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marine life
The Ocean, Our Common Future: A Call For Legal Recognition
By sending a strong message to advance the rights of the Ocean everywhere in the world, the United Nations Ocean Conference would represent a historic turning point for the protection of marine life.
Jun 02, 2025
We, the undersigned associations and committed citizens, proclaim, as the United Nations Ocean Conference in Nice in June 2025 approaches, the necessity of recognizing and defending the fundamental rights of the Ocean. We call upon U.N. Member States to incorporate Ocean Rights in the Nice Ocean Action Declaration, to trigger a transformative change in our relationship with the Ocean.
Humans are part of the living community of the Planet. Thus, the future of humanity and the preservation of human rights are inseparably linked to the existence of marine species, which can only thrive in a healthy ocean.
The Ocean possesses intrinsic value, independent of its economic utility. A source of life and a cultural pillar for many coastal communities and Indigenous Peoples, it must be treated with respect.
In the face of the challenges ahead, we must be the guardians of the Ocean, the stewards of its integrity, the protectors of its biodiversity, the architects of its prosperity.
The living community of the Ocean and all marine beings have fundamental rights, including the right to exist, thrive, reproduce, and evolve in a healthy environment. Rights that do not oppose human rights, but complement them.
At the international level, progress is showing us the way. Constitutional advances in Ecuador for the protection of the rights of coastal marine ecosystems, the Galápagos, sharks mangroves; the law for the rights of the Mar Menor lagoon in Spain; the protection of the rights of sea turtles in Panama; and even a river in England, with many other pioneering victories of the movement across the world.
These steps mark a new horizon—that of an era of harmonious coexistence between humans and the Ocean. For the recognition of the existence and intrinsic value of all members of the community of the living, as well as their inalienable rights, constitutes the foundation of justice, stability, and peace in the world.
This is why we are calling for the inclusion of the rights of the Ocean in the Nice Declaration “Our Ocean, Our Future: Accelerating Action.”
By sending a strong message to advance the rights of the Ocean everywhere in the world, the United Nations Ocean Conference would represent a historic turning point for the protection of marine life and our common future, strengthening the agency of coastal communities, and helping put an end to projects and activities causing most harm to the health of the Ocean and to marine beings.
In the face of the challenges ahead, we must be the guardians of the Ocean, the stewards of its integrity, the protectors of its biodiversity, the architects of its prosperity.
We call on every person, organization, and public institution to support this proposal, to share it, and to join us by signing the petition, counting over 53,000 signatures already, for the rights of the Ocean. The future of the Ocean is the future of us all.
The authors of the Tribune:
Earth Law Center (U.S.), Longitude 181 (France), Ocean Vision Legal (U.S.) Vagues (La Réunion Island), Wild Legal (France), Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature (Ecuador), the Varda Group (Spain/Netherlands), and The Ocean Rights Coalition (U.K.).
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Trump’s Embrace of Plastic Straws Won’t Make America Healthy Again
The harmful effects of plastics on human health should be a primary concern for any administration that claims to value human life.
Feb 12, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent executive order, which reverses the push for paper straws in favor of plastic ones—based on the claim that paper straws don’t work (which, by the way, isn’t true)—is about way more than just straws. It is designed to undercut the Biden administration’s 2022 initiative to phase out single-use plastics, including straws, containers, and bottles, from federal buildings by 2032.
While the administration’s EO focus might seem to be shining a light on a seemingly trivial issue, it is a symptom of a much larger, and much more alarming problem: plastic pollution and its impact on all of us. Plastic is a human health crisis in the making and this decision is more than absurd—it’s actually dangerous.
Firstly, while banning plastic straws specifically is not all about saving turtles and trashing the ocean—we are in fact by using them helping to trash the oceans.
This decision to roll back a policy aimed at reducing plastic waste isn’t just a misguided nod to convenience—it’s a big win for Big Oil.
Plastics have become a pervasive pollutant with 8 million tonnes of plastic dumped in our oceans every single year, killing marine life, including whales and seabirds at an alarming rate. One million sea turtles alone die every year from ingesting plastic trash. That represents 10% of the entire global population.
Researchers estimate there are around 199 million tonnes of plastic contaminating our marine environment already, and every year we do not take action and instead back plastic, that number rises.
Much of this largely single-use plastic, like straws, eventually breaks down into microplastics, smaller than a grain of rice. So, when we eat fish, we are consuming all the plastic junk and chemicals they have been ingesting too.
