Fish Numbers Plummet in Warming Pacific

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1113-04.htm

----snip----

The collapses in the Pacific are also down to the disappearance of plankton, though the immediate cause for this is different. Normally, winds blow south along the coast in spring and summer, pushing warmer surface waters away from the shore and allowing colder water that is rich in nutrients to well up from the sea bottom, feeding the microscopic plants called phytoplankton. These are eaten by zooplankton, tiny animals that in turn feed fish, seabirds and marine mammals.

But this year the winds were extraordinarily weak and the cold water did not well up in spring as usual. Water temperatures soared to 7C above normal, which delighted bathers but caused the whole delicate system to collapse. The amount of phytoplankton crashed to a quarter of its usual level.

"In 50 years this has never happened," said Bill Peterson, an oceanographer with the US government's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, in Newport, Oregon.

Record numbers of dead seabirds soon washed up on beaches along the coast. There were up to 80 times more dead Brandt's cormorants, a fishing bird, than in previous years.

----snip----

[texpatriot2004]

1. This makes me so angry. Will we do nothing to be good

stewards? Will we just kill all the animals, the plants, the water, the air, the birds...for money? We are the only pathetic creatures that destroy our environment.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

2. So true. Only humans...

...mindlessly plunder their environment.

[spancks]

4. And viruses.

[phantom power]

14. Actually, all organisms plunder their environment.

The thing that makes us shameful is, we could enforce our own limits, but we choose not to.

[The Backlash Cometh]

8. Nothing will change until we show the otherwise college educated

sect on the Right that short term profiteering isn't worth the destruction of their environment.

[ladjf]

10. Your profound statement should be expanded generally so

as to include all human behavior. "Short term profiteering" is always bad if it is a detriment to long term survival and thriving.
Your beautifully expressed idea could become the basis for a new and good movement, a sea change of human understanding and therefore conduct.

[OneBlueSky]

3. this is a HUGE story . . .

many nations on the Pacific Rim rely on the sea for much of their diet . . . and the collapse described here certainly sends up red flags for other areas of the environment that are equally critical to humans . . .

kicked and strongly recommended . . .

[Tace]

13. Ocean Fish -- The Main Source Of Protein For Something Like 1/2 The Planet

I don't have the exact figure handy, but I was reading an article in Scientific American a few years back that said ocean fish are the main source of protein for something like half the human population, the reason being that they can go catch them and have something to eat, even if they're dirt poor.

The loss of our ocean fisheries -- already mostly gone -- could well be a big part of the coming mass die-off that many are forecasting.

[brokensymmetry]

5. Another recommendation!

:kick:

[i_c_a_White_Ghost]

6. still warmer than normal

http://weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca/saisons/image_e.html?img=tm_gl_sd

[Jim__]

7. This is scary stuff!

What's amazing is that we have become so deluded that we don't connect our own survival with the environment we live in. I hope that we all wake up before it's too late.

[BlueJazz]

9. I put part of the blame on the Rush Limbaughs of talk radio and,..

the "O'lielys" of Television.
Instead of educating the public on the consequences of our actions, they keep insisting that "This Global Warming is just a pack of lies created by the Liberal Tree-Huggers"

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

11. Such a blatant misuse of...

...the public owned airwaves. We have truth in lending laws---why not truth in broadcasting laws too?

[ladjf]

12. It appears that one their prime assignments is to discredit

the "global warming" theory. After that past hurricanes, FAUX broadcasting continually had "experts" on explaining that the hurricanes weren't due to global warming. We are basically talking about corporate profits, "short term profiteering" as a previous poster described it. The human race, instead of being the most intelligent species, might ultimately prove to be one of the stupidest. We've existed for less than 500,000 years and we are already prime candidates for self-extermination. (Turtles have been on Earth for more than 200,000,000 years. That's an impressive tenure.)