ONE TOWN SQUARE: at the intersection of peak oil, climate change, and land use

Ocean acidification has arrived in Pacific Northwest

November 21st, 2011 by Jim Just

Massive die-offs of oyster larvae in the Pacific Northwest show ocean acidification from an excess of CO2 emissions has already begun.

In Netarts Bay, from 2006 to 2008, oyster larvae began dying dramatically. Elizabeth Grossman, in an article in Yale Environment 360, quotes Netarts Bay hatchery owner Mark Wiegard:

Historically we’ve had larvae mortalities [usually related to bacteria] . . . My wife sent a few samples in and Hales [Burke Hales, a biogeochemist and ocean ecologist at Oregon State University] said someone had screwed up the samples because the [dissolved CO2 gas] level was so ridiculously high.

Taylor Shellfish Hatchery in Washington, the country’s largest producer of farmed shellfish and one of the largest oyster producers, has also reported dramatic losses.  Hood Canal has some of the Pacific Northwest’s highest levels of ocean acidification. Taylor’s hatchery there experienced the loss of about three-quarters of its oyster larvae, losses which are now being mitigated by buffering the high acidity.

Wild oyster beds in the Pacific Northwest are suffering, too.  Wild oysters in Willapa Bay,  Puget Sound, and off the east coast of Vancouver Island have seen reproductive failure because acidic waters have prevented oyster larvae from forming shells. Acidic water sometimes kills oyster larvae outright, so that they fail to survive past the egg stage. At other times the eggs hatch; but the larvae, stressed as they try to forms their first shells, fail after a week or two.

The water now washing ashore in Oregon and Washington actually absorbed its CO2 30 to 50 years ago. Oceans absorb about 50% of the CO2 released by burning fossil fuels. Since then, emissions have been rising even more dramatically.

Ocean acidity has increased approximately 30% since the Industrial Revolution and is on track to be 150% more acidic by the end of the century than it has been for 20 million years. Ocean acidification depletes seawater of the compounds that organisms need to build shells and skeletons, impairing the ability of corals, crabs, sea stars, sea urchins, plankton and other marine creatures to build the shells they need to survive. Ocean acidification could destroy all of the globe’s coral reefs by 2050 and threatens the entire marine ecosystem.

Posted in Ecology, Fisheries, Global Warming, Science | No Comments »

Human-caused marine massacre a symptom of industrial disease

June 21st, 2011 by Jim Just

A new report just released by the International Program on the State of the Oceans finds the condition of the oceans is declining far more rapidly than even pessimists had expected. It’s bad enough that many marine species — including those that make coral reefs — could be extinct within a generation. Humans may have set Earth on track for a sixth mass extinction event.

The key findings of the International Earth system expert workshop on ocean stresses and impacts Summary Report should be enough to shake any cognizant being out of their lethargy:

  • Human actions have resulted in warming and acidification of the oceans and are now causing increased hypoxia – symptoms that indicate disturbances of the carbon cycle associated with each of the previous five mass extinctions on Earth.
  • The speeds of many negative changes to the ocean are near to or are tracking the worst-case scenarios from IPCC and other predictions. Consequences matching those predicted under the “worst case scenario” include decrease in Arctic Sea Ice, melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, sea level rise, and release of trapped methane from the seabed.
  • The magnitude of the cumulative impacts on the ocean is greater than previously understood, as interactions between different impacts can be negatively synergistic.
  • Timelines for action are shrinking. Delays will mean increased environmental damage with greater socioeconomic impacts.
  • Resilience of the ocean to climate change impacts is severely compromised by the other stressors from human activities, including fisheries, pollution and habitat destruction.
  • Ecosystem collapse is occurring as a result of both current and emerging stressors including chemical pollutants, agriculture run-­off, sediment loads and over-­extraction of many components of food webs.
  • The extinction threat to marine species is rapidly increasing due to overexploitation, habitat loss, and, increasingly, climate change.

But don’t count on any response from our political or economic elites, other than wanton disregard. They have proved to not be cognizant beings.

A press release quotes Dr. Alex Rogers, Scientific Director of the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO), which convened the workshop:

The findings are shocking. As we considered the cumulative effect of what humankind does to the ocean the implications became far worse than we had individually realized. 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.

Co-author Dan Laffoley issued a call for action:

The world’s leading experts on oceans are surprised by the rate and magnitude of changes we are seeing. The challenges for the future of the ocean are vast, but unlike previous generations we know what now needs to happen. The time to protect the blue heart of our planet is now, today and urgent.

The chances of any significant action being taken are precisely zero. The sad reality is the ocean and its ecosystems are doomed to succumb to a constantly bombardment of multiple attacks.