Which might help to explain why scientists have found plastic particles in human brains, lungs, hearts, and even placentas. We are poisoning our own babies with plastics, even before they are born.
These microplastics are harmful in their own right but, they also leach out toxic plastic chemicals, like Bisphenol A and phthalates, both known endocrine disruptors. Exposure to these chemicals in early development can have lifelong effects on a child's health, from developmental delays to ADHD, autism, and increased risks of certain cancers. These chemicals are even linked to miscarriages and infertility.
We already know that babies and infants appear to be ingesting high levels of microplastics because a study by scientists from Trinity College, Dublin in Ireland discovered they had over 10 times higher rates of microplastics in their feces samples than adults.
From the moment we wake up to the time we go to sleep, we are being exposed to microplastics—whether through the food we eat, the water we drink, or the air we breathe.
The harmful effects of plastics on human health should be a primary concern for any administration that claims to value human life. So, the president’s focus on supporting plastic straws is worryingly indicative of a disregard for the growing scientific consensus on the dangers of microplastics and the chemicals used to make plastics in general.
This decision to roll back a policy aimed at reducing plastic waste isn’t just a misguided nod to convenience—it’s a big win for Big Oil. Why? Because plastics are made from petrochemicals, this order therefore supports the fossil fuel industry. An industry already wreaking havoc on our planet by fueling climate change.
If we are serious about safeguarding human health, we must shift away from our throwaway plastic culture that has dominated our society for decades. The impacts of plastic pollution on our health, and our babies’ too, are far-reaching and catastrophic. It's time for our leaders to prioritize the health of people, not the interests of the plastic industry.
As the debate over plastic straws continues, which it will, we need to refocus the conversation on the real, life-threatening dangers posed by plastic pollution. It is time to recognize that this is not a fight over a straw—it is a fight for children’s health.
Which is why EARTHDAY.ORG is running an End Plastic Initiatives—so we can continue to drive public support around making a stand against plastic pollution and in the process protect our planet—and more importantly our health—for generations to come. The fight continues. Plastic is Toxic. DON’T GO BACK TO PLASTICS!
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Biden Tried to Protect the Vulnerable Bering Sea; Will It Work?
The climate emergency has led to dramatic changes for Alaska fish and wildlife and for the subsistence-based communities of the Arctic who depend on these creatures for their survival.
Jan 22, 2025
In early January, as one of his last acts in office, former U.S. President Joe Biden banned future offshore oil and gas drilling on more than 625 million acres of U.S. coastal waters including the entire East Coast, West Coast, and the eastern Gulf of Mexico as well as the northern Bering Sea.
He did this using presidential powers granted under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act of 1953, which in 2019 a federal judge in Alaska ruled cannot be rescinded by a future president. This means, despite his day one executive order reversing Biden’s order, President Donald Trump will likely have to get Congress to pass legislation negating this drilling ban. Three Republican congressmen from Louisiana and Texas have already introduced legislation to do that, but may have a hard time getting fellow Republicans from states like South Carolina and Florida—where anti-drilling sentiment is strong—to go along.
It’s pretty clear why Biden did what he did, first to thwart Trump’s “Drill Baby Drill” energy plan and to burnish his own environmental legacy. What is less clear to most people is why he included 44 million acres of the Northern Bering Sea off of Alaska in the drilling ban.
“Everything’s declining, even our (summer) moss berries, cloud berries, everything.”
As a Biden White House fact-sheet explained it: “The Northern Bering Sea Climate Resilience Area was established in 2016 and includes one of the largest marine mammal migrations in the world—beluga and bowhead whales, walruses, and seals… the health of these waters is critically important to food security and to the culture of more than 70 coastal Tribes, including the Yup’ik, Cup’ik, and Inupiaq people who have relied on these resources for millennia.”
So, what’s the Northern Bering Sea Climate Resilience Area? Established by President Barack Obama in December of 2016, it was an attempt to meet the concerns of both Alaska Natives and environmental scientists studying the rapidly changing conditions they were witnessing. Alaska and its waters are today warming two to three times faster than the rest of the world due to a climate phenomenon known as “Arctic amplification,” linked to vanishing sea ice. As the Arctic Ocean ice cover that reflects solar radiation back into space has retreated, the dark ocean waters exposed absorb ever greater amounts of heat leading to 2024 being listed as the hottest year on record going back to 1850. 2023 was the previous hottest year. The 10 warmest years have all occurred in the last decade.
