Educating the masses
U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska — whose state drives the country’s most bountiful fishing harvest, providing half the nation’s catch — spoke of the need for stable research funding and worried about food-web changes.
“If the little pteropods that are out there that the salmon gobble on leave us because of what’s going on with acidification … think about what that means for our fisheries industry,” Murkowski said during an oceans forum in D.C. “It is huge for the state of Alaska.”
For many, the chief barrier is ignorance.
In part that’s because acidification is fairly new and surfaced first in Washington and Oregon — far from the corridors of power.
“I think (acidification) is a real problem,” said Democratic Congressman Sam Farr, who co-chairs an ocean caucus. “But the first thing you have to do is educate people about what’s broken and needs fixing.”
Persuading politicians
Much of the easy work is already under way. Globally, the amount of CO2 from land-clearing or timber harvest has plummeted 25 percent as deforestation declined.
The European Union is moving to cut its CO2 emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. But emissions in China and India seem destined to rise. And while U.S. emissions fell in recent years as a result of the recession and a natural-gas boom, they rose again in 2013.
“Other than transforming our energy system, I’m not sure what we can do,” said Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist at Stanford University, who helped popularize the term “ocean acidification.”
“I think politicians are rational. Not until they feel that they’re going to lose votes for not acting will they start dealing with these issues. The real story is winning the hearts and minds of the average person and convincing them we have to stop using the sky as a sewer.”
mms://203.69.69.81/studio/20140806adafefc622c4ed4ac02c7c6e52d214f587b81a9cc5503c0f5c9bd17be8c0d6b7e2b.wma
Showing posts with label environment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label environment. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 6, 2014
Tuesday, August 5, 2014
[Advanced] The State of Our Oceans (2)
Change are coming
The list of ways acidification can impact the marine world keeps getting longer. There’s budding acceptance even by many commercial fishermen that it poses risks to jobs and their way of life.
It’s not that the solution is unclear.
If the goal is to substantially reduce acidification, CO2 emissions need to come down. If you want a more precise picture of what’s happening in the water, more money has to go toward research. Even if both happen soon, people who rely on the sea should prepare for a different world.
Some changes to marine life are coming whether we’re ready for them or not.
“The data show that we’re seeing the symptoms of acidification arrive and progress at a much faster rate than we would have expected even just a few years ago,” said Kathryn Sullivan, acting administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). “The longer-term consequence it presents is very, very daunting.”
A small start
Yet Congress thus far has taken only baby steps.
In 2009, it passed the Federal Ocean Acidification Research and Monitoring Act, pushed initially by the late Rep. Frank Lautenberg, then by Baird, then-Congressman Jay Inslee and Sen. Maria Cantwell.
It required an assessment of acidification’s impacts, put money toward marine monitoring to help the Northwest’s troubled oyster industry, and called on the National Science Foundation to pay for more research.
A team of ocean scientists detailed the need: “Once the program is fully engaged, $50 million to $100 million per year is considered the minimum if scientists are to provide useful information regarding how the oceans are responding,” they wrote in March 2009.
The act only authorized $14 million to $35 million a year.
Back then, the nation was mired in recession.
mms://203.69.69.81/studio/20140805adad1e364ce753ad575d9023dd75661fc8038bbfebb8975149e20576e3cdaeb45c5.wma
The list of ways acidification can impact the marine world keeps getting longer. There’s budding acceptance even by many commercial fishermen that it poses risks to jobs and their way of life.
It’s not that the solution is unclear.
If the goal is to substantially reduce acidification, CO2 emissions need to come down. If you want a more precise picture of what’s happening in the water, more money has to go toward research. Even if both happen soon, people who rely on the sea should prepare for a different world.
Some changes to marine life are coming whether we’re ready for them or not.
“The data show that we’re seeing the symptoms of acidification arrive and progress at a much faster rate than we would have expected even just a few years ago,” said Kathryn Sullivan, acting administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). “The longer-term consequence it presents is very, very daunting.”
A small start
Yet Congress thus far has taken only baby steps.
In 2009, it passed the Federal Ocean Acidification Research and Monitoring Act, pushed initially by the late Rep. Frank Lautenberg, then by Baird, then-Congressman Jay Inslee and Sen. Maria Cantwell.