Dan Allen at Energy Bulletin scathingly observes that humans have proved to be less than rational:

[A]ny sane society . . . when faced with such an overwhelming abundance of scientific evidence, would be gnashing its collective teeth and running for the powerdown-exits en masse at this point. No sane society would ignore the screaming warnings of every single Earth system. No sane society would knowingly doom their children and grandchildren to misery and starvation. No sane society would stand by and do NOTHING — NOT ONE DAMN THING!! — while their very life-support systems eroded away before their eyes.

But we are surely not sane.

Political solutions have failed us, are failing us, and will certainly continue to fail us. The only option we have – to slam on the brakes and to stop burning coal, tout de suite – won’t be undertaken voluntarily; to think otherwise is delusional. Climate catastrophe is where we are. As Allen says, that’s the bed we’ve made:

So, sadly, at this late hour, we just flat-out NEED the dark angel of economic collapse to swoop down onto the stage, ‘Deus ex Machina’ style, and save the day.

God help us.

Pray for the collapse of the global industrial economy. And do what you can to begin fashioning a replacement.

Posted in Climate Change, Fisheries, Global Warming, Oceans | No Comments »

Over-exploitation of Earth’s resources: what you see is what you get

June 16th, 2011 by Jim Just

This image from an article by David McCandless in the UK Guardian shows how the biomass of popularly eaten fish in the North Atlantic Ocean dropped precipitously over the century between 1900 and 2000.

Popularly eaten fish include: bluefin tuna, cod, haddock, hake, halibut, herring, mackerel, pollock, salmon, sea trout, striped bass, sturgeon, turbot – many of which are now vulnerable or endangered.

McCandless points out that the sea has been over exploited for a long time – long enough so that we have no memory of how bountiful it once was.

So this is a kind of collective social amnesia that allows over-exploitation to creep up and increase decade-by-decade without anyone truly questioning it. Today’s fishing quotas and policies for example are attempting to reset fish stocks to the levels of ten or twenty years ago. But as you can see from the visualization, we were already plenty screwed back then.

Industrialized fishing methods – such as purse seines, factory freezer trawlers, echo-sounding sonar, and fish aggregating devices – have proved to be so “efficient” they’ve succeeded in wiping out fishing grounds. Now there’s nowhere else to go. A new study published in the open-source journal PLoS One shows that over the past 50 years, fish supplies were maintained only be expanding fisheries geographically over the globe. Now, the world’s fishing fleets are running out of ocean.

Wild-caught food from the sea will soon become a fading memory. David Cohen at Decline of the Empire identifies overfishing as a classic example of limits to growth. Cohen concludes it’s a consequence of human nature: there’s nothing to be done about it.

Human over-exploitation of the oceans will end when all the fish populations are commercially extinct. If something can’t go on forever, it won’t. That’s how the story ends.

The same conclusion holds with global warming and climate change. Human over-exploitation of fossil fuel resources will end when all commercially recoverable reserves are exhausted. By then the tipping point will have been passed, and Earth will be on its way to a new climate regime.

A new story will begin. Humans may or may not be a part of that story. If humans are lucky, there will prove to be no justice in the universe.

Posted in Climate Change, Fisheries, Global Warming | No Comments »

No fish, no fishing

March 13th, 2011 by Jim Just

The first in a series of articles by Michael Conathan at Science Progress contains this graphic showing “peak fish” is in the world’s rear-view mirror.

Fearing a blow to their business and income, fishermen resist lower cap limits and other restrictions on fishing such as off-limit areas – marine reserves – where fish populations are protected so they have a chance to rebuild.

The difficulty in putting any restrictions on fishing is highlighted by Oregon’s experience.  Eight new marine reserves off the  Oregon coast were proposed in 2008, and the idea immediately provoked opposition. Opponents feared the proposed reserves would kill the coastal economy, especially in communities that rely on fishing. Commercial and recreational fishers in Depoe Bay were especially concerned that the proposed sites on either end of harbor could effectively shut them down.

A “community team process” was initiated in an attempt get everybody on board, with two sideboards from the governor’s office: the sites must be large enough to allow scientific evaluation of ecological benefits, but small enough to avoid significant economic or social impacts to coastal communities and ocean users. So far, only two pilot marine reserve sites – at Otter Rock, north of Newport, and at Redfish Rocks, near Port Orford have been established,  scheduled to take effect June 2011.

Left: Otto Rock Pilot Marine Reserve Right: Redfish Rocks pilot marine reserve

In November 2010, three other sites were recommended for approval: Cape Falcon south of Cannon Beach, Cascade Head near Lincoln City and Cape Perpetua near Yachats.

