A Scary Report Card on the World's Oceans

[nofurylike]

By Bryan Walsh
June 21, 2011

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/...40,00.html

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But while news of Earth's impending doom can sometimes seem exaggerated, there's one environmental disaster that never gets the coverage it really deserves: the state of the oceans. Most people know that wild fisheries are dwindling, and we might know that low-oxygen aquatic dead zones are blooming around the planet's most crowded coasts. But the oceans appear to be undergoing fundamental changes — many of them for the worse — that we can barely understand, in part because we barely understand that vast blue territory that covers 70% of the globe.

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Why is the rate of carbon being absorbed by the oceans so disturbing for marine scientists? Let's put it this way: the rate of carbon absorption right now is far greater than the rate seen some 55 million years ago. That was when the last globally significant extinction of marine species took place, when 50% of some groups of deep-sea animals were wiped out. We can try to restrict fishing, and we can work to protect sensitive coral reefs and other habitats for marine life. But if we can't figure out a way to curb global carbon emissions, we may alter the oceans beyond their ability to heal themselves — at least in ways that will support marine life as we know it.

Despite the scary IPSO reports — and scores of others like it that have been published in the past — the oceans seem likely to continue to get less attention than they need and deserve ....

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[jaxx]

We need to take much better care of our planet and the water sources. People who poo-poo this as silly aren't thinking about eating and breathing.

[nofurylike]

(06-22-2011 09:01 AM)jaxx Wrote:  We need to take much better care of our planet and the water sources. People who poo-poo this as silly aren't thinking about eating and breathing.

we certainly do, jaxx.
yes! not thinking is their problem!
it always galls me that we worry about their children "eating and breathing," too, while they see it as a weakness that we are "bleeding heart"s.

thank you!