Update 8:52 am EST, 7/21: Howard Dryden reached out to me to express his dismay at having been misquoted by the Sunday Post, which should have reported a "90% reduction in marine plankton in the Equatorial Atlantic, not the whole Atlantic."
"The issue is that the findings are accurate and what is stated in the report are true. We are the first to identify the huge concentration of PCC, and the drop in Plankton. We are working with some academic institutes to prepare a formal peer reviewed report, but this takes time and I was so depressed by the results and the fact that we did not see a single whale or big fish, except for a few flying fish for 20 days at sea. This was the same for all the vessels and anyone now sailing in the equatorial Atlantic," Dryden told Ars.
"The results should of course be verified independently, and it should be opened up to proper debate. This may be one of the few chances we have and others to pick up the issues and deal with them. If we fail to act and eliminate PCC pollution, microplastics and for ever chemicals then we are all going to suffer," he wrote.
Read 11 remaining paragraphs | Comments
Ars TechnicaContinue reading/original-link]