Recommended marine reserves, left to right: Cape Falcon, Cascade Head, Cape Perpetua

The Cape Falcon reserve is the only one proposed for Oregon’s rocky and productive northern coast. The Cascade Head team voted 12-4 for a 34-square-mile mix of reserves and protected areas that covers about 12 percent of the productive Siletz Reef just off Lincoln City. The four dissenters favored a larger reserve area covering the northern third of the reef, an option that received a 9-7 vote; and the compromise left both environmentalists and fishermen unhappy.

Reserves allow boating and research, but they bar fishing, crabbing, hunting, pipelines, telecommunications cables and industrial activity such as wave and wind energy. Less-restrictive protected areas generally allow some fishing and crabbing but not bottom trawling, seen as most destructive of habitat.

The three new reserve areas still need to go to the Legislature for designation and funding. Together, the new reserves and protected areas would constitute less than 10% of Oregon’s territorial sea, a three-mile-wide strip along the 360-mile coast – well short of the 14% reserve proposal floated in 2008 by ocean conservation groups.

Scientific studies from marine reserves around the world show they can benefit the size, diversity, and abundance of marine life within them. Prior to approval of the Otter Rock and Redfish Rocks reserves, Oregon was the only state on the west coast without marine reserves.

Posted in Fisheries | No Comments »

Oceans in danger of being fished out

December 6th, 2010 by Jim Just

A new study finds that the world’s fishing industry is depleting older fishing grounds through unsustainable harvesting practices – and that there’s no place left to look for new ones.

The study, titled The Spatial Expansion and Ecological Footprint of Fisheries (1950 to Present), was conducted by researchers at Vancouver’s University of British Columbia in conjunction with the National Geographic magazine.

The study says that 90 million tons of fish were landed in the late 1980s, up from 19 million in the 1950s. The researchers tracked the expansion of fishing activity, examining both the total number of fish caught and the impact that catching different types of fish has had on the ocean’s productivity. By the late 1990s, the world’s fishing fleets had largely run out of new fishing grounds to exploit.

Co-author Enric Sala says we can’t afford to do nothing.

The sooner we come to grips with it, the sooner we can stop the downward spiral by creating stricter fishing regulations and more marine reserves.

The researchers said that in 1950 most heavy fishing was done in the North Atlantic and the Western Pacific, but by the mid 1990s, a third of the world’s oceans and two-thirds of the continental shelves were exploited. That expansion has left only unproductive fishing areas on the high seas and the ice-covered waters of the Arctic and Antarctic for boats to move into.

Here’s the abstract.

Using estimates of the primary production required (PPR) to support fisheries catches (a measure of the footprint of fishing), we analyzed the geographical expansion of the global marine fisheries from 1950 to 2005. We used multiple threshold levels of PPR as percentage of local primary production to define ‘fisheries exploitation’ and applied them to the global dataset of spatially-explicit marine fisheries catches. This approach enabled us to assign exploitation status across a 0.5° latitude/longitude ocean grid system and trace the change in their status over the 56-year time period. This result highlights the global scale expansion in marine fisheries, from the coastal waters off North Atlantic and West Pacific to the waters in the Southern Hemisphere and into the high seas. The southward expansion of fisheries occurred at a rate of almost one degree latitude per year, with the greatest period of expansion occurring in the 1980s and early 1990s. By the mid 1990s, a third of the world’s ocean, and two-thirds of continental shelves, were exploited at a level where PPR of fisheries exceed 10% of PP, leaving only unproductive waters of high seas, and relatively inaccessible waters in the Arctic and Antarctic as the last remaining ‘frontiers.’ The growth in marine fisheries catches for more than half a century was only made possible through exploitation of new fishing grounds. Their rapidly diminishing number indicates a global limit to growth and highlights the urgent need for a transition to sustainable fishing through reduction of PPR.

Posted in Fisheries, Oceans, Science | No Comments »

The revolution starts now

September 11th, 2009 by Jim Just

An article in the UK Timesonline reports that cod are doomed to disappear from the North Sea:

Cod are doomed to disappear from the North Sea because of climate change and not just as a result of over-fishing, researchers have discovered.

In the past 40 years the average temperature of the North Sea has increased by 1C with catastrophic effects on its delicate eco-systems.

Species of plankton, on which cod larvae feed, have moved away in search of cooler waters. The decline in cod stocks has led to an explosion in the populations of crabs and jellyfish, on which the adult fish feed. The shortage of predators at the top of the food chain has had a knock-on effect on flat fish, such as plaice and sole, whose offspring are eaten by crabs.

