Archive for the ‘Ocean Depletion’ Category

‘Red Tide’ Strikes Texas Coast

Tuesday, November 29th, 2011

By David L. Brown

“Red Tide.” It may sound like the title for the latest Tom Clancy novel, but it’s a very real phenomenon. I observed its effects today on the Texas Gulf Coast as evidenced by tens of thousands of dead fish littering the beaches of Padre Island.

Beach dunes along the Gulf of Mexico, Padre Island

So-called red tides are caused by blooms of algae that deplete oxygen and in some cases yield toxins that are fatal to fish, birds and other animals living in or near the water. According to locals, the present outbreak began about a month ago and is the first to strike the region in about four years. Red tides develop quickly and dissipate as the algae uses up existing nutrients and oxygen and proceeds to die off. Little is understood about the causes of the blooms, which are named for the discoloration in the water that sometimes takes place, often reddish but sometimes green or brown. Warnings had been posted against consuming oysters and other mollusks that could be contaminated with toxins produced by the algae.

Padre Island is a long barrier island extending along the Texas coast from Corpus Christi south to near the Mexican border. It is a favorite recreational area, and yet when I visited the Padre Island National Seashore headquarters today there were few tourists and a hostess told me it was as quiet as she had ever seen it.

I strolled along the beach observing tiny crabs scuttling for shelter as I approached and seabirds clustering at the water’s edge in search of their lunch. Arrayed in a band near what must have been the previous high water mark were thousands of dead fish of all sizes, from minnows to fairly large mullet. Here is a photo showing some of the dead fish I observed.

Dead fish resulting from red tide, Padre Island

Although algae blooms sometimes result from runoff of agricultural fertilizer, this is by no means the only cause. The phenomenon has been observed for thousands of years and appears in many parts of the world.

Posted in Disease and Pandemics, Ocean Depletion, Pollution | Comments Off

Sushi — Or Not Sushi? That Is the Question

Thursday, March 4th, 2010

By David L. Brown

How can we tell when a species is endangered? One clue is when people are willing to pay an arm and a leg to eat the unfortunate few remaining members.

tuna-sushiRecently a 511 lb. northern bluefin tuna, one of the most sought-after fish in the world for sushi, was sold at Tokyo’s Tuskiji fish market for $175,000. By that afternoon, customers at Kyubey, a nearby star-rated restaurant, were chowing down on the tuna’s fatty belly meat. The story was reported by Scientific American on-line, here.

The idea that a single fish could be worth $342.50 a pound is astonishing, especially considering the number of people on Earth who go to bed hungry each night. It is a fact that many struggle to survive on as little as a dollar a day. For one of those unfortunate individuals, (should they become immortal) $175,000 could equal their income for 480 years, or about 20 generations. Or, conversely, it would be equal to the income of 480 impoverished people for an entire year. Just one fish.

There is growing evidence that the norhern bluefin may be in danger of extinction. The SciAm article reported on a move toward banning harvest of the increasingly rare fish, one of the top predator species of the ocean. Only the northern bluefin would be affected, not the Pacific and southern varieties—but it appears the northern bluefin is the one most loved by diners, especially in Japan which imports 80 percent of the bluefin catch in the Atlantic and Mediterranean.

Markets and the effects of greed and avarice are more powerful than nature, common sense, and human self-preservation all added together, at least for the time being, so with demand for bluefin sushi so high that it can support stratospheric prices it seems likely that protecting the fish will be difficult or impossible. One problem is that even experts have difficulty telling the difference between the three varieties of bluefin (although sushi eaters apparently can, or at least believe they can).

Listing as an endangered species does not necessarily have much effect. The demand for rhinoceros horns for dagger handles among Arabs and potions among aging Chinese and Vietnamese has forced many rhino species to the very edge of extinction. Modern-day poachers hunt rhinos with AK-47s and sometimes from helicopters, quickly removing the horns with chainsaws and leaving the bodies to rot. The market for rhino horns has continued to thrive even though several major rhino varieties have been  placed on the world endangered species list (CITES) and even China banned the sale of rhino horn 17 years ago.

In a similar way, it seems likely that greedy fishers, fish mongers, and restaurant operators will find ways around a bluefin tuna ban. After all, the mindset of our present world economy seems to be that money is the root of everything that is good and the environment be damned. The plundering of nature will continue apace as long as humans have a yen (or dollar, euro or pound) for rare delicacies from the sea.

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Posted in Diversity Loss, Environmental Activism, Extinction, Ocean Depletion | Comments Off

Oceans Dying Under CO2 Siege

Sunday, February 25th, 2007

by Val Germann

Climate change on the Earth’s land masses, as bad as it may turn out to be, is only one likely effect of the recent and gigantic increases in atmospheric CO2. The Earth’s oceans, too, are feeling the effects which will only worsen as this new century unfolds. A recent article in the Vancouver SUN states the case bluntly:

Unless we halt completely the emission of carbon dioxide from the world’s energy systems, we risk an oceanic catastrophe worse than the one associated with the disappearance of the dinosaurs.

