David Suzuki: State of the ocean report a wake-up call for the world
Oceans keep us alive. They provide food, oxygen, water, medicines, and recreation. They help protect us from climate change by absorbing and storing carbon dioxide. If we care about ourselves and our children and grandchildren, we must look beyond our immediate surroundings and do all we can to care for the oceans. But instead of respecting oceans as a life-giving miracle, we often use them as vast garbage dumps and as stores with shelves that never go empty.
The shelves are going empty, though. Humans are changing the chemistry and ecology of the ocean at a scale and rate not previously believed possible. According to a study from the International Programme on the State of the Ocean, the combined effects of overfishing, fertilizer run-off, pollution, and ocean acidification from carbon dioxide emissions are putting much marine life at immediate risk of extinction.
The 27 scientists from 18 organizations in six countries who participated in the review of scientific research from around the world concluded that the looming extinctions are “unprecedented in human history” and have called for “urgent and unequivocal action to halt further declines in ocean health.” The main factors are what they term the “deadly trio”: climate change, ocean acidification, and lack of oxygen. Overfishing and pollution add to the problem.
The researchers also found that “existing scientific projections of how coral reefs will respond to global warming have been highly conservative and must now be modified.” And they found that chemicals such as “brominated flame retardants, fluorinated compounds, pharmaceuticals and synthetic musks used in detergents and personal care products”—which can cause cancer and disrupt human endocrine and immune systems— have been found in aquatic animals everywhere, even in the Canadian Arctic. Marine litter and plastics are also found throughout the oceans, sometimes in massive swirling gyres.
Alex Rogers, the scientific director of IPSO, is quoted in the Guardian as saying he was shocked by the findings: “This is a very serious situation demanding unequivocal action at every level. We are looking at consequences for humankind that will impact in our lifetime, and worse, our children's and generations beyond that.”
Action at every level means just that—actions that we can all take as individuals as well as actions that governments and industry must take. Reducing our own wastes, being careful about what we put down the drain, cutting down the amount of animal-based protein we eat and feed to our pets, and joining efforts to protect the oceans are a start, but the most important role we can all play is to tell governments and industry that we will no longer stand for this.
We can already anticipate that industry-funded deniers and the dupes who help spread their misinformation will be out in force, painting this as yet another conspiracy on the part of the world’s scientists, and that some governments will put industrial interests ahead of everything else. We must put a stop to this nonsense. Every year that we stall on the solutions to climate change means we are less likely to be able to resolve the problems. Other scientists and I have been warning about the consequences of climate change for more than 20 years, and yet governments are still dithering while the world’s natural systems continue to erode.
What this study also shows is that we cannot look at ecosystems, species, and environmental problems in isolation. This research points out that the combined impacts of all the stressors are far more severe than what scientists might conclude by looking at individual problems.
The report exemplifies the old adage about death by a thousand cuts. There is no single place to concentrate blame except in the mirror. The study’s authors note that, “traditional economic and consumer values that formerly served society well, when coupled with current rates of population increase, are not sustainable.” In other words, we need to account for the impact we have on the planet each time we flush a toilet, drink a pop, hop in a car, or eat a radish. There is no shortage of solutions, just a shortage of political will. Further delay in resolving these serious problems will only increase costs and lead to even greater losses of the natural benefits oceans give to us.
Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation editorial and communications specialist Ian Hanington.
Comments
8 Comments
Kim Collins
Jun 28, 2011 at 4:48pm
I wonder what the business-as-usual, climate change deniers have to say about this depressing news? With climate change there's a stream of well trodden, albeit debunked arguments (e.g. http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php) to reassure them that everything is just fine. Not so when it comes to the health of ocean ecosystems that support us and other species. So my money is on the use of ad hominem attacks against Dr. Suzuki and others those who accept the reality that in order to thrive and survive on an increasingly crowded, hot and degraded planet we're going to need to to redesign our systems (e.g. food, transport, energy, urban planning) for sustainability and resilience.
Birdy
Jun 28, 2011 at 10:31pm
re: Kim
If there were a "Buy Victoria a Sewage Treatment Plant Sales Tax" I would pay it happily. Pollution isn't "deniable", and the fact we've brutally screwed up the ocean isn't debatable. I don't fantasize that "everything is just fine"
If Suzuki were to start a campaign to eradicate the concept of "limited liability" for corporations, I'd support it. Personal responsibility needs to apply universally, which would include shareholders, executives, bureaucrats etc.. you'd think this would be the one thing that the left and right could agree on. Come on conservatives, you love to talk about personal responsibility, but when it comes to your mutual funds you should be magically exempt from the cornerstone of your ideology? They like to pretend that markets couldn't work without limited liability, which is bullshit; it just creates a need for shareholder liability insurance. Obviously, insurance companies would charge you more to cover stock in oil companies versus stock in organic farming companies, based on the risk. This would drive down the amount of people willing to invest in companies prone to spilling oil. Which of course would give the oil companies motivation to be as clean as possible, to lower the risk premium that shareholders had to pay to safely invest in their oil company.
War is one of the largest contributors to global pollution, and yet as of lately, those on the left seem to have stopped giving a shit. The right never did in the first place, I'm not defending them, but seriously; what the hell is wrong with hippies these days? They seem more worried about my choice of light bulb than World War 3/4. I was shocked to see the NDP vote for the war on Libya. A while back, I talked to a Greenpeace rep who didn't even know what depleted uranium is.
However, over-the-top apocalyptic anthropomorphic climate scare mongering is often a mask for Malthusian elitists who are only concerned with further empowering our dictatorial global government, and protecting the monopolies of giant untouchable corporations. As an example, our BC "Carbon Tax" steals money from the public school system and gives it directly to oil companies, via a scheme developed by Enron and Al Gore.
