It is amazing what change a year can bring. We have begun the 2012 IPSO Workshop, with ocean scientists and experts on the law of the sea gathering for a second year, to update each other on the latest research from their respective fields on the impacts of climate change, pollution and overfishing – and what solutions are realistic.
There are many familiar faces: the good and the great of the marine science world. The cross section of participants is purposefully broad in an effort to collect and record different opinions and highlight the important synergies across science disciplines: something absolutely necessary in tackling the marine global issues where oceanography, economics, industry, biology, and policy meet.
Many of the worst-case hypothetical scenarios of last year’s IPSO meeting are now presented as likely situations for our ocean’s future (we have spent all day hovering permanently around the worst case IPCC scenarios).
The hardening of my conscience to hearing such bad news is worrying. It is refreshing to have people in the room whose audible gasps at some of the issues facing our oceans remind us all of the gravity of the situation. One such moment comes on hearing from one of the world’s foremost experts on climate change effects in the ocean that ocean warming has now been detected at 4000 metres on the abyssal plain.
Other updates: The so-called dead zones – de-oxygenated ocean zones - are ever-increasing in number and scale, geographically they are everywhere (and we know there is huge underreporting from some regions) and also affect our seas to their furthest depths. Ocean acidification was on no-one’s lips just 8 years ago and is now an enormous problem with a widening body of evidence of impacts. Some of this evidence from naturally acidic sea areas really hit home. For example, how animals may still survive there but the energy it takes to do so limits or stops them breeding and growing… a sad and, frankly, unimaginable situation for coral reefs: the global ecosystem facing the brunt of this “acid attack”.
Some new facets of the scary effects of chemicals we use in everyday life (make-up, perfumes, etc) have on our marine world were presented. The lack of knowledge about how these chemical pollutants will interact with climate change and global warming is of huge concern. Climate change again raises its ugly head in discussions about the future of fisheries; it really doesn’t look good no matter which area of the world you look at. We are too good at catching fish, in fact we actively support it through subsidies. Also, our western lifestyles are simply unsustainable and in many ways outright unfair to the rest of the planet.
As we are focused on finding solutions (it’s the point of this meeting after all), some overarching themes appeared. The two elephants in the room, climate change and human population growth, unsurprisingly fitted in and around most discussions. And they have to be part of finding solutions. These are two seemingly insurmountable issues yet ones that we do as a species have control over if we so wish..
Day 2 We start considering the solutions in earnest. Most of them we already know. As with so much to do with global change, it is the political leadership we would like to conjure from the genie’s bottle.
It is also obvious that industry needs to play a key role in all and any solutions. As does people power. Before this we need good communication and education; an arena scientists are not renowned for and an area for improvement. Changes in language are required as well– it’s not fishing, it’s hunting. And we are really good at it. Better than ever. And, just as the problems when thrown together are a bigger issue (climate change AND chemical pollution for example are greater than the sum of their parts) the solutions need to be equally interconnected, overarching, hard-hitting, and globe changing.
The time lag before the steady increase in CO2 will stop (even if we were to cease its rampant creation right now) means climate change is not going away. But the sooner we get a lid on it the better. Do you really want to live in the Plan B world, the one where we do nothing, the one where the only place to see a tropical coral reef is in an eco-dome? Without action this is what you and I and everyone else faces.