This has led to dramatic changes for the fish and wildlife and for the subsistence-based communities of the Arctic who depend on these creatures for their survival. For example, a study published last month found that 4 million common murres, a seabird that frequents the area, recently died as the result of a marine heatwave. This was about half the state of Alaska’s population, and may be the largest documented die-off of a single species of wild bird.
The Bering Sea’s Alaska Native communities—some 70 federally recognized tribes—first requested action under Obama and got both a ban on destructive bottom trawl fishing in the 113,000-square-mile resilience area and a ban on oil drilling in about half the area (rescinded by Trump during his first term and now fully protected by Biden under the Lands Act), also a commitment for the Coast Guard to restrict shipping channels in areas where native communities are involved in fishing, hunting, and whaling (still not finalized by the Coast Guard) and a pledge to consult with these same communities moving forward. Three leading Alaska Native organizations—Kawerak, Inc., the Association of Village Council Presidents, and the Bering Sea Elders Group—released a joint statement on the day Biden acted expressing their “deepest appreciation and gratitude” to him for protecting waters that President Trump hopes to reopen to oil drilling.
I recently interviewed two women from St. Paul Island in the Pribilof Islands, about 300 miles off the Alaskan mainland in the Bering Sea. Destiny Bristol Kushin is a 20-year-old college student working toward an associate degree in environmental sciences, and her grandmother Zinaida Melovidov is an elder who has lived on the island, with a population of just under 400 people, most of her life. They both talked about the decline of the murres that were hunted for meat and whose eggs were collected on a nearby island where they’ve all but disappeared since the die-off.
“Everything’s declining, even our (summer) moss berries, cloud berries, everything,” Melovidov worries.
“Even in the last 20 years since I was born, you can see the differences in the environment, especially with the seasons. Our summers will be later and foggy where they used to be sunny,” Kushin notes. “Our winters aren’t as snowy. It’s mostly wet now, like rain and snow all during the winter time.”
I’ve heard similar concerns about climate impacts on lives and livelihoods from Alaska Natives in the Aleutians and Southwest Alaska whose villages are also at risk from erosion, flooding, and thawing permafrost.
Even if Biden’s drilling ban in the Bering Sea stands the test of Trump, other threats will remain including oil spills from Russian tankers passing through the 55-mile-wide Bering Strait between Alaska and Russia delivering oil to China via Russia’s Northern Sea Route of retreating Arctic ice. Russia’s oil trade with China has increased since Western sanctions were imposed following its 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Reflecting these tensions around oil, in 2023 the Russians refused to participate with the U.S. Coast Guard in a joint oil spill response exercise.
Even with drilling protections for coastal America, the U.S. will remain the world’s leading oil and gas producer, including the 14% of national production that comes from the western Gulf of Mexico where the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster took place.
And, with President Trump’s commitment to produce ever more fossil fuels that drive climate disruption and contribute to extreme weather events from heatwaves in the Arctic to the Los Angeles’ firestorms, our problems with oil and gas remain far from over.
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Ocean Heat, Sea Surface Temperatures Shattered Records in 2023
"The ocean is the key to telling us what's happening to the world, and the data is painting a compelling picture of warming year after year after year," one study author said.
Jan 11, 2024
2023, the hottest year on record overall, was also the hottest year on record for the world's oceans.
A study published Thursday in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences found that the upper 2,000 meters of the ocean warmed by 15 zettajoules in 2023 compared to 2022, according to one dataset. To put that in perspective, the world's economy only requires half a zettajoule to run every year, the Chinese Academy of Sciences explained in a statement. Fifteen zettajoules would be enough to boil 2.3 billion Olympic-sized swimming pools or roast 260 trillion turkeys.
"The ocean is the key to telling us what's happening to the world, and the data is painting a compelling picture of warming year after year after year," study co-author John Abraham, a professor at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, told The Guardian.
Ocean heat content has been on the rise since the late 1950s, and, for the past decade, each year has been the warmest on record, according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The ocean is an important indicator of human-caused climate change because around 90% of the excess heat produced by the burning of fossil fuels is absorbed by its top 2,000 meters, according to United Press International.
"As long as the level of greenhouse gases remains relatively high in the atmosphere, the oceans will keep absorbing energy, leading to the increase of the heat in the oceans," study lead author Cheng Lijing, an oceanographer at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP) at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, told Nature.
"We're already facing the consequences and they will get far worse if we don't take action."