I just finished reading Song for the Blue Ocean. Back in 1997, Carl Safina chronicled the horrifying demise of the world’s fisheries. How much worse have things gotten since then? How much worse will they get?

John Michael Greer urges us to face the truth – the future won’t be better than the present:

We are not going to have a future better than the present: not in our lifetimes, and not in those of our grandchildren’s grandchildren. We collectively closed the door on that possibility decades ago, and none of the rapidly narrowing range of choices still open to us now offers any way of changing that.

Greer advises embracing ambivalence and accepting “both the wonder and the immense tragedy of our time.” But life is yin yang, both wonder and tragedy. Always has been, always will be.  It’s not just now.

Guy McPherson takes issue with the notion that our way of life is as great as we think.  He writes at The Energy Bulletin about his trip to a family wedding. He observes that the “living arrangements” we’ve made are far from ideal:

Within the span of a couple generations, we abandoned a durable, finely textured, life-affirming set of living arrangements characterized by self-sufficient family farms intermixed with small towns that provided commerce, services, and culture. Worse yet, we traded that model for a coarse-scaled arrangement wholly dependent on ready access to cheap fossil fuels.

Yes, we’ve done that – and far worse, thoughtlessly exploiting Earth’s resources and despoiling Earth’s ecosystems to the brink of collapse and beyond.

And now we’re reaping what we have sown, in the collapse of fisheries and a looming collapse in agriculture. We eat oil – but Hubbert’s peak is now in our rear-view mirror. Shed no tears for the demise of industrial agriculture. McPherson describes what he saw throughout the Midwest:

The entire region, formerly abundant with a multitude of edible crops, currently is brimming with a single commodity: #2 corn. It’s Roundup-ready, at that, just to throw a bucket of insulting acid into the face of reason. Roundup-resistant weeds are popping up throughout the region as we bring Farmageddon to the heartland and eventually to the world. Most of the corn, which is essentially inedible until it is processed (i.e., pummeled with inordinate quantities of fossil fuels), is watered with the last remaining drops of the Ogallala aquifer, brought to the surface with the same finite fluid used to power our trucks and cars. Verdant fields of ethanol dreams are interrupted occasionally by a field of soybeans; without rotations of legumes, the soil would be so depleted of nitrogen by king corn, it wouldn’t support even the great corn desert. The corn fills our bellies with death-inducing faux sugar. But we willingly trade some of that “food” for fuel because the associated dependence on automobiles allows us to burn off the final inches of life-giving topsoil to promote our culture of death in rapid-transit, individualized death-traps. Who could pass up a deal like that?

Contra Greer, McPherson thinks better days lie ahead.

How could they not? In the near future, we’ll return to a durable set of living arrangements.

Greer points out that McPherson’s dreams of “better days” imply a human population as low as 500 million. That’s quite a crash from today’s population of almost 7 billion.  We can’t control how that crash work itself out. Suffering will not be denied. Still, life is durable.

McPherson’s “better days” are seen in some imagined “future.” Better days are here already, all around us, no matter what the political, economic, or ecological crisis of the moment. They’re here in the chipping of a squirrel, in the deep dark of a new moon, in the mist of a September morning. They’re here in a meal of local free-run turkey, fresh garden tomatoes, and copious quantities of home-grown Pinot Noir shared with dear friends. As long as there are creatures on Earth, life will be wondrous – and tragic.

Our farmer neighbors don’t seem to be interested in the debates about whether we expect the future to be better or worse, whether industrial imperialism can be saved or is worth saving. They simply get about the work of raising the best food they can while struggling to make ends meet and doing as little harm as possible. That’s true revolution.

And everybody can participate. As Wendell Berry says, eating is an agricultural act.

Agricultural acts can be revolutionary.

Posted in Climate Change, Farming, Fisheries, Food | No Comments »

Global warming impacting North Atlantic, Arctic, Australia

September 2nd, 2009 by Jim Just

Here’s a brief compendium of news reporting dramatic effects of global warming that are already being felt around the world, from the Arctic to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

Troubling bubbles

In the Canadian arctic, pure methane in massive amounts is seeping out of the boggy soil.

“On a calm day, you can see 20 or more ‘seeps’ out across this lake,” said Canadian researcher Rob Bowen, sidling his small rubber boat up beside one of them. A tossed match would have set it ablaze. “It’s essentially pure methane.”

AP correspondent Charles Hanley reports that air temperatures in northwest Canada, in Siberia and elsewhere in the Arctic have risen more than 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit since 1970 — much faster than the global average. The summer thaw is reaching deeper into frozen soil, at a rate of 1.5 inches a year, and according to the IPCC a further 13-degree temperature rise is possible this century. And that’s without calculating in the added effect of methane released from thawing Arctic soils.  Permafrost, tundra soil frozen year-round and covering almost one-fifth of Earth’s land surface, runs anywhere from 160 to 2,000 feet deep and is packed with carbon from tens of thousands of years of accumulated plant and animal matter. The top 10 feet of permafrost alone contain more carbon than is now in the atmosphere.

