I know it's been a while, but we are getting ready to ramp this back up. So I hope you come back to see us. All three of us have had big changes over the last year with our careers so we are very excited to share what we have all been working on.
Today is World Ocean Day. And for many of us, that may not mean a whole lot. But it gives us a chance to reflect on the health of the ocean and more importantly, to focus on the future of this life sustaining part of our world. Many times we seem to forget the role that the ocean plays in our lives. It may only be evident when we take that semi annual trip to the shore. Or maybe when we get that sticker shock at the price of a pound of gulf shrimp (now including 200 million year old hydrocarbons). But on this World Ocean Day (which happens to be the 1 year birthday of Squidink), I want to share with you just two simple thoughts and things to think about so that we can continue to see a healthy an improving ocean for many generations. Not to much science today, just a little overview of some of the major threats facing the ocean today and what can be done.
Plastics, Plastics, Plastics
Now that summer is here and people are beginning their summer beach trips, I have seem more and more of my friends post picture of grilled redfish, snapper, and the basket of fried shrimp. But what you couldn't see was the tiny bits of plastic that have inevitably entered into the fish. It's unlikely that a fish, say red snapper, is going around ingesting little bits of plastic. But what is happening is that the snapper is eating it's prey, which could have fed on plankton that is about the size of a piece of plastic that are likely to be present. Whenever a plastic grocery bag or candy wrapper makes its way to the ocean, it breaks down into tinier and tinier pieces, but never biodegrades, meaning it could be ingested with the plankton from some of the lower trophic level species.
This, like many other chemicals (including Mercury, PCBs, and insecticides) go through a process called bio-magnification, meaning they concentrate in higher level species. These fish are the ones we like to eat, grouper, snapper, mackerel. So what we are seeing is more and more fish on our plate with more and more plastic inside. Some estimates are that one in every three fish captured contains plastic in it's system.
This problem isn't going away any time soon. Like I mentioned before, plastic doesn't biodegrade. So what can we do? We need to limit the amount of plastic that enters the system. I know it seems simple, but there is no other real good options. Properly disposing of the plastic that we do use, but better still? NOT using plastic at all. One of the largest amounts of pollution in both the ocean and on our beaches, is the plastic grocery bag. GO re-usable!!! It's one of the easiest things we can do for the ocean and our planet. There really is no need to have plastic bags in grocery stores.
CO2 and Dissolving Coral Reefs
If you were not aware, the global CO2 atmospheric hit 400 ppm recently. That means that carbon dioxide concentrations are higher than at any any time in human history. And when most people think of the effects that this has on the planet, the first thing that comes to mind is climate change or global warming. However, there is another cahnge that the large amount of CO2 is causing, one that we are seeing right now.
This, simply put, is the acidification of our oceans. Now, when I teach this to my students, I go into great detail and use lots of dry board space. So here is a simple illustration that explains it.
Long story short, the more CO2 in the atmosphere, the more acidic the ocean. So what are the implications? Like many other things, it all comes down to food. Food supply! many of the things that we like to eat like shrimp, lobster, and crab, have a calcium carbonate shell. This gets dissolved in an increasing acidic ocean. Like the shellfish, corals also deposit a base that is dissolved by an acidic ocean. And though we do not eat the coral directly, they form the foundation for habitat for the many things we do eat. Also hampered by an acidic ocean, are plankton, which have the same exoskeleton that many crustaceans have. Just like above, these are important in moving energy through the food web. Without this layer, the higher levels of finfish and other important species will not be able to sustain their populations. Leaving a broken and nonfunctional ecosystem.
What can we do? Well just like plastics we have to reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. The ways to do this are simple enough, but socially hard to enact. Public transportation, biking, lower emission vehicles, renewable energy, buy local produce, and eating lower on the food chain are ways that we can reduce our emissions of carbon dioxide.
To wrap up, we have to realize the importance of a healthy ocean. This goes beyond having a trash free beach and surf zone. Or believing that as we don't have oil spills the ocean is healthy. We have to see that if the ocean begins to fail, then we will see many hardships for many people. One third of the world's population depends on fish as their primary protein. 80% of worldwide tourism is directed to the coast. All of these depend directly or indirectly on a healthy ocean. What we have been entrusted to take care of, we must.
HAPPY WORLD OCEAN DAY!!!!!
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