To understand the flawed logic that drove banking/corporate/royal interests to take over the environmentalist movement, I suggest reading H.G. Wells - The Open Conspiracy
It's a non-fiction guide to population control and globalization, written in 1928. It reads like it was written yesterday.
Minty Fresh
Jun 29, 2011 at 7:57am
Oh look, the deniers are using big words. And getting so desperate that they now have to rely on 83-year-old sci-fi stories to make their point. Still the same old lies and conspiracy theories, though.
Kim Collins
Jun 29, 2011 at 3:18pm
Thanks for your response Birdy. I'm glad to see you agree with the scientific consensus that pollution "isn't "deniable"" and that "we've brutally screwed up the ocean." What do you think we should do to fix it?
The scientists behind the study say that in addition to "stopping exploitative fishing now" & "mapping and then reducing the input of pollutants including plastics, agricultural fertilisers and human waste":
""We have to bring down CO2 emissions to zero within about 20 years. If we don't do that, we're going to see steady acidification of the seas, heat events that are wiping out things like kelp forests and coral reefs, and we'll see a very different ocean.""
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13796479
Do you agree with their assessment?
You also mentioned the military so you might be interested in a new strategic analysis from Canada's Department of Defense:
"...even under conservative estimates, up to 60 countries could fall into a category of water scarcity or stress by 2050, making the natural resource "a key source of power" or a "basis for future conflict."
The draft report said that despite some "vigorous debates" about the pace, cause, magnitude and impacts of global warming, there "can be no further debate that global climate change is occurring." It would turn the phenomenon into a "shock" and not just a driver of change, the report said.
Crop failures resulting in mass migrations and starvation, along with rising sea levels from melting ice caps and other factors, would be among the impacts.
"These sorts of changes could lead to impacts resulting in the abandonment of large urban and cropland areas, further aggravating a broad range of existing resource scarcities," said the report.
Governments from around the world reached a consensus in 2007, based on an international assessment of peer-reviewed science, that there was a 90 per cent probability that human activity is responsible for causing climate change observed over the past century."
http://www.canada.com/technology/Exclusive+water+shortages+climate+chang...
Meanwhile in the USA:
"... the military has found that climate change may lead to domestic and international instability by threatening water and food supplies. In addition, stronger storms caused by emissions could increase the need for humanitarian missions by the military both at home and abroad, which could stretch resources.
...
"To respond, every branch of the U.S. military has launched programs to lessen the carbon bootprint and to cut dependence on fossil fuels."
http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/04/20/us-climate-defense-idUSTRE63J4...
It seems to me that the Canadian & US militaries have a good understanding of climate science and what it means for our and their futures. Now, if we'd just elect politicians with the same level of knowledge and conviction...
Kim Collins
Jun 29, 2011 at 3:20pm
Oh yeah, I almost forgot, the 2010 'State of the Climate' report (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/bams-state-of-the-climate) was published yesterday:
"The world’s climate is not only continuing to warm, it’s adding heat-trapping greenhouse gases even faster than in the past, researchers said Tuesday.
Indeed, the global temperature has been warmer than the 20th century average every month for more than 25 years, they said at a teleconference.
“The indicators show unequivocally that the world continues to warm,” Thomas R. Karl, director of the National Climatic Data Center, said in releasing the annual State of the Climate report for 2010.
“There is a clear and unmistakable signal from the top of the atmosphere to the depths of the oceans,” added Peter Thorne of the Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites, North Carolina State University.
Carbon dioxide increased by 2.60 parts per million in the atmosphere in 2010, which is more than the average annual increase seen from 1980-2010, Karl added."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/climate-change-study-more-than-30...
R U Kiddingme
Jun 29, 2011 at 3:36pm
"we will no longer stand for this"
Who is the we? And frankly, isn't the main issue that there are just too damn many of "we," that is eating up all the fish, that is flooding the rice paddies with salt, that is demanding more, more, more of everything?
Canadians are already doing their part by not doing their, um, parts...at least not so productively. We have 1.5 kids per woman. That is 160th on the list:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territories_by_fertil...
I'm all for stopping polluting our environment, of course. That is a given. Even if you don't believe in human-caused global warming, it seems eminently sensible to not poison ourselves intentionally.
But it's not the solution.
The solution lies in joining the environmental movement with the political will to reduce population growth peacefully. Because if it doesn't happen peacefully, it will happen through war, famine, and pandemic.
Martin Wales
Jul 1, 2011 at 3:16pm
This report that Mr. Suzuki refers to came out a month ago and has been called into question. The scare in this report has NOTHING to do with cleaning up our oceans, removing the appalling Texas-sized plastic garbage patch, arguing for Victoria to stop dumping its sewage into the sea, etc.
This report -- Google it -- was created by an ocean scientist at Oxford with PR people, bankers, fund managers, and a handful of credible scientists over a three-day period cherry-picking from a collection of ocean and climate scientist papers around the world, which they list but don't quote from. Download the report and look at it. I did. The paper is 15 pages long and 3/4 of it are the lists of attendees and papers.
Suzuki's statements here are hyperbolic and alarmist. He is referring to a report that is not peer-reviewed, and I would think after the disastrous IPCC blunders in the last three years that he would be more cautious.
Martin Dunphy
Jul 1, 2011 at 8:24pm
Martin Wales:
You are in error, I am afraid. The 15-page "report" you disdainfully refer to is actually just a <em>summary</em>. And the "disastrous IPCC blunders" you reference are nothing but well-known climate-denial hyperbole famously blown out of all proportion by paid propagandists for entrenched financial interests.
You know, the usual suspects.
You have a nice day.