Alaska Beat

AK Beat: Lego will end Shell partnership following Greenpeace Arctic campaign

Lego dumps Shell after Greenpeace Arctic campaign: Danish toymaker Lego has agreed to end a partnership with Royal Dutch Shell, after a sustained campaign by Greenpeace, according to multiple reports. Greenpeace is targeting Shell in an effort to stop the British and Dutch conglomerate from drilling for oil in the Arctic -- including in offshore leases the company holds in Alaska's Beaufort and Chukchi seas. The company's efforts to drill in Alaska waters have been plagued with setbacks in recent years, but the company is hoping to resume drilling in 2015. Lego has made Shell-branded toys often sold at gas stations in a partnership that Britain's The Guardian notes dates back to the 1960s. Shell isn't the only company with such a partnership, the Wall Street Journal points out. A centerpiece of the Greenpeace campaign was a YouTube video simulating an Arctic oil spill with Lego figures. While Lego chose not to renew contracts with Shell, it also criticized Greenpeace for the use of its brand, and for not aiming its efforts mainly at the oil company, notes the U.K. edition of Wired.

What those narwhal tusks are really for: Darwin may have been right about narwhals all along. The English naturalist believed the iconic tusks prevalent in males were the result of sexual selection, but in the intervening years, a variety of other explanations for their purpose -- from the fanciful (a letter opener, in Moby Dick) to the complex (a salinity monitor) -- have been proposed. But according to new research, published in Marine Mammal Science and reported on by The Economist, Darwin's explanation seems increasingly likely. The researchers found the tusks functioned "to attract females and display male status, much like feathers on a peacock or antlers on a deer," The Economist reported "The team arrived at this conclusion after measuring the length of tusks and the weight of testes on male narwhals caught in an 11-year period ending in 2008. It seems that narwhals with big tusks were also well endowed at the other end." The Economist noted that the findings fit with observations supplied by Native groups who've traditionally hunted the whales: "Inuit say males with the biggest tusks lead whale pods and that tusking displays, when two males rub their tusks together, appear more playful than aggressive."

Report: Canada's government unprepared for Arctic navigation: A report released Tuesday by Canada's Environment Commissioner finds that the nation's relevant federal government agencies aren't prepared to support safe navigation within its Arctic waters, reports Nunavut-based Nunatsiaq Online. The report found inadequacies in Transport Canada, Environment Canada and Fisheries and Oceans Canada. Among the safety aspects the report criticized as inadequate were things "such as charting and hydrography, aids to navigation, weather and ice information, icebreaking, vessel detection, and ship design and construction standards," Nunatsiaq Online reported. "The report also found that no federal department has developed a coordinated strategy aimed at improving marine safety in the Arctic. Potential dangers posed by major fuel spills and damage to vessels, people and the environment are only likely to increase with more ship traffic, the audit suggests." According Nunatsiaq Online, about 100 small spills -- mostly diesel and gasoline -- have occurred in the Canadian Arctic from 2002 to 2013.

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