By KIM BELLARD
It probably didn’t show up on your calendar, but Monday was World Ocean Day. It is a day intended to catalyze “collective action for a healthy ocean and stable climate” and has existed since 2002 (although the UN did not officially recognize it until 2008). Its website has a network of more than 2,000 organizations, in 180 countries.
I wish we had more to celebrate.
Many have recognized the irony of humans calling our planet “Earth” when, in reality, 71% of its surface is covered in water. Even more surprising is that the oceans represent 99% of the biosphere. We come from the ocean and we still owe it a large part of our existence.
Unfortunately, these are not good times for the oceans and we are to blame. the most recent Global Ocean Assessment of the UN highlights:
- The ocean is important to everyone, everywhere;
- The ocean is under increasing stress;
- Climate change is transforming conditions;
- Biodiversity is declining in almost all marine habitats;
- Pollution is widespread and increasing;
- Ocean food systems are threatened.
The report concludes: “The next decade is decisive: without rapid and coordinated global action, the health of the oceans will continue to deteriorate, threatening climate stability, biodiversity resilience, food security, livelihoods and well-being of billions.”
I think about this in light of the last few months. advertisement by the National Science Foundation that was “discovering” the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) Major Installation, starting next week. It is a $368 million deep-ocean observing system “that provides real-time data from more than 900 instruments to address critical scientific questions related to the world’s oceans.” Some 900 instruments will be retired, both in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
Michael England, spokesman for the National Science Foundation, said Eric Niiler or The New York Times that the decision “aligns with NSF’s broader strategy to have a more agile approach to prioritizing support for evolving scientific priorities and emerging technologies, as well as a deliberate approach to intelligent lifecycle management within its research infrastructure portfolio.”
In other words, we (the Trump Administration) didn’t make it up and it’s related to climate change, so we don’t want it.
Craig McLean, who was NOAA’s acting chief scientist during Trump’s first term, told Mr. Niiler: “This reflects the current administration’s broader lack of understanding of scientific value and scientific merit. By dismantling such a system, we once again push the United States into the background in global scientific leadership.”
Scientists are horrified. Sabrina Speich, an expert in global ocean monitoring at the Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS) in Paris and chair of the ocean expert panel of the Global Climate Observing System, said the guardian: “Ocean heat content is the strongest indicator of climate change we have, not just of what is happening in the ocean, but of the entire climate system. If they are lost, the ability to track not only ocean warming but the climate system as a whole is lost; they are an indicator of variables that become unavailable the moment observations stop.”
John P Abraham, professor of engineering at the University of St Thomas, call“The US government wants to save less than a billion on sensors, which are the eyes and ears of the ocean. We have hundreds of billions in climate costs per year. The cost of the observing system is a fraction of the climate costs of the hurricanes and storms that hit the United States.”
“Abandoning a $368 million investment in a next-generation system, an engineering feat already paid for by the American people, is absolutely shortsighted,” Chris Robbins, associate director of science initiatives at the Ocean Conservancy, a nonprofit group, complained to Niiler.
Democrats in Congress vote fight against cuts, but lack the votes to do anything. The EU saying It was stepping up its ocean monitoring efforts, independent of US action, with its OceanEye initiative, but it will be a long-term process and will not immediately offset US cuts.
Meanwhilea new study has found that a “cold spot” in the Atlantic meridional circulation may suggest big changes in the future: “further weakening of Atlantic heat transport in future climate change could lead to serious impacts on climate and weather conditions in Europe and other parts of the world.”
It sure doesn’t seem like a good time to lose our ability to monitor the oceans.
Even worse are the The enthusiastic attitude of the Trump administration towards deep sea mining. It is well known that the ocean floor contains many valuable minerals, and some mining companies are delusional at the prospect of exploiting them in the open pit. NOAA has begun mapping about 30,000 square nautical miles off American Samoa, and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is investigating several other offshore areas, both intended to allow deep-sea mining.
USA maybe even issue permits for seabeds that are not property of the United States or any country.
“No one has done deep sea mining on a commercial scale.” saying Becca Loomis, an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said: “This would be brand new and they are moving forward. Moving quickly with this industry is really scary for the ocean, the ocean ecosystem, for the people who depend on fishing.”
TO new review Some of the existing studies found that relatively little we understand about the impacts of such mining, but the little we do know suggests that there are large and long-lasting impacts on biodiversity.
Just this week, a green peace study “We barely understand how these communities function, what environmental factors influence their distribution or how sensitive they are to human disturbance. Likewise, our discovery of several sponge species that are potentially new to science highlights how little is known about Arctic ecosystems,” said Dr. Julio A. Díaz, deep-sea researchers at the Museum of Evolution at Uppsala University.
“The deep sea mining industry has not yet begun to tear up the seabed and therefore we have the opportunity to stop an environmental disaster before it happens.” said Dr. Sandra Schöttner, chief scientist at Greenpeace International.
One can imagine how little the Trump Administration – whose mantra is “drill, baby, drill” – cares about those impacts.
I’m excited that World Oceans Day exists, but it’s difficult to celebrate in the midst of everything that is happening to degrade and alter our oceans. I’m pretty sure the oceans will be around long after humans, but it’s unfathomable how much damage we’ll do to them as long as we exist.
