By the Numbers: A Marine Advisory
Scientists say the outlook for the world's oceans is bleak—unless we stop overfishing and reduce air and water pollution
- By Sarah Zielinski
- Smithsonian magazine, August 2010, Subscribe
Nancy Knowlton is a marine biologist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and a leading authority on coral reefs. Christian Ziegler
16.1 billion pounds: total amount of fish that commercial fleets kill or fatally injure before discarding at sea each year
3 pounds: amount of wild mackerel or anchovies needed to produce one pound of farmed shrimp or salmon
82.4 percent: decline in the spawning population of western bluefin tuna since 1970
33 percent: amount of U.S. crude oil production from offshore sources
0.7 parts per billion: concentration of weathered crude oil in seawater that kills or damages Pacific herring eggs
100 percent: projected increase, by 2100, in the number of coastal dead zones, where bacteria spurred by pollution deplete oxygen from the water and make it impossible for marine animals to survive
0.7 percent: proportion of the world’s oceans that are part of marine protected areas
15 million years ago: the last time CO2 levels in the atmosphere were as high as they are today
2037 projected year when the Arctic will become almost entirely free of summer sea ice due to melting
2050 projected year when coral reefs worldwide will shrink because of increased ocean acidity as atmospheric carbon dioxide, from burning fossil fuels, dissolves in seawater
Nancy Knowlton, a marine biologist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and a leading authority on coral reefs, says a significant increase in ocean acidity puts virtually all marine animal species at risk. That’s because acid can kill larval fish and shellfish and keep corals and animals at the base of the marine food web from building skeletons. “In the long term,” Knowlton says, “if we don’t deal with carbon dioxide emissions, we’re in real trouble.”
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Related topics: Environmental Preservation
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Comments (1)
It is a shame, that the people of earth cannot control there selfishness. We must learn to conserve our "god given" natural resources, or when all of the whales, bluefin tuna, stripped bass, shellfish, etc. are gone, it might be too late to reverse the trend. If the acidity and toxins kill off the producer species, the entire food chain in the ocean will collapse. It is our children who will have to bear the burden of our excess, and clean up our mistakes. This embarrasses the heck out of me. The primary problem with the U.S. is, that it is no longer a democratic republic. It is not managed by the people we elect. It is run by a "shadow government" that bribes, oops!, I meant lobbies for whatever laws it wants to manipulate. Our Country is ran by a corporate oligarchyand its primary focus is profit for profits sake. Every CEO feels they need to be on the Fortune 500 list of top money makers. The shame of it is, most of these "jokers" couldn't run a small business; because it wouldn't be able support their massive blunders. All the other countries are just as bad, so, what can we do? When the ocean no longer supports life, maybe, we will learn to care about this place and all of the life it contains within it and begin to properly manage our resources and ourselves. Mother earth cannot keep up with us. I think, all of us need to begin letting our representatives and congressmenr need to know exactly where we stand on these issues. Start to write your representatives and congressmen and demand that they get off the corporate gravy train, and begin to pass intelligent, national laws that protect and defend our Country and our People. By then, it might be too late. If we don't try we should lose our right to call ourselves Americans. Let's not be the first generation to be a disappointment to our forefathers. Keep America strong.
Posted by Bob Rodgers on July 23,2010 | 08:15 AM