The study was the latest in a yearly effort led by the IAP; this year's installment had contributions from 34 scientists in 19 research bodies in China, France, Italy, New Zealand, and the U.S., according to Nature and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The researchers looked at two datasets for ocean heat content: the IAP's dataset and one compiled by the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
The 15 zettajoules figure came from the IAP dataset, while the NOAA dataset gave a lower increase of nine zettajoules. Lijing explained on social media that both organizations used the same raw data, but had different methods of quality control and spatial interpolation. Sometimes, accurate high temperature measurements can be mistakenly discarded as inaccurate, the Chinese Academy of Sciences pointed out.
"This means that the warming might be greater than the numbers reported here," Lijing said in a statement.
NCEI oceanographer and study co-author Tim Boyer told Nature that "the important point in the paper and for scientific understanding is that the ocean is warming consistently, year over year to new record levels of ocean heat content."
In addition, the paper documented a record rise in sea surface temperature. It was higher than 2022's by 0.23°C for the entire year and by what the authors called an "astounding" 0.3°C for the second half of the year.
Another measurement that reached record levels in 2023 was ocean stratification, which occurs when the warmer water floats near the surface and does not mix as much with the cooler water below, The Guardian explained. This can harm ocean life by reducing the amount of oxygen available to it. It also decreases the ocean's ability to absorb both heat and carbon dioxide.
Another point raised by the study authors is that what happens to and in the ocean does not stay in the ocean.
"Ocean warming has far-reaching consequences on physical, human, and biological systems in the Earth system, which is expected to be much more severe in the future because of the irreversibility of ocean warming in the following centuries," Lijing wrote on social media.
Warmer oceans increase sea-level rise, fuel extreme weather events such as storms or droughts, and impact marine life by forcing some animals to move in search of cooler waters or changing the time when migrations or reproduction occur, Nature explained.
"We're already facing the consequences and they will get far worse if we don't take action," Abraham told The Guardian. "But we can solve this problem today with wind, solar, hydro, and energy conservation."
"Once people realize that, it's very empowering," Abraham continued. "We can usher in the new energy economy of the future, saving money and the environment at the same time."
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Staring an Ecological and Humanitarian Disaster in the Face
The history of the FSO Safer is nearly impossible to believe.
Jan 23, 2023
The Red Sea is a rich marine haven, diverse and home to hundreds of species of fish and coral colonies. At its southern mouth, it also harbors an almost half-century old static oil tanker.
If one were to recount the history of FSO Safer, this fuel storage and off-loading (FSO) vessel, most would find it impossible to believe. Thirty years ago, it was grounded about five miles off the west coast of Yemen; it is still there! To make matters worse, it is also loaded with almost all of its original cargo. This amounts to 1.1 million barrels of oil or four times what was on the Exxon Valdez, which caused the worst environmental disaster in US history.
Maintenance of the ship stopped in 2015 when the Yemen civil war began, presumably because the operation was based in Yemen. Built 45 years ago, the rusting vessel is now in danger of breaking up.
In April 2022, the UN unveiled a plan which had been largely funded by the summer to follow. It had also secured the backing of the official Yemeni government and the de facto controlling authorities.
The plan calls for installing a replacement for the FSO Safer within an 18-month period and then an emergency operation over four months to transfer the oil to a safe temporary vessel and void the immediate threat. But the plan has gone nowhere.
As reported by Inter Press Service (IPS), Paul Horsman of Greenpeace International is convinced of the seriousness of the problem and states, "We are staring a major disaster in the face." He holds the UNDP (United Nations Development Program) fully responsible, accusing it of jeopardizing an agreement that took years to negotiate.
A breakup of the vessel would be a monumental disaster for it would destroy the livelihood of Yemeni fishermen and put at peril the ecology of the Red Sea.
The Red Sea's varied ecological environment is home to several hundred species of fish and a striking 600-year-old coral colony. The sea serves as habitat for many endangered species including the hawksbill sea turtle and the halavi guitarfish. Several species of sharks and dolphins live in these waters, and the sea has the third largest population of dugong in the world. A large marine mammal, the dugong is cousin to the manatee and listed by the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) as a species vulnerable to extinction. If endangered, scientists believe recovery would be hampered by its slow reproduction rate.
"If the Safer leaks, or worse explodes, it is the UNDP that will carry the blame," says Horsman adding, "The technology and expertise are available ... they [UNDP] should just get out of the way..."