The prognosis is not encouraging.

How likely is a major release?

“I don’t think it’s a case of likelihood,” he [Stockholm University researcher Orjan Gustafssons] said. “I think we are playing with fire.”

Great Barrier Reef Said to Face Catastrophic Damage

Australian officials, commenting on a report issued by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, warn that catastrophic damage to the Great Barrier Reef, the world’s most extensive bank of coral, may be unavoidable if global warming continues unchecked.

Queensland state Premier Anna Bligh said today that warming is hurting reefs and that urgent action is needed to reduce run-off of nutrients and chemicals from farms that poses a second threat.

Here’s an excerpt from the Executive Summary of the report:

Almost all the biodiversity of the Great Barrier Reef will be affected by climate change, with coral reef habitats the most vulnerable. Coral bleaching resulting from increasing sea temperature and lower rates of calcification in skeleton-building organisms, such as corals, because of ocean acidification, are the effects of most concern and are already evident.

Change is seen in Atlantic from climate, fishing

The basic makeup of the ocean waters off the Northeast and the mid-Atlantic region has fundamentally changed in the past 40 years because of climate change, commercial fishing pressures and growing coastal populations, according to a new report.

The “new report” referred to is the 2009 Ecosystem Status Report, just released by the Ecosystem Assessment Program at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) of NOAA’s Fisheries Service in Woods Hole, Mass. Global warming impacts include:

  • Warming of coastal and shelf waters has led to northward shifts in distribution of some fish species and changes to a warmer-water fish community.
  • The community structure of zooplankton, a major food source for whales and many other marine species including fish, has changed, due in part to climate and physical processes acting over the North Atlantic Basin, indicating the importance of winds and atmospheric circulation patterns to the function and structure of this ecosystem.

Here’s the introductory paragraph to the section on climate forcing:

Climate patterns over the North Atlantic are important drivers of oceanographic conditions and ecosystem states.  Steadily increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels can not only affect climate on global and regional scales but alter critical aspects of ocean chemistry. Here, we describe the atmospheric forcing mechanisms related to climate in this region including large-scale atmospheric pressure systems, natural ocean temperature cycles in the North Atlantic, components of the large-scale circulation of the Atlantic Ocean, and issues related to ocean acidification.

Posted in Climate Change, Fisheries, Global Warming, Oceans | No Comments »

Climate change damage to last thousands of years

January 26th, 2009 by Jim Just

Two new studies warn that damage from climate change will last thousands of years.

A study led by NOAA senior scientist Susan Solomon shows that changes in surface temperature, rainfall, and sea level are largely irreversible for more than 1,000 years after carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are completely stopped. The most important finding is that there will be “irreversible precipitation changes” (that is, drought) in the U.S. Southwest, Southeast Asia, Eastern South America, Western Australia, Southern Europe, Southern Africa, and northern Africa.

My beloved South of France really takes it on the chin.

The findings appear during the week of January 26 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. While the press release is available for free, the study itself isn’t. Joseph Romm at Climate Progress has posted an excerpt:

…the climate change that is taking place because of increases in carbon dioxide concentration is largely irreversible for 1,000 years after emissions stop…. Among illustrative irreversible impacts that should be expected if atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations increase from current levels near 385 parts per million by volume (ppmv) to a peak of 450-600 ppmv over the coming century are irreversible dry-season rainfall reductions in several regions comparable to those of the ”dust bowl” era and inexorable sea level rise.

Another new study finds global warming could cause severe ocean oxygen depletion that would leave huge areas of the ocean devoid of fish and seafood. The authors warn that substantial reductions in fossil-fuel use over the next few generations are needed if extensive ocean oxygen depletion for thousands of years is to be avoided.

Continued global warming could persist far into the future, because natural processes require decades to hundreds of thousands of years to remove carbon dioxide produced by fossil-fuel burning from the atmosphere. A 100,000-year simulation indicates that these “dead zones” could endure for thousands of years.

