CERDAFIED - Have you ever watched a lecture that literally changed the way you viewed the world? For me, Dr. Jeremy Jackson’s lecture was not only eye opening, but it was quite alarming on more than one level. First it was alarming because he announced the “Ocean Apocalypse”, offering very little hope of a recovery. Second it was alarming because he wants us to change our behavior but he hasn’t changed his own. More on that issue later.
Dr. Jackson is the Professor of Oceanography at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, a Senior Scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, he was Professor of Ecology at the Johns Hopkins University from 1971 to 1985, and he authored more than100 scientific publications and five books. He has received numerous awards and recognitions for his work and he is more than qualified to sound the alarm for the ocean apocalypse. When he speaks people listen.
His lecture presentation, "Ocean Apocalypse" was sponsored by the Naval War College Foundation that was held on Jan 9, 2013. So as we speak the situation has only worsened.
His current research includes the long-term impacts of human activities on the oceans and the ecological and evolutionary consequences. In his 30 years of coral reef observations, he watched the sea grass communities of the Chesapeake Bay, the sea grass communities of the Caribbean, the coral reef communities of the Caribbean and the coral reef communities of much of the Pacific vanish.
How could scientists miss this vast change? Why didn’t they ring the alarm? Dr. Jackson said that in the last 15 years, “Every single environment I ever studied in the ocean either no longer existed or was unrecognizably different from the way it was.”
To understand how we got here, he recommended reading: “Silent Spring” by Rachel Carson (1962) who looked at the harmful consequences of DDT and recognizes Dr. Charles David Keeling’s study on the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Dr. Jackson said that both works “announced the end of nature”.
“No where on earth today is anything natural”, he asserted. Human impact has changed the composition of the atmosphere and the ocean and these are permanent changes. He attributed the changes to the ocean to three leading factors; over fishing, pollution, and climate change.
He revealed several troubling factors about over fishing. He displayed a world map with the stunning depletion of fish over a century from 1900 – 2000. The reasons for how we got here are many. The fishing industry has better equipment and technology; the fisheries are over exploited and under developed, we do not allow depleted species to recover, and trawling destroys ocean floor reefs and kelp bars.
The green turtle population dropped from its estimated high of 91 million at the time of Columbus to about 300,000. In fact, Dr. Jackson has not seen one in 4 years of observation.
Next he looked at the impact of pollution. He attributed most of the pollution to human waste and agricultural run off. The results are;
- Coral reefs that are bleached by toxic tides,
- Coral reefs have become a monoculture instead of having a symbiotic relationship with other organisms that are mutually beneficial,
- The rise of slime, an explosion of phytoplankton due to the lack of grazers. The Plankton dies, decays uses up oxygen and local populations of fish die from the lack of oxygen.
- There are ocean dead zones discovered in the Gulf of Mexico due to agricultural fertilizers. In 2001 there were around 150 dead zones and by 2008 there were over 400. It is not completely dead, because jelly fish, sting rays and bacteria dominate the dead zones. What survive are the cock roaches of the sea not the food sources.
- In Florida, toxic blooms of karena brevis, a single-celled, photosynthetic organism is responsible for large die-offs of marine organisms and seabirds.
- Green algae took over beaches in France killing off sea gulls. Tractors haul the algae away.
Climate change has the ice caps melting and they are expected to be gone in 10-30 years.
Subsequently the ecosystem for the penguins and polar bears are doomed. Fish species have also shifted their ranges toward the poles to survive. Tropical coral reefs are dying due to bleaching and disease, as the acidic water threatens calcifying organisms like snails and coral.
The change that impacts us more directly is the rising water temperatures and rising water itself. As the ice caps melt new pathways open for ship travel. Soon super tankers of oil will spill there as well, unless international law prevents it from becoming the new ocean highway.
The human impact on the ocean has meant the ecological extinction of desirable species and ecosystems and a population explosion of uncommon and undesirable species. The Indian Ocean lost 25% of its coral reef and 80% of it is already bleached. Changes in biochemical cycles, the collapse of plankton productivity, and expanding dead zones are proof of our impact.
The Gulf of Maine got 4 degrees warmer last summer. No one could have predicted such a rapid temperature change. The future is increasing temperatures for the sea surface and rising sea levels. It takes about 1000 years for the ocean to turn over the lighter upper warm surface of water into the heavier and cooler lower surfaces.
Dr. Jackson warns that our future will be both drought and flooding. It means agricultural failure, socio/economic disruption, thirst, human suffering, and intensifying storms. Cities in America below sea level will be uninhabitable; South Florida, Miami, New Orleans, New York City, and Boston.
To change our course, we must stop using 150% of our renewable resources he explains. And though zero growth is considered a depression and not sustainable, he thinks it is part of the cure.
He offers solutions such as enforcing existing laws on over fishing, stop trawling (which is the equivalent of deforestation of the rain forest), establish marine protected areas, eliminate subsidies to fisheries that perpetuate unsustainable fishing, and ban pesticides that harm the ecosystems. He likes taxation as a form of deterrent.
Right as I was ready to join his crusade and give up my seafood eating ways, so that other generations can enjoy sushi too, he made a statement that was so disheartening that the wind was taken out of my sails.
Early in the lecture he asked, “Are we capable of rational thought?” Then one hour into the lecture he proves the answer is no. With everything he knows about the state of the oceans, he reveals that he himself farms corn and spills his agricultural fertilizers and pesticides into the Mississippi River killing off the fish.
If the man who is screaming “Ocean Apocalypse” is unwilling to change his way … what chance do we have of turning this thing around?
(Lisa Cerda is a contributor to CityWatch, a community activist, Chair of Tarzana Residents Against Poorly Planned Development, VP of Community Rights Foundation of LA, Tarzana Property Owners Association board member, and former Tarzana Neighborhood Council board member.)
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 11 Issue 71
Pub: Sept 3, 2013