But the UNDP has its own internal bureaucracy. According to Russell Geekie who is a UN Senior Communications Advisor on site, the UNDP is required to work with other UN agencies and partners. Complicating the issue is the political crisis in Yemen.
Also another major challenge now is the limited availability of suitable storage vessels to off-load the oil, mostly due to the war in Ukraine which has substantially increased their price.
In September 2022, $77 million was pledged at the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting, although another $38 million for a double-hulled storage vessel to hold the oil is still lacking. As an update, donors have now deposited $73.4 million and pledged another $10 million.
So the blame game continues and the numbers in millions of dollars plod through the UNDP bureaucracy. Small potatoes, when one realizes the cost of an oil-spill clean-up there, should it happen, is estimated at $20 billion. This excludes the humanitarian catastrophe it would cause in an already war-torn Yemen as well as the parts of Somalia that depend on the fisheries in the area.
Human folly, tragedy and irony go hand-in-hand as all of the above is transpiring during Achim Steiner's tenure as head of UNDP. A Brazilian of German descent, he has also served as Director General of the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
President Biden professes to be an environmentalist, although he has supported oil on occasion for energy security. Surely he could do something to avert a terrible disaster. But then the Red Sea is far away and the Yemenis and Somalis don't vote in the US elections.
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Seals, Satellites, and Dung Beetles — What Links Them?
The answer is in the stars.
Jan 01, 2023
Imagine hunting for a fish dinner in the middle of the ocean, in the middle of the night without flashlight, compass, or iPhone . . . and then to find a way back to land. This is what seals must accomplish on a regular basis to survive. These pinnipeds, so often seen posing with a ball balanced perfectly on a whiskered nose or bowing gracefully for a circus display, have skills that cannot be seen on the stage. In fact, they give our close relatives the chimpanzees something to envy.
One sign of intelligence is an ability to recognize and respond to human gestures. Chimpanzees have difficulty doing this. Dogs are one of a few species capable of doing so. It turns out seals, too, can recognize human gestures and, surprisingly, perform even better than dogs at these tasks, as has been demonstrated through research. The grey seal outshone almost all the other animal contestants.
A dog resting comfortably by the fireplace after a nice meal is a familiar sight for many of us, and it does not take a stretch of the imagination to picture a seal doing the same on a bit of rock or sand after a dinner of fish. The intelligence of the two creatures is comparable, and to some degree, the look of their furry heads, pointy noses, and soulful eyes. Perhaps it’s time to extend a little of the love we feel for our pets to their oceanic counterparts far out in the sea. There is a good reason.
Seals face many threats in the wild — loss of habitat, loss of food, pollution, numerous climate change impacts. But there may be a new one. Seals hunt for food at night and must find their way back to shore. Studies have demonstrated that harbor seals can navigate using a lodestar and learned star courses. What would happen if this vital star map was disrupted?
Low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites are brightly visible in the night sky, and could interfere with star navigation. SpaceX, the largest producer of LEO satellites to date, has launched over 3,000 Starlink satellites with plans to launch as many as 42,000. And while SpaceX is the the largest producer of LEO satellites, it is not the only one.
Astronomers have raised concerns that low Earth orbit satellites are visible and inhibit scientific research. The International Association of Astronomers has set up a Centre for the Protection of the Dark and Quiet Sky from Satellite Constellation Interference as a response. The astronomer Meredith Rawls has described the plans of launching thousands more satellites in the coming years as “an unsustainable trajectory”.
In addition to creating streaks in photos and hampering astronomical observations, satellites will also handicap creatures like seals, migratory birds, and even the humble dung beetle, all who use stars for navigation.
Among birds, Indigo buntings prefer to travel at night during migration. Scientists studying the buntings found that the birds rely on star patterns to determine north. European robins and yellow underwing moths also use the stars in travel.
If the Milky Way map is disrupted by a projected 65,000 satellites as is expected in a few years, they will light up the sky. They will not only affect astronomy research, but may also affect the survival of many creatures large and small. There are likely many more species that rely on stars beyond the ones discussed in this article - scientists have only scratched the surface of star navigation research.
Global Internet is a necessary purpose, but if it costs species their lives, then perhaps we could have global internet that is just a tad slower — with satellites not quite so low in orbit.
