Humans are ruining the oceans
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Posted on February 15, 2008
Filed Under Global warming/Climate change, Deep ecology, Greenhouse gas emissions, Ecological overshoot, Ecological hope, Consumer culture, Environmental disasters, Earth spirituality
Fostering Ecological Hope
Today from Margaret Swedish:
This is not a small thing; this is a huge thing. A new study shows that we humans, our wasteful, toxic, fossil-fuel burning, greedy, over-consuming activities are negatively impacting the oceans in every corner of the planet.
The story is reported in today’s Washington Post (Study Finds Humans’ Effect on Oceans Comprehensive), and was conducted by a team of scientists from several different institutions, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The study is being released today in the journal Science.
The many factors affecting the ocean’s ecosystems include agricultural and industrial runoff, overfishing, and global warming as a result of increased greenhouse gas emissions. A Feb. 14 news release from the National Science Foundation regarding the study reports:
More than 40 percent of the world’s oceans are heavily affected by human activities, and few if any areas remain untouched, according to the first global-scale study of human influence on marine ecosystems.
The most degraded areas include the Atlantic Ocean off our own eastern seaboard, 
as well as large areas of the North Sea, the South and East China Seas, the Caribbean Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Bering Sea and several regions in the western Pacific.
According to the NSF, the polar seas, as they melt because of global warming, will be more severely threatened and could deteriorate rapidly. Corporate and government profit-makers have their eye on the Arctic for oil and gas drilling, large-scale fishing, shorter commercial shipping routes, and tourism.
The NOAA’s Dr. Kenneth Casey, co-author of the study, noted the heavy impact of greenhouse gases, global warming and climate change:
Casey said three measures of human-induced climate change were examined by the research team, including changes in sea surface temperatures, UV radiation, and ocean acidification. These measures were found to be among the most important factors in determining the global impacts.
“The extent of human influence was probably more than any of us expected.”
Have we heard this before — scientists alarmed that things are worse than they expected? This seems to be a constant theme when it comes to research into climate change and diminishment of ecosystems all around the planet.
A mentor of mine in this work, a scientist involved in climate modeling and carrying-capacity issues for more than three decades, and also a man of deep faith, told me one time that he thought part of our problem is that we have difficulty thinking we could impact anything on so large a scale. We just go on about our day with all our individual activities unaware that they add up to forces that are reshaping the biosphere and atmosphere of the entire planet.
This awareness, of course, is crucial if we are to be able to give any reason for our ecological hope (to paraphrase 1 Peter 3:15). We human beings must begin to reeducate ourselves about our role within nature and thus the impact of our collective activities on the planet. This should start in childhood, even babyhood, when we still have those connections, before our Western industrial and technological cultures separate us from that awareness.
How crucial are the oceans to our well-being? Well, the oceans’ phytoplankton are at the bottom of the oceans’ food chain, and many fear widespread dieoffs because of increasing acidification as the waters warm. When we talk about the bottom of the food chain, we are talking about its necessary foundations. Foundations, as you know, hold things up. Without them, right, things begin to fall apart. Plankton also absorb huge amounts of carbon dioxide. As they diminish, so will the ocean’s ability to absorb CO2, creating yet another positive feedback loop, another global warming defense disrupted or destroyed.
Oceans also create our climate all across the planet. They are part of the Earth’s lung system, if you will, an essential part of the chain of events that keeps the chemicals of the atmosphere in balance.
As we know now, the Earth’s atmospheric system is becoming destabilized because of our human activity. We are already feeling the impacts in multiple ways, as readers of this blog know all too well.
The only answer to this is to decrease human activity, to decrease the human impact on these systems. For the oceans, this is now critical. I don’t care how much we love our ocean views and our gourmet fish and seafood recipes, our long distance shipping of consumer goods — and then all that greenhouse-gas-belching that comes from our much beloved lifestyles — we must decrease the human footprint on the ecosystems of the planet.
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To view a NOAA video map of the study’s findings, click here.
For a personal, and poignant, account of the study by one of the scentists, Ben Halpern, Marine Biologist at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, visit this page at SeaWeb: Leading Voices for a Healthy Ocean.
Technorati Tags: human activities affecting oceans, ocean ecosystems, national oceanic and atmospheric administration, Dr. Kenneth Casey, National Science Foundation, ocean pollution, threat to ecosystems, lower human footprint
Map graphic credit: Ben Halpern, as found on the SeaWeb website
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2 Responses to “Humans are ruining the oceans”
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Who else shall ruin the oceans. It is tragedy that humans have brain, which does not function for the good of the people. Biggest fools shall be elected as representatives to feel democracy. For their needs and greedyness they use democracy and forget about the …. they make with environment. Let it run for some days years. The doomsday is not that too long.
Is economic globalization the colossal expression of a contagion well-known to everyone: human greed?