Saving Seafood

Climate change reports point to eating more seafood as a way to help save the planet

November 8, 2019 — The United Nations’ Climate Action Summit in New York, which kicked off Climate Week at the end of September, may be long over, but the activities that took place around the world – and the strong messaging about the need to find solutions to save the planet from global warming – reached an unprecedented number of people this year.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a post-summit special report which outlined the major changes being observed in the earth’s oceans and frozen regions. The report concluded that the negative effects of warming oceans, melting ice, and rising sea levels already being experienced will accelerate in future decades.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Half the World’s Coral Reefs Already Have Been Killed by Climate Change

October 11, 2019 — The oceans have long been the biggest buffer for humankind’s dangerous greenhouse-gas emissions. Around a quarter of all the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere since the 1980s—from driving cars, running factories and churning out electricity with fossil fuels—has ended up sunk into the waters. As the planet has warmed from mounting emissions, the oceans warmed first and fastest, absorbing 90% of that excess heat. A report released last month by the UN-based Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the foremost scientific authority on the subject, warned that damage to the oceans is accelerating and may be at the point of irreversibility.

That makes delicate coral reefs around the world something of a leading indicator for the collapse of the ocean ecosystem. Half of all reef systems have already been destroyed, putting a quarter of marine life at risk. Even if global warming is limited to the 1.5 degree Celsius target outlined in the 2016 Paris Agreement—a longshot goal, at the current rate of emissions—the IPCC now concludes that “almost all warm-water coral reefs are projected to suffer significant losses of area and local extinctions.”

In a perverse consequence, lost reefs will leave nearby coastlines even more vulnerable to erosion and storms, as well as from accelerating sea-level rise, which could go up by as much as two feet this century as a result of glacier melt.

Read the full story at Bloomberg

IPCC Report Projects “Unprecedented” Changes in Ocean, Cryosphere Due to Global Warming

October, 2, 2019 — The 51st session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC 51) adopted the Summary for Policymakers (SPM) of the Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (SROCC), and accepted the underlying report. The SROCC assesses the latest scientific knowledge about the physical science basis for, and impacts of, climate change on ocean, coastal, polar and mountain ecosystems, and the human communities that depend on them.

The report also evaluates their vulnerabilities and adaptation capacity, as well as options for achieving climate-resilient development pathways. The report’s SPM, which the Panel approved line-by-line, aims to tease out some of the key findings of the longer report in such a way that policymakers can easily comprehend and use them.

The Earth Negotiations Bulletin highlights that oceans and ice are an “integral and dynamic part of the earth’s climate systems,” as they cover more than 80% of the earth’s surface. The report underscores the urgency of prioritizing “timely, ambitious and coordinated action” to address “unprecedented” and enduring changes in the ocean and cryosphere. It also describes the benefits of ambitious and effective adaptation for sustainable development, and the escalating costs and risks of delayed action.

According to the report, global warming has already reached 1°C above preindustrial levels, with: profound consequences for ecosystems and people; a warmer, more acidic and less productive ocean; melting glaciers and ice sheets causing increased sea level rise; and coastal extreme events becoming more severe.

The global ocean, the report notes, has warmed unabated since 1970 and has taken up more than 90% of the excess heat in the climate system, with consequences now visible in increased ocean acidification, stratification and loss of oxygen. Speaking at the press conference that launched the report to the public, IPCC Vice-Chair Ko Barrett said, “Water is the lifeblood of the planet,” and the world’s ocean and cryosphere have been “taking the heat” from climate change for decades, with “sweeping and severe” consequences for nature and humanity. She warned that changes to the ocean and cryosphere are forcing people from low-lying coastal cities to Arctic communities to “fundamentally alter their ways of life.”

Read the full story at IISD

Fish are in trouble with the climate crisis, IPCC report finds

September 27, 2019 — Since the 1970s, the climate crisis has made our oceans warmer and more acidic, reducing the number of fish we rely on for our food and putting the future of fish in peril, according to a major UN report out Wednesday.

Rising temperatures mean oceans will have less oxygen, and this, along with more heatwaves and increased acidification, will make fish move further away from the coast and create larger deadzones, where life cannot survive.

Ultimately, the report said, this will lead to the extinction of some species of fish, which Americans have been eating an increasing amount of recent years.

The US dietary guidelines recommend 8-12 ounces of seafood a week to keep a healthy diet. Fish plays an even bigger role internationally, providing up to half of all animal protein eaten in developing countries and it remains a leading source of vitamins and minerals.

Read the full story at CNN

‘Staggering’ new report on climate change is bad news for fisheries

September 26, 2019 — A new report has warned the rate and magnitude of changes to the ocean, glaciers, and ice sheets due to climate change are happening much faster than previously predicted.

