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posted by janrinok on Thursday October 22 2015, @12:19PM   Printer-friendly
from the we-are-bad-for-the-world dept.

The sunscreen that snorkelers, beachgoers and children romping in the waves lather on for protection is killing coral and reefs around the globe. And a new study finds that a single drop in a small area is all it takes for the chemicals in the lotion to mount an attack.

Not only did the study determine that a tiny amount of sunscreen is all it takes to begin damaging the delicate corals – the equivalent of a drop of water in a half-dozen Olympic-sized swimming pools – it documented three ways that the ingredient oxybenzone breaks the coral down, robbing it of life-giving nutrients and turning it ghostly white.

Adverse effects on coral started on with concentrations as low as 62 parts per trillion. Yet measurements of oxybenzone in seawater within coral reefs in Hawaii and the U.S. Virgin Islands found concentrations ranging from 800 parts per trillion to 1.4 parts per million. That's 12 times the concentrations needed to harm coral.

Oxybenzone is used in more than 3,500 sunscreen products worldwide. Common brands including Coppertone, Baby Blanket Faces, L'Oreal Paris, Hawaiian Tropic and Banana Boat all use the Oxy.

There are alternative sunscreens with no oxybenzone. The trouble is that nobody really knows about this threat to the reefs, and they take a fair bit of convincing.

This story appeared in the Portland Press Herald


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 23 2015, @09:03AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 23 2015, @09:03AM (#253543)

    I am a person of european (ha ha! you're a peon. inferiority and hierarchy at the very core of our self identity, okay, okay, my ancestors hail from the caucus region, have a decent spicing of neanderthal blood and suffer from many congenital defects and a shortened life span, the result of a lot of inbreeding and spending too much time living in caves cohabiting with dogs) origin living in a hot place in the sothern hemisphere. I have very pale skin. When I was a kid I used to burn, you know whenever I forgot to cover up with sunscreen ;)

    Since I was a teen, I won't touch sunscreen.

    I make sure I get lots of sun every day. If the winter is mild, which it usually is, I keep as much skin exposed all year round as I can. I never burn anymore, I'm not even that tan but I can sit or work in the sun from morning until night and not burn. I can do it here or in the bushveld or at the beach. In a train or on a plain, in a house (with no roof, you get them around here) and with a mouse, you know I CAN STAND UP IN THE FIRE and NEVER GET BURNED.

    The two secrets are, like I said constant exposure to keep the MELANIN up and HYDRATION.

    Just like when you're frying something in the pan, it doesn't start to crisp until sufficient moisture has evaporated from it. The same with your skin! I drink beer or orange juice (and whiskey) constantly when I am outside. The sugars and alcohols are great for synthesizing nutrients from the sun in that precious chemical factory which we casually like to call our skin and the WATER keeps everything going at a perfect SIZZLE so the sun don't burn it just provides the ENERGY for the CHEMICAL REACTIONS essential to LIFE.

    Drinking in the sun at 9am in the morning? You think I might have a problem? It's less of a problem than skin cancer innit?

    White people already suffer from chronic lack of calcium and vitamin D deficiency because our melanin lacking skin (this is an inbred defect, not an optimization for cold weather, but that is a different story) cannot properly synthesize vitamin D (and all sorts of other things) properly from the sun.

    The last thing you want to do when you are already lacking the ability to properly synthesize those life giving nutrients is to put another additional (weird and funky) chemical barrier between you and those life giving rays.

    How little do you trust your god that you think he would make your own sun hostile to you? Trust those rays and you will get melanin.

    Suncream is a con. It is a plot, an illusion. Just drink lots of beer and get a lot of sun. You'll be fine. :D