The study, titled “Long-term ocean oxygen depletion in response to carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels“, is published in the journal Nature Geoscience. The full text is behind a paywall. The  abstract is below the fold:

Ongoing global warming could persist far into the future, because natural processes require decades to hundreds of thousands of years to remove carbon dioxide from fossil-fuel burning from the atmosphere. Future warming may have large global impacts including ocean oxygen depletion and associated adverse effects on marine life, such as more frequent mortality events, but long, comprehensive simulations of these impacts are currently not available. Here we project global change over the next 100,000 years using a low-resolution Earth system model, and find severe, long-term ocean oxygen depletion, as well as a great expansion of ocean oxygen-minimum zones for scenarios with high emissions or high climate sensitivity. We find that climate feedbacks within the Earth system amplify the strength and duration of global warming, ocean heating and oxygen depletion. Decreased oxygen solubility from surface-layer warming accounts for most of the enhanced oxygen depletion in the upper 500 m of the ocean. Possible weakening of ocean overturning and convection lead to further oxygen depletion, also in the deep ocean. We conclude that substantial reductions in fossil-fuel use over the next few generations are needed if extensive ocean oxygen depletion for thousands of years is to be avoided.

Posted in Fisheries, Global Warming, Oceans, Science | No Comments »

Ocean acidity increasing faster than expected

November 25th, 2008 by Jim Just

A new study conducted in the Pacific Ocean at Tatoosh Island off the coast of Washington finds that ocean acidity has increased more than 10 times faster than had been predicted by climate change models and other studies. The new study is based on 24,519 measurements of ocean pH spanning eight years, which represents the first detailed dataset on variations of coastal pH at temperate latitudes where the world’s most productive fisheries are found.

This increase will have a severe impact on marine food webs and suggests that ocean acidification may be a more urgent issue than previously thought. Many sea creatures have shells or skeletons made of calcium carbonate, which is dissolved by acid. The increased acidity of the ocean could interfere with many critical ocean processes such as coral reef building or shellfish harvesting. The study documented that the number of mussels and stalked barnacles fell as acidity increased. At the same time, populations of smaller, shelled species and noncalcareous algae increased.

The ocean plays a significant role in global carbon cycles. When atmospheric carbon dioxide dissolves in water it forms carbonic acid, increasing the acidity of the ocean. During the day, carbon dioxide levels in the ocean fall because photosynthesis takes it out of the water, but at night, levels increase again. The study documented this daily pattern, as well as a steady increase in acidity over time.

The study, “Dynamical Patterns and Ecological Impacts of Declining Ocean pH in a High-Resolution Multi-Year Dataset,” will be published in the Dec. 2 issue of PNAS.

Posted in Ecology, Environment, Fisheries, Oceans, Science | No Comments »

PacifiCorp, U.S., California and Oregon sign agreement to remove Klamath dams

November 16th, 2008 by Jim Just

PacifiCorp has agreed to remove four dams on the Klamath River as part of a broader effort to restore the river and revive its ailing salmon and steelhead runs and aid fishing, tribal and farming communities. If the dams come down it would be the biggest dam removal and river restoration effort the world has ever seen.

The Agreement in Principle released today is intended to guide the development of a final settlement agreement in June 2009 and includes provisions to remove PacifiCorp’s four mainstem dams in 2020, a century after the construction of the first dam, Copco 1. Dam removal will re-open over 300 miles of habitat for the Klamath’s salmon and steelhead populations and eliminate water quality problems caused by the reservoirs.

But the deal came under immediate attack from tribes environmentalists who called it a scheme riddled with loopholes that favor farmers and other allies of the outgoing president. They say it makes no sense to strike a deal with just weeks left before Barack Obama becomes president.

Specific provisions of the agreement include:

  • PacifiCorp agrees to contribute as much as $200 million to cover the cost of removing its four dams and restoring the river.  Dam removal funds would be obtained from ratepayers in Oregon and California before removal begins.
  • If the costs of dam removal exceed PacifiCorp’s contribution, California and Oregon together would contribute up to $250 million.  Current estimates of dam removal costs range between $75 million and $200 million.
  • In accordance with all applicable environmental laws, the Secretary of the Department of the Interior will assess the method and impacts of dam removal, and will make a final determination on the benefits and costs of dam removal by March 31st, 2012. California and Oregon will make similar determinations shortly after the federal government.
  • Federal legislation will be required to implement provisions of the initial agreement. The legislation will establish the transfer of the dams to the federal government, although an independent third-party will be identified to actually remove the dams.

This LA Times article (cross-posted at Truthout) quotes Tom Schlosser, an attorney for the Hoopa tribe of Northern California:

“It’s just nutty to commit to this with Bush heading out the door.”

Environmentalists fear PacifiCorp will exploit the agreement as a delaying tactic, arguing that the deal has loopholes that allow the company to back out as late as 2012. The agreement will essentially shut down California’s water quality hearings on the Klamath dams.

