We're in a Sea of Trouble

The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) is due out at the end of March, but early versions are already circulating. One headline summarizes the report as follows: Climate Impacts ‘Are Very Evident, They’re Widespread’ And ‘We Are Not Prepared’. This week's Economist takes the climate change news and combines it with a general overview of the situation with the earth's oceans, and produces a pretty scary story.

ABOUT 3 billion people live within 100 miles (160km) of the sea, a number that could double in the next decade as humans flock to coastal cities like gulls. The oceans produce $3 trillion of goods and services each year and untold value for the Earth’s ecology. Life could not exist without these vast water reserves—and, if anything, they are becoming even more important to humans than before.

But these developments are minor compared with vaster forces reshaping the Earth, both on land and at sea. It has long been clear that people are damaging the oceans—witness the melting of the Arctic ice in summer, the spread of oxygen-starved dead zones and the death of coral reefs. Now, the consequences of that damage are starting to be felt onshore.

The article notes that oceans produce half the world's supply of oxygen (in addition to the work of the forests), but climate change may be lowering the ocean's ability to do that.

...in short, the decades of damage wreaked on the oceans are now damaging the terrestrial environment.

The oceans exemplify the “tragedy of the commons”—the depletion of commonly held property by individual users, who harm their own long-term interests as a result.

We are over-fishing the ocean, dumping trash into it, and generally abusing it at will. We can be sure that this will come back to bite us, especially if the jellyfish have anything to say about it...