To quote Dr Alex Rogers
Every sea and ocean on our planet is part of one, global Ocean. This Ocean is like the earth's circulatory system: it performs numerous vital functions which make the planet habitable and we cannot survive without it. Currently, the Ocean is in a critical state of health. If it continues to decline, it will reach a point where it can no longer function effectively and our planet will be unable to sustain the ecosystems that support humankind.
A report is due out this week
We have all read about
These "accelerated" changes include melting of Arctic sea ice and the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, sea level rise, and release of methane trapped in the sea bed.
Yet they go on to say
But more worrying than this, the team noted, are the ways in which different issues act synergistically to increase threats to marine life.
Remember those plastic filled gyres in the pacific?
Some pollutants, for example, stick to the surfaces of tiny plastic particles that are now found in the ocean bed.
This increases the amounts of these pollutants that are consumed by bottom-feeding fish.
Plastic particles also assist the transport of algae from place to place, increasing the occurrence of toxic algal blooms - which are also caused by the influx of nutrient-rich pollution from agricultural land.
We all in our heart of hearts know:
"The challenges for the future of the ocean are vast; but unlike previous generations, we know what now needs to happen," said Dan Laffoley, marine chair of the World Commission on Protected Areas and an adviser to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
"The time to protect the blue heart of our planet is now."
From the Ocean.Org website:
The 27 participants from 18 organisations in 6 countries produced a grave assessment of current threats - and a stark conclusion about future risks to marine and human life if the current trajectory of damage continues: that the world's ocean is at high risk of entering a phase of extinction of marine species unprecedented in human history.
Some will say the title quote is fear-mongering,well what we have in politics is one party that denies and negates any responsibility and another that at its best is doing almost nothing.
If you have to put the fear of god into them to change their procrastinating and willful ignorance so be it....anyone with half paying attention to the data can conclude we are on the wrong track at best, and headed to environmental catastrophe at worst.
The data is constantly updated so the naysayers say "but, but they don't know" whereas anyone else says "every time new data is acquired the outlook is worse."
I don't often write diaries on the subject since they tend to be so gloomy in outlook and I am thoroughly disheartened by our so called leaders refusal to act; also I'm preaching to the choir.
You don't have to shatter the economy [though that will happen if you do nothing] you have to change the way we do business. The risk of doing nothing outweighs any risk in actually trying to prevent a potential disaster. Hell even the deniers have to admit a cleaner planet would be more agreeable if a tad less profitable in the short run.
What we do has consequences I am sick and tired of those who profit from denying the data.
Tue Jun 21, 2011 at 1:58 AM PT: More in the Independent today
http://www.independent.co.uk/...