CO2 forcing deadly changes in the oceans

Rising GHG is choking the oceans, devastating marine ecosystems and destroying the food chain: Study

Quote of the Day:

“We are becoming increasingly certain that the world’s marine ecosystems are approaching tipping points. These tipping points are where change accelerates and causes unrelated impacts on other systems.” John F. Bruno, marine researcher at the University of North Carolina.

Related Links:

• May Global Temperature Warmest on Record
• Ocean Accumulated Significant Heat Content Since 1993
• Verifiable Impacts of Climate Change (Part II)
• Verifiable Impacts of Climate Change Despite Dinosaurs

• Ocean Deserts Source of GHG
• North Atlantic Ocean Garbage Patch
• Back from the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch”
• WILD FACTS SERIES: Our Oceans Are Dying!
• Southern Ocean already losing ability to absorb CO₂

• Tourism: A Major Destructive Force Killing Oceans:Thousands of marine mammals, sea turtles, seabirds and others, are choked or poisoned each year by eating trash discarded in the ocean…

• Oceans, Where Life Started, Are Dying – Part V : Hundreds of thousands of tons of surplus chemical weapons including large quantities of arsenic, cyanide, mustard gas, sarin gas and VX nerve gas are dumped off the US Atlantic coast as well as off other countries. [And a number of nuclear weapons are lying down there, too!]

• Terrible Ocean Headlines : About one third of the world’s annual emissions of CO2 is absorbed by the surface of the oceans forming carbonic acid (ancient name acid of air or aerial acid), H₂CO_3, which is increasing the acidity of the oceans to as much as 7.7 pH in some areas off the California coast. [Pre-industrial (1700s) ocean pH: 8.179]

• Oceans, Where Life Started, Are Dying – Part IV : Researchers found evidence of corrosive water about 20 miles off the west coast of North America from Canada to Mexico.

• Human carbon emissions make oceans corrosive : ‘Carbon dioxide spewed by human activities has made ocean water so acidic that it is eating away at the shells and skeletons of starfish, coral, clams and other sea creatures …’

• The Eight Steps that Help Kill More of Our Fish : How Your Car’s Exhaust Emissions Helps Create Dead Zones and Kill Our Fish.

• Global warming could starve oceans of oxygen: study : Areas of the eastern Atlantic and Pacific Oceans with low amounts of dissolved oxygen have expanded in the past 50 years, apparently in line with rising temperatures.

• The Floating Toxic Garbage Island : A patch of garbage twice as large as the continental United States and dubbed the Great Pacific Garbage Patch floats in the middle of the Pacific Ocean in North Pacific Gyre.

• Oceans, Where Life Started, Are Dying – Part III : Tourism: The Most Destructive Human Activity After Warfare

• Oceans, Where Life Started, Are Dying – Part II : Major Problems: Fertilizer Runoff; Tourism; Coastal Developments [and Ocean Warming due to climate change]

• Oceans, Where Life Started, Are Dying – Part I : Our Oceans Are Now Dying!

• Dead Zones : Eutrophication—the overenrichment of water by nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus—has emerged as a leading water quality problem. This report identifies over 415 areas worldwide that are experiencing eutrophication symptoms, and there are significant information gaps in many regions. (Source: WRI)

To & From New Zealand: Double Act of Eco-Terrorism

STOP flying to, or importing food from New Zealand because you are committing a double act of eco-terrorism!

If you are flying to New Zealand

If you are one of the 2.6 million tourists who fly to New Zealand each year to hike the deadly mountain paths, swim the toxic lakes, or watch whales and dolphins death throes, you are committing a double act of eco-terrorism:

1. You contribute to burning an estimated 3.2 billion gallons of fuel flying in and out of New Zealand. [Each liter of fuel produces about 2.4 kg of CO2 or 8.8 kg/U.S. gallon ~ 19.4 pounds/U.S. gallon.]

2. You destroy the marine ecosystems and harm the creatures you come in contact with.

New Zealand: A cesspool of Toxic Sludge. Photo Credit: NZ Greens [Note: No implied endorsement of NZ Greens is intended.]

If you are importing food from New Zealand

3. A 1kg (2.2lb) bag of New Zealand kiwifruit (in any of its cadmium, arsenic, lead, mercury… or organochlorine falvors), or any other food imported from New Zealand, produces about 12.3kg (~ 27.1lb) of CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent gases) pollution flying to the US, or 16.3kg (~ 36lb) of CO2e to Europe.

4. The pressure in New Zealand to produce food for export has turned the country into a giant sewage dump. “Hundreds of millions of tons of agricultural waste and farm runoffs are discharged into the lakes and coastal waters, and millions of tons of methane gas are released to the environment each year.” Extensive dead zones regularly appear off the coasts of New Zealand. Both  NZ and Australia are major sources of industrial agriculture as well as sheep and cattle factory farming. “New Zealand cattle and sheep also produce methane emissions equivalent to 33 million tons of carbon dioxide each year.”

An excerpt from: Truth About ‘100% Pure New Zealand’ Advertising Campaign

New Zealand is the size of Colorado yet it hosts up to 94 million farm animals (livestock excluding poultry), which discharge an estimated 300 million tons of effluent to the environment each year. New Zealand’s intensive animal industries produce about 4 times more manure than they could safely use as fertilizer. [The leftover is discharged or washed off into NZ coastal waters.]

We import food from New Zealand … even though it makes no sense from a planetary standpoint. —Physicist James E. Hansen

Related Links:

• Emergency Warning to Tourists Visiting New Zealand
• Stop New Zealand Committing Eco-Terrorism!
• Food Fetishism + Cheap Oil = Mounting Pollution

• Oceans, Where Life Started, Are Dying – Part III
• None Shall Sleep!

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[May 15, 2008] Photo of the Day!

Phytoplankton Bloom in North Sea off Scotland

Photo by MODIS on NASA’s Aqua satellite

The northern and western highlands of Scotland were still winter-brown and even dusted with snow in places, but the waters of the North Sea were blooming with phytoplankton (tiny, plant-like organisms) on May 8, 2008, when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite passed over the region and captured this image.

Phytoplankton are tiny organisms—many are just a single cell—that use chlorophyll and other pigments to capture light for photosynthesis. Because these pigments absorb sunlight, they change the color of the light reflected from the sea surface back to the satellite (shades of bright blue and green). Scientists have used observations of “ocean color” from satellites for more than 20 years to track worldwide patterns in phytoplankton blooms.

Phytoplankton are important to the Earth system for a host of reasons, including their status as the base of the ocean food web. In the North Sea, they are the base of the food web that supports Scotland’s commercial fisheries, including monkfish and herring. As photosynthesizers, they also play a crucial role in the carbon cycle, removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Some oceanographers are concerned that rising ocean temperatures will slow phytoplankton growth rates, harming marine ecosystems and causing carbon dioxide to accumulate more rapidly in the atmosphere.

NASA image by Norman Kuring, Ocean Color Team, Goddard Space Flight Center. Caption by Rebecca Lindsey (some editing by FEWW).