There is another aspect of LEO satellites that is a cause for concern. It is one that threatens not only the survival of other species but also our own. Starlink satellites burn up in the atmosphere leaving a residue (aluminum oxide) that reflects sunlight and could deplete the ozone layer. Furthermore, the full effects of aluminum in the atmosphere are unknown and could be severe. SpaceX might argue that meteoroid material comes in every day - but it is made up mostly of oxygen, magnesium, and silicon. Satellites, by contrast, are made primarily of aluminum. Aluminum can burn to reflective aluminum oxide, which may alter the climate to worsen warming of the planet. Scientists are also concerned that aluminum oxide could create a hole in the ozone layer.
As recently as February 2022, about 40 Starlink Satellites burned up in the atmosphere. And burning up is the ultimate fate for all of them — all 42,000 plus.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is at present examining whether satellite licensing should require environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), but it may take considerable time, from months to years, for a decision to be reached, and the decision may not end up affecting satellites already approved and in space. Since 1986, the FCC has enjoyed a categorical exclusion from NEPA. One can only hope for a prompt determination that can have a preventive effect.
An uncontrolled aluminum experiment capable of creating holes in the ozone layer and exacerbating global warming is highly risky because we may not have a second chance.
We used to think lead paint was a great idea. Years later, we discovered health risks and began removing it. The trouble is, if we find out a few years from now that aluminum is destroying the atmosphere, we cannot dispense with it as easily as the lead paint.
The seals are enduring the consequences of human activity in more than one way. Is it too much to ask that we give them a chance?Keep ReadingShow Less
Save the Starfish: Deoxygenated 'Dead Zones' Threatening Marine Life
Widespread deoxygenation is possible between 2030 and 2040, study finds
Apr 28, 2016
According to a new study that warns of widespread deoxygenation within decades, imperiling fish, crabs, squid, sea stars, and myriad other marine creatures, climate change is sapping the oceans of oxygen.
Using models and maps, researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, could quantify and differentiate between large-scale changes in oxygen in the oceans due to both natural variability and climate change.
They confirmed deoxygenated "dead zones"--which leave marine creatures struggling to breathe--caused by climate change already exist in the southern Indian Ocean and parts of the eastern tropical Pacific and Atlantic basins, and determined that more widespread detection of deoxygenation caused by climate change would be possible between 2030 and 2040.
The National Science Foundation funded the findings and published in the American Geophysical Union journal Global Biogeochemical Cycles.
"Loss of oxygen in the oceans is one of the serious side effects of a warming atmosphere and a major threat to marine life," said NCAR scientist Matthew Long, lead author of the study. "Since oxygen concentrations in the ocean naturally vary depending on variations in winds and temperature at the surface, it's been challenging to attribute any deoxygenation to climate change. This new study tells us when we can expect the effect of climate change to overwhelm the natural variability."
Putting the study in context, Popular Science wrote:
Low levels of oxygen in the oceans can be devastating. Not only can they kill or slow down ocean life in the present, but if low oxygen levels persist, they can have grave impacts on the future. 'The Great Dying' is an extinction event that killed roughly 90 percent of species on Earth 250 million years ago. Researchers looking at the event found that low levels of oxygen in the oceans probably slowed down the recovery of life on Earth. After that extinction, it took five million years for the diversity of life to recover as oxygen levels in the oceans slowly rose back to normal.
On Twitter, United Nations climate chief Christiana Figueres said the findings represented the "Alarm bells...of science ringing loud & clear."
Climate change threatens the world's oceanic ecosystems on several fronts. Just last week, Common Dreams reported that climate change is the underlying cause of the coral bleaching event that has all but destroyed the Great Barrier Reef.
And as the Sydney Morning Herald wrote on Thursday, "We also know that our oceans have become about 30 percent more acidic since pre-industrial times as they absorb the billions of tonnes a year of carbon dioxide released from our burning of fossil fuels and forests, making it harder for shellfish and crabs to form shells."
"We're driving pretty massive changes in the environment--and we're not just changing one variable," Long told the paper. "We're changing a suite of variables to which marine organisms are sensitive and putting significant demands on their adaptive capacities."
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New Arctic Battlelines Drawn as Industry Exploits Fragile Seas
Climate change is driving unprecedented warming and sea ice melt in the Arctic, opening up the ecosystem to a host of new threats
Mar 02, 2016
Rapidly melting Arctic ice has exposed enormous swaths of this pristine and ecologically significant landscape to dangerous industrial threats. As officials meet this week to hammer out new rules that could potentially protect the region, environmental groups warn that the area known as the "Arctic Galapagos" is already in grave danger.