PacifiCorp’s four dams produce a nominal amount of power which can be replaced using renewables and efficiency measures without contributing to global warming. A study by the California Energy Commission and the Department of the Interior found that removing the dams and replacing their power would save PacifiCorp customers up to $285 million over 30 years.

The dams, built between 1908 and 1962, cut off hundreds of miles of once-productive salmon spawning and rearing habitat in the Upper Klamath, which was once the third most productive salmon river on the west coast. The dams also create toxic conditions in the reservoirs that threaten the health of fish and people.

The $200 million from Pacificorps for dam removal and river restoration would come from boosted electricity rates for customers in the Pacific Northwest. PacifiCorp chairman Greg Abel said rates could rise as much as 2%. The agreement would give the company protection from liability and time to find replacement power.

Portland-based PacifiCorp is owned by billionaire Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

Posted in Environment, Fisheries, Law, Politics | No Comments »

Southern ocean close to acid tipping point: 450 ppm too high

November 11th, 2008 by Jim Just

Scientists have discovered that the tipping point for Southern Ocean acidification caused by human-induced CO2 emissions is much closer than first thought. The results are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

The “tipping point” of acidification – when the acidity of the ocean reaches a level where the shells of calcareous marine creatures start to dissolve – had been predicted to occur when atmospheric CO2 levels hit 550 parts per million, around the year 2060.

The new research shows levels of the carbonate that these creatures need to build and maintain their shells drops naturally in winter, due to natural variations in factors such as ocean temperature, currents and mixing, and pH. This means the tipping point is likely to be reached at far lower atmospheric CO2 levels – around 450 ppm – which also happens to be the current target set by the IPCC for stabilization of CO2 emissions. This concentration is forecast to be reached by around 2030.

Ocean acidification could lead to large scale ecosystem changes, affecting not just plankton at the base of the food chain but other marine life higher up the food chain including fish, whales and dolphins.

The new findings provide additional evidence that 350 ppm should be the maximum target for atmospheric CO2 levels if we are to avoid catastrophic feedback processes that would mean the end of the Holocene era.

The Holocene began around 10,000 years ago. Human civilization – including the invention of agriculture and the domestication of farm animals – dates almost entirely within the Holocene. We may have already entered what might be called the Anthropocene – the “era of man” – characterized by significant human impacts on the Earth. There’s no precedent in human existence for what we have yet to experience.

We do know Earth’s climate system has still to respond fully to the rapid increase in greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere – much more warming is already in the pipeline.  But already we’re  seeing stunning consequences, including species extinctions at a rate unseen in the last 65,000,000 years, unprecedented disappearance of sea ice, and unprecedented droughts, for example in Australia.

450 ppm isn’t a realistic target if we’re to avoid tipping points beyond which there’s no return. We have to aim to get back down to 350 ppm, and the sooner the better.

Posted in Ecology, Environment, Fisheries, Global Warming, Oceans, Science | No Comments »

Alaska pollock fishery near collapse

October 13th, 2008 by Jim Just

Stocks of Alaska pollock have shrunk 50% from last year to record low levels and put the world’s largest food fishery on the brink of collapse. Pollock stocks have been unable to reproduce quickly enough to recover from yearly catch of 1 million tons. Pollock biomass in U.S. waters is now down to 940,000 tons from 1.8 million tons the previous year.

Pollock is a staple of fur seals, whales and the endangered Steller sea lions – and the U.S. fast food industry. It is used in McDonald’s fish sandwiches, frozen fish sticks, fish and chips and imitation crabmeat.

The 2008 catch limit was set at 1 million tons last December, a 28% cut from the 2007 limit.

Greenpeace warns we are on the cusp of one of the largest fishery collapses in history and advises that the catch limit be halved, that fishing on spawning populations be suspended, and that marine reserves be created to protect pollock habitats.

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“Dead zones” doubling every decade

August 14th, 2008 by Jim Just

A study released today by marine biologists Robert Diaz and Rutger Rosenberg finds that ocean “dead zones” are increasing exponentially:

“Dead zones in the coastal oceans have spread exponentially since the 1960s and have serious consequences for ecosystem functioning. The formation of dead zones has been exacerbated by the increase in primary production and consequent worldwide coastal eutrophication fueled by riverine runoff of fertilizers and the burning of fossil fuels. Enhanced primary production results in an accumulation of particulate organic matter, which encourages microbial activity and the consumption of dissolved oxygen in bottom waters. Dead zones have now been reported from more than 400 systems, affecting a total area of more than 245,000 square kilometers, and are probably a key stressor on marine ecosystems.”

The study was published online by the journal Science (subs. recq’d.).