In response to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) special report on “the ocean and cryosphere in a changing climate”, Andrew Norton, director of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) said:

“This report’s findings are staggering. The rate and magnitude of change to the ocean, glaciers and ice sheets are happening much faster than previously predicted. The climate emergency must be met with equally accelerated action.”

The science clearly shows the effects on the ocean will disproportionately hit tropical areas, which are home to the highest concentration of people living in poverty, he said. Their lives and livelihoods ― particularly small-scale fishers ― are at risk from rising sea levels, ocean warming, acidification and plummeting catches of fish.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Landmark climate report paints dim picture of ocean health

September 26, 2019 — Rising sea levels threaten New York and other major cites, the world’s glaciers are melting at alarming rates and global fisheries are shrinking. These are just some of the impacts that emissions of greenhouse gases have already triggered across the planet, according to a new landmark report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

More than 100 authors from 36 countries assessed the latest scientific literature related to the ocean and cryosphere in a changing climate for the report, referencing about 7,000 scientific publications for the report titled — “Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate.” It is the last of three special reports from the IPCC following on climate change.

“The open sea, the Arctic, the Antarctic and the high mountains may seem far away to many people,” said Hoesung Lee, Chair of the IPCC. “But we depend on them and are influenced by them directly and indirectly in many ways – for weather and climate, for food and water, for energy, trade, transport, recreation and tourism, for health and wellbeing, for culture and identity.”

Read the full story at IntraFish

The oceans are taking a beating under climate change, U.N. report warns

September 25, 2019 — The planet is in hot water — literally — and that will have dire consequences for humanity, warns a new United Nations report on the state of the world’s oceans and ice.

Over the next century, climate change will make the oceans warmer and more acidic. Melting ice sheets will drive up sea levels at an accelerating pace. Marine heat waves will become 20 to 50 times more frequent, harming sensitive ecosystems. And the total biomass of animals in the sea could drop by as much as 15%, according to the sobering assessment by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

“The oceans and ice are in trouble, so we’re all in trouble,” said Michael Oppenheimer, a climate scientist at Princeton and a lead author of the report.

But while some damage is inevitable at this point, the report makes clear that society’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the coming decades will determine how bad things ultimately get.

Read the full story at the Los Angeles Times

On North Carolina’s Outer Banks, A Preview Of What Might Be In Store For Mass. Barrier Beaches

August 9, 2017 — The first truly global disaster resulting from climate change may come from rising sea levels.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Committee on Climate Change has projected sea level rise of 1 to 3 feet by the end of the century, and more recent estimates by NASA and other scientists have projected a rise of up to 8 feet.

In Massachusetts, the rising sea will mean more frequent flooding, more severe storms, and dramatic change.

It’s a problem we will share with every coastal community on every continent. A bit farther down the Atlantic Coast, there’s a place that’s on a faster track to where we too may be headed.

‘These Beaches Are Doomed’

Leonardo Da Vinci wrote that “water is the driving force of all nature.”

Fascinated by great storms and terrible floods, DaVinci would have loved the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Nearly 200 miles of low-lying, shifting sand islands link into a high energy system of waves and storms.

“These beaches are doomed,” says Orrin Pilkey, a professor at Duke University and an octogenarian prophet. “The buildings are doomed too.”

Traveling through a shanty town of triple-decker McMansions on stilts, motels and condos too close to the sea, we stop in the town of Nags Head. Pilkey predicts catastrophe in vacationland.

“The future is one of retreat,” Pilkey says. “It’s the only way to save the beach. It’s the only way to save the buildings.”

Read and listen to the full story at WBUR

Climate Change Projections Can Be Used To List A Species As Threatened, US Court Rules

October 25th, 2016 — In a landmark ruling Monday, a U.S. appeals court said that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) — a federal agency — had acted reasonably when it proposed to list certain populations of bearded seals in Alaska as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act. The decision, which reverses a 2014 ruling by a lower court, could pave the way for other species being accorded protections based on their vulnerability to projected changes in climate.

“This is a huge victory for bearded seals and shows the vital importance of the Endangered Species Act in protecting species threatened by climate change,” Kristen Monsell, attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity — which had, in 2008, filed a petition to list the species as threatened, said in a statement. “This decision will give bearded seals a fighting chance while we work to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions melting their sea-ice habitat and keep dirty fossil fuels in the ground.”

The Pacific bearded seal is one of the two subspecies of bearded seals. Although it is currently listed as “Least Concern” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the Center for Biological Diversity and the NMFS estimate — based on data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — that the seals’ winter sea-ice habitat in the Bering and Okhotsk seas off Alaska and Russia would decline by at least 40 percent by 2050, and that the subspecies would be endangered by 2095.

Read the full story at the IBT Times