Scientists have reported that the Arctic is warming at nearly double the global average rate, which is one of the key factors driving an unprecedented ice sheet loss. This January saw a record low for sea ice extent in a troubling development.
These newly open waters have seen a surge in industrial activity, including fishing and shipping, which have been left largely unregulated, according to green groups.
Greenpeace released an investigation (pdf) on Wednesday that found that industrial fishing fleets are increasingly moving into Arctic waters, particularly the previously ice-covered Barents Sea, off of Norway.
"Sea ice loss in the northern Barents Sea is turning it into a new hunting ground for industrial fishing," Greenpeace states. "Fishing brings with it the threats of habitat degradation and bycatch, potentially wiping out marine life and putting this whole fragile ecosystem at risk."
The northern Barents Sea, known as the "Arctic Galapagos," is home to "a huge diversity of marine life including bowhead whales, walruses and polar bears, along with rare fish and invertebrates," the report states. It is also currently holds the largest cod stock in the world, which international fishing companies are rushing to exploit.
At the same time, environmentalists are raising concern about the uptick in shipping traffic moving through newly-open Arctic channels. Such traffic, warns John Kaltenstein, a marine policy analyst with Friends of the Earth (FOE), invites "the use of heavy fuel oil, harmful air emissions, and invasive species risk."
Less than 1.5 percent of the entire Arctic Ocean has any form of protected status. And while the International Maritime Organization's recently adopted Polar Code aims to establish a standard of safety for ships operating in Arctic waters, Kaltenstein notes that the actual text--expected to enter into force January 1, 2017--"does little to deal with the most urgent and far-reaching problems we face from Arctic shipping."
"Unfortunately, the shipping industry still behaves as if it were in the 1960s or 1970s, and the sad fact is that many countries both domestically and within international venues, such as the U.N.'s International Maritime Organization, coddle it," he states.
"It only takes one big spill to change everything," he continues, "remember Exxon Valdez. Incredibly, environmental policy surrounding Arctic shipping has become the equivalent of 'fingers crossed,' when it comes to grave threats such as heavy fuel oil spills, climate-warming emissions, and invasive species."
The warnings come as delegates from 15 European countries along with the European Union, known as the OSPAR commission, are meeting in Gothenburg, Sweden this week to discuss the formation of an Arctic Marine Protected Area (MPA) in the international waters north of Greenland.
Greenpeace describes the meeting, and the potential agreement, as a "make or break moment for Arctic protection."
"It is crucial that these areas are protected from destructive industrial activities, as they could be devastating for the species dependent on this area for survival," states the group, which notes that the region under consideration for protection "could be a potential habitat for ice-dependent species in the future as the ice melts in other places."
Ironically, Greenpeace notes that as international waters, the Arctic is part of the "global commons, belonging to all mankind." However, "there is no protection at all."
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Warming Oceans Behind Historic Coral Bleaching Events: Scientists
Destruction of vital ecosystems threatens marine biodiversity... and much more
Oct 08, 2015
Scientists declared Thursday that the planet is experiencing the third-ever global coral bleaching event on record. As climate change brings warmer waters, vital marine ecosystems are at increasing risk.
Compounded by long-term climate change, events like El Nino pose deadly threats to coral reefs as they succumb to severe or long-term bleaching that degrades and erodes their structures--which in turn provides less shoreline protection from storms and fewer habitats for ecologically and economically critical marine life, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) announced.
"The coral bleaching and disease, brought on by climate change and coupled with events like the current El Nino, are the largest and most pervasive threats to coral reefs worldwide," said Mark Eakin, NOAA's Coral Reef Watch coordinator. "As a result, we are losing huge areas of coral across the U.S., as well as internationally."
"What really concerns us is that this event has been going on for more than a year, and our preliminary model projections indicate it's likely to last well into 2016," Eakin said.
U.S. reefs are being hit disproportionately hard, particularly in Hawaii, where the effects are intensifying and expected to worsen over the next month. However, NOAA estimates that by the end of 2015, nearly 95 percent of all American coral reefs will have been exposed to bleaching conditions. Moreover, those conditions may last into the next year.
Also at high risk are reefs surrounding Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Bleaching in the Indian and southeastern Pacific Oceans is also expected to continue and grow with the arrival of El Nino.
As Peace and World Security professor Michael T. Klare explains in an article published Thursday, "Although such reefs make up less than 1% of the Earth's surface area, they house up to 25% of all marine life. They are, that is, essential for both the health of the oceans and of fishing communities and those who depend on fish for a significant part of their diet."
