of both sides, preferably at least his/her left side and send it to www.whaleshark.org. The whale sharks dots and lines are unique, just like our fingerprint. At whaleshark.org they can see where the whale shark has been before or that it is a new one in their database. By researching their whereabouts, researchers try to map the migration behavior of the whale shark. Our first whale shark we saw in 2010 was not registered yet and is included in the database thanks to our photographs.

This year, Koh Tao has seen more whale sharks than ever before. How comes, nobody knows. This is being investigated and recorded by different organizations, including Koh Tao’s Facebook page: Koh Tao Whalesharks.

If you see a whale shark, you know what to do: enjoy it and take a photo from the left side and send it to whaleshark.org.

Please take notice of the Code of Conduct when approaching a whale shark:

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There are scientific studies that show that what we see as “simple” animals indeed show quite more intelligent behaviour. For example, fish have memory and can learn things. Lionfish hunt together, enclosing their prey with their pointy fins, and when caught divide it evenly among the participants of the hunt. As is the case with most animal species, the alpha male takes the largest share.

It is also discovered that ants in combat with other insects can and will save their wounded comrads on the battlefield, to increase their survival rate.

In short, animals often have special qualities that we rarely appreciate. We could deal with more respect with all the animals on earth.

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New species of fish, corals and other life forms are discovered almost daily, whether they live in the deeper parts of the ocean or closer to shore in reefs. Some time ago a new species of crab was discovered living just off the coasts of Indonesia and Malaysia. Sancia van der Meij, a researcher at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center, found this species during her time on site in Indonesia and Malaysia. It is called Lithoscaptus semperi, or Sempers gall crab.

If you want to get famous as an authentic wild life explorer and discoverer of species, try diving and marine research. There are still many secrets to uncover!

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