Note the words “halt completely” in the sentence above and think about the chances of a total suspension of CO2 emissions from human energy use. Yes, it looks like there may be a problem, somewhere.

The basis for the quote above is a study presented at a recent conference on the world’s oceans held in Vancouver. One of the presenters, a Stanford oceanic specialist, is the ultimate source.

Ken Caldeira, who teaches out of the Carnegie Institution at Stanford University in California, says the level of acidification caused by dumping hundreds of billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide into the world’s oceans is so great that it could cause a major disruption on par with, or worse than, the sudden dumping of sulphuric acid into the oceans 65 million years ago when an asteroid slammed into the Earth’s surface.

To quote a famous TV character, Homer Simpson, “Would that be bad?” Yes, it would, as one of the sponsors of Dr. Caldeira’s speech, Daniel Pauly, explained:

. . . if there’s no more fish, is that okay? No, it’s not.

Of course, this problem at its worst is most likely a few decades away, thank heaven, and so safely beyond the reach of any revenge by today’s electorate, as today’s politicians and executives are safe from any revenge from the future. All in all, a win-win for everybody involved, I think most people would agree. That is, how bad could it actually get?

When [the last oceanic extinction] happened, [Caldeira] said, it took 500,000 years for plankton to reappear, two million years for corals to redevelop, and 10 million years for the current level of oceanic biodiversity to re-emerge.

Well, not a problem! That’s a long way off, as even the most die hard whale-hugger must admit. Read this entire article and see if you don’t agree. As Keynes once said, tongue in cheek, “In the long run we’re all dead.” So, even if we do drag nearly all other life on Earth down with us to that infinite and eternal night, what difference could it make to us, living here today?  None, I think, none at all.

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Posted in Climate Change, Diversity Loss, Extinction, Ocean Depletion | 2 Comments »

CO2 Threatens Not Only Air, But Ocean Too

Tuesday, September 5th, 2006

By David L. Brown

One of the things that helps slow the rise of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere—and the greenhouse warming that results from higher CO2—is the fact that more than a third of the carbon released into the air since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution has been absorbed in our oceans and sequestered in sediments. That’s a good thing, right?

Well, it turns out that’s not necessarily the case. It is true that the oceans can absorb large quantities of carbon … but only over long periods of time. Recent studies of a 3.2 kilometer core drilled from the Antacrtic ice cap, as reported today by BBC News (read it here), provide a record of temperature and atmospheric CO2 going back 800,000 years. The core reveals a direct cause-and-effect relationship between atmospheric levels of CO2 and global temperatures. When CO2 goes up, temperatures also rise.

In that entire 800,000 years, the fastest rate of change in atmospheric carbon that was found was an increase of 30 parts per million per 1000 years.

We have seen that much carbon added to our atmosphere just since 1989, a mere 17 years ago—and the rate of change is becoming ever faster as humans proliferate and continue to burn more and more oil, gas and coal.

The oceans cannot respond fast enough to sequester this unprecedented onslaught of carbon in sediments, and instead more and more of the CO2 reacts with the water to form carbonic acid. According to the BBC story,

…[m]ore CO2 absorbed by the oceans will raise their acidity, and a number of recent studies have concluded that this will eventually disrupt the ability of marine micro-organisms to use the calcium carbonate in the water to produce their hard parts.

What is at stake is not only the entire foundation of the global food chain, which starts with the phytoplankton and other micro-organisms that live in the sea, but also a major factor in the delicate balance of oxygen and CO2 in our atmosphere. Much of the planet’s fresh oxygen is produced through he process of photosynthesis by algae and bacteria that share the oceans with those tiny animals that capture carbon and eventually sequester it on the sea bottom in their skeletons.

(more…)

Posted in Climate Change, Ocean Depletion | Comments Off

More Trouble Ahead for World’s Oceans

Friday, April 28th, 2006

By David L. Brown

Two-thirds of our planet are covered by ocean, and the seas were the source of all life on Earth. Even today, the oceans play a key role in generating weather patterns, the oxygen in our atmosphere through the biological activity of plankton and algae, and as a major source of protein-rich fish for a hungry world.

But as is well known, our oceans are in rapid decline. Their waters are becoming polluted with toxic wastes. Their vast fisheries are being strip mined by greedy nations with no concern for the long term effects of their actions. Their waters are growing warmer, leading to coral death, plankton depletion, and having a significant and growing effect on the world’s climate.

Without question, the oceans that girdle our globe are in trouble, and their future is tied to the fate of all life on Earth. Star Phoenix Base will keep an eye on this important ecological subject.

Posted in Ocean Depletion | Comments Off