Citing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Klare writes, "'This irreversible loss of biodiversity...will have 'significant consequences for regional marine ecosystems as well as the human livelihoods that depend on them.'"
The two previous global coral bleaching events occurred in 1998 and 2010. But, as University of Queensland professor and Global Change Institute director Ove Hoegh-Guldberg told the Guardian, this one is poised to be "the worst coral bleaching event in history."
"The development of conditions in the Pacific looks exactly like what happened in 1997. And of course, following 1997, we had this extremely warm year, with damage occurring in 50 countries at least and 16% of corals dying by the end of it," Hoegh-Guldberg explained. "Many of us think this will exceed the damage done in 1998."
So what can be done? According to NOAA, it's the very solution economic and environmental activists have long called for: acting locally and thinking globally.
"Locally produced threats to coral, such as pollution from the land and unsustainable fishing practices, stress the health of corals and decrease the likelihood that corals can either resist bleaching or recover from it," said Jennifer Koss, NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program acting program manager. "To solve the long-term, global problem, however, we need to understand better how to reduce the unnatural carbon dioxide levels that are the major driver of the warming."
"We need to act locally and think globally to address these bleaching events," Koss said.
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Diverse Coalition Protests Plans for Offshore Drilling Along East Coast
Fishing interests among those saying 'No' to seismic airgun blasting and fossil fuel development beneath the Atlantic Ocean
Jun 03, 2015
Since the Obama Administration announced its proposal to open the Atlantic Coast to offshore oil exploration and development, more than 500 national, state and local elected officials have taken public stances against the move, including over 60 coastal towns, cities and counties. Business-minded organizations have also voiced their opposition, from tourism boards to chambers of commerce, and the list of concerned stakeholders continues to grow. In an important development, the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council expressed its opposition to seismic airgun blasting -- the first step toward offshore drilling along the Atlantic Coast -- in a recent letter to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
Earlier this year, 75 leading scientists described the adverse effects seismic blasting could have on a broad range of marine life -- from tiny fish eggs to the large, endangered North Atlantic right whale. In a letter, the scientists urged President Obama to reject the use of seismic blasting along the U.S. Atlantic coast. Before rigs can be placed in the water, oil and gas companies must identify potential drilling sites. Ships search the ocean floor for oil and gas deposits, towing airguns that emit loud bursts of compressed air. These powerful blasts shoot through the water up to every 10 seconds, 24 hours a day, for days to weeks on end. The endless barrage of extreme noise can harm marine life -- disrupting feeding, mating, and migratory patterns. This disturbance could damage ocean ecosystems, leading to anxiety among the communities and industries that depend on a healthy ocean for their livelihoods.
The SAFMC manages fish stocks and habitats for both recreational and commercial fishermen in federal waters from North Carolina to the Florida Keys. In its letter, the Council stated that seismic airgun blasting would directly affect the region's marine environment and the fisheries that depend on it. The Council also cited concern about the impact on habitats essential to a number of snapper and grouper species, which would be at particular risk, especially if multiple companies simultaneously blast in the same areas. The SAFMC statement follows a similar letter, filed in 2014 by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, expressing concern about the effects of seismic blasting in the Mid-Atlantic. The Councils add their voices to a growing consensus: airgun testing could threaten recreational and commercial fisheries, potentially leading to multi-million dollar economic losses in coastal towns and communities.
Statements like these are important, and have directly influenced policy actions geared toward preventing offshore oil exploration and development. In May, in a move to protect the state's tourist economy, Senator Bill Nelson of Florida proposed a bill to ban seismic testing off the East coast of Florida, citing a letter opposing offshore drilling from the Florida State Department of Environmental Protection. U.S. Rep. Mark Sanford, R-S.C., recently revised his position on offshore exploration after hearing public feedback on the issue. Ocean lovers, fishermen, and tourism businesses all have a stake in the health of our oceans, and expressing these diversified interests is compelling lawmakers to act and protect their communities.
We can protect the Atlantic from the damaging effects of offshore oil development. Opponents of offshore drilling and testing have sound science on their side, good business sense, and are doing what's right for the ocean -- for the people who live and work on its shores, and for the marine life that calls it home. The SAFMC opposition letter is a welcome development. We look forward to seeing more stakeholders coming forward to oppose the effort to open up the Atlantic to drilling, by telling their representatives that the lasting, serious dangers posed by seismic blasting and offshore drilling are not worth the risk.
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