Kevin Drum has posted this graph at The Washington Monthly:

click to view graph

An article about the study in the Washington Post quotes Douglas N. Rader, chief ocean scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund:

“The next big challenge, after global warming, is going to be addressing the massive upset of the world’s nitrogen cycle.”

The chaos in the planet’s nitrogen cycle is not only creating dead zones but also inciting the spread of toxic algae, such as the pfiesteria that has appeared in recent years in the Chesapeake.

Posted in Ecology, Environment, Fisheries, Science | No Comments »

Climate change coup d’grace to world’s oceans

April 10th, 2008 by Jim Just

A new United Nations Environmental Programme report titled In Dead Water finds that marine ecosystems are under great stress – and that stress is increasing because of climate change caused by global warming.

The report finds growing and abundant evidence that the rate of environmental degradation in the oceans may have progressed further than anything yet seen on land.

Fishing grounds are increasingly damaged by over-harvesting, unsustainable bottom trawling and other fishing practices, pollution and dead zones, and a striking pattern of invasive species infestations in the same areas. These same areas may lose more than 80% of their tropical and cold water coral reefs due to rising sea temperatures and increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) leading to a decrease in seawater pH (acidification). Finally, these same areas are also facing rapidly growing pollution from coastal development, potential consequences of climate change such as possible slowing of ‘flushing’ mechanisms and increasing infestations of invasive species.

We are now observing what may become, in the absence of policy changes, a collapsing ecosystem with climate the final coup d’grace.

Posted in Climate Change, Fisheries, Global Warming, Science | No Comments »

Global warming requires a spiritual solution

April 6th, 2008 by Jim Just

An article by Andy Revkin in Sunday’s New York Times notes that recent data show “an unexpected rise in global emissions and a decline in energy efficiency.” Revkin adds that “a growing chorus of economists, scientists and students of energy policy are saying that whatever benefits the cap approach yields, it will be too little and come too late.”

He quotes economist Jeffrey Sachs:

“Even with a cutback in wasteful energy spending, our current technologies cannot support both a decline in carbon dioxide emissions and an expanding global economy. If we try to restrain emissions without a fundamentally new set of technologies, we will end up stifling economic growth, including the development prospects for billions of people.”

In sum, cap-and trade hasn’t worked, as we pointed out in this blog posting. But god forbid we should question our addiction to “growth.” In fact growth is our god, and economists the priesthood.

So what is Revkin – or as he carefully puts it in his article, what do “others” – suggest? A Manhatten Project-like commitment to and investment in “new technologies.”

Joseph Romm says that we don’t have time to wait for some unknown techno-fix and disagrees that we can’t stabilize atmospheric carbon dioxide levels at acceptable levels (below 450 ppm) using existing technologies.

Existing technologies – including, for example, solar thermal can provide sufficient energy to support people around the globe at decent and equitable levels of existence. We know from long historical practice – before the auto age – how to construct aesthetically pleasing and equitable communities that don’t rely on ravaging the Earth and poisoning the atmosphere. And we can probably avert catastrophic climate change if we just stop burning coal.

Global warming is a symptom of a too-large ecological footprint.  But it’s not the only symptom. Peak oil, to be followed by peak natural gas and peak coal, are other symptoms. Other resources – soil, water, rare earth metals, forests, fisheries – are reeling from the relentless assault of “growth” as well.

Global warming and other consequences of stress on Earth’s sources and sinks require much more than a technological fix.  They require that we topple the false idol of growth, along with its priesthood.

The solution to global warming isn’t technical – it’s spiritual.

Posted in Biofuels, Environment, Fisheries, Global Warming, Psychology, Sociology | No Comments »

UN: warmer world to mean less fish

February 25th, 2008 by Jim Just

A new report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) entitled “In Dead Water” says that climate change is emerging as the latest threat to the world’s dwindling fish stocks.

A slowing of ocean currents as a result of climate change may years interrupt the transport of nutrients to the most valuable coastal fishing zones. Also, higher sea surface temperatures over the coming decades threaten to bleach and kill up to 80 per cent of the globe’s coral reefs, which act as natural sea defenses and as nurseries for fish.  And carbon dioxide emissions are increasing the acidity of seas and oceans,  impacting calcium and shell-forming marine life including corals and the tiny planktonic organisms at the base of the food chain.

The worst concentration of cumulative impacts of climate change with existing pressures of over-harvesting, bottom trawling, invasive species infestations, coastal development and pollution appear to be concentrated in 10-15% of the oceans, far higher than had previously been supposed.  The most heavily impacted areas are concurrent with today’s most important fishing grounds, including the estimated 7.5% deemed to be the most economically valuable fishing areas of the world.

The executive summary of the report is available here.

 

Posted in Fisheries, Global Warming, Science | No Comments »