It required an assessment of acidification’s impacts, put money toward marine monitoring to help the Northwest’s troubled oyster industry, and called on the National Science Foundation to pay for more research.
A team of ocean scientists detailed the need: “Once the program is fully engaged, $50 million to $100 million per year is considered the minimum if scientists are to provide useful information regarding how the oceans are responding,” they wrote in March 2009.
The act only authorized $14 million to $35 million a year.
Back then, the nation was mired in recession.
mms://203.69.69.81/studio/20140805adad1e364ce753ad575d9023dd75661fc8038bbfebb8975149e20576e3cdaeb45c5.wma
Monday, August 4, 2014
[Advanced] The State of Our Oceans (1)
In a fight against souring seas, even baby steps are difficult
When U.S. Rep. Brian Baird tried a few years ago to get his colleagues to put more money toward ocean-acidification research, few even understood the issue.
One congressman confused souring seas with acid rain, and asked, “Didn’t we deal with that 20 years ago?”
The corrosion of the oceans by carbon-dioxide emissions has barely made a ripple among Washington, D.C.’s power brokers. Little money gets earmarked for research. Ocean change has inspired few stabs at curbing CO2.
In fact, aside from West Coast lawmakers, few in Congress seem to grasp the scale of the challenge.
West Coast leads the way
So West Coast states, led by Washington state, are now forging ahead.
“This is a profound and unprecedented threat,” said Baird. “The existence of marine life as we know it could be profoundly changed by this. And we are scarcely attending to it.”
The oceans absorb ever more CO2 from cars and power plants, which is transforming the chemistry of the seas faster than at any time in previous years. That CO2 makes life hard for creatures with shells and skeletons and threatens to fundamentally transform the entire marine world.
Already, acidification has wiped out billions of oyster larvae in the Pacific Northwest and is causing trouble for tiny see-through creatures called pteropods, which are critical food for birds and fish. It poses risks for important sea life, including red king crab and many fish.
But since the source of acidification is also the chief culprit driving climate change — rising CO2 — efforts to respond at the national level get mired in global-warming politics.
So Washington state leaders are suggesting avenues for new research and are encouraging cleanup of polluted marine environments. They hope those steps will at least build resistance to acidification.
mms://203.69.69.81/studio/20140804ada88cc4ccc71805a9cc14a34fb7f1899219a65ffc7735b51536f8db28e8beec7ab.wma
When U.S. Rep. Brian Baird tried a few years ago to get his colleagues to put more money toward ocean-acidification research, few even understood the issue.
One congressman confused souring seas with acid rain, and asked, “Didn’t we deal with that 20 years ago?”
The corrosion of the oceans by carbon-dioxide emissions has barely made a ripple among Washington, D.C.’s power brokers. Little money gets earmarked for research. Ocean change has inspired few stabs at curbing CO2.
In fact, aside from West Coast lawmakers, few in Congress seem to grasp the scale of the challenge.
West Coast leads the way
So West Coast states, led by Washington state, are now forging ahead.
“This is a profound and unprecedented threat,” said Baird. “The existence of marine life as we know it could be profoundly changed by this. And we are scarcely attending to it.”
The oceans absorb ever more CO2 from cars and power plants, which is transforming the chemistry of the seas faster than at any time in previous years. That CO2 makes life hard for creatures with shells and skeletons and threatens to fundamentally transform the entire marine world.
Already, acidification has wiped out billions of oyster larvae in the Pacific Northwest and is causing trouble for tiny see-through creatures called pteropods, which are critical food for birds and fish. It poses risks for important sea life, including red king crab and many fish.
But since the source of acidification is also the chief culprit driving climate change — rising CO2 — efforts to respond at the national level get mired in global-warming politics.
So Washington state leaders are suggesting avenues for new research and are encouraging cleanup of polluted marine environments. They hope those steps will at least build resistance to acidification.
mms://203.69.69.81/studio/20140804ada88cc4ccc71805a9cc14a34fb7f1899219a65ffc7735b51536f8db28e8beec7ab.wma
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)