be the change you want to see in the world

I live in Victoria, BC. Americans call this the Pacific Northwest, even though it isn’t particularly north at all from a Canadian perspective. In any case, the area encompasses some very rich fishing and marine life habitat. The beauty of the area is unsurpassed, and people who live here enjoy a very mild climate and relatively clean environment. This is because of a low population compared to other coastal areas in North America, and only about 100 years of serious industrial civilization.

Despite this relative advantage, we can’t control what happens due to global systemic change. This drives home the point that Global Warming affects us all, regardless of the current state of our local environment.

Changes in the global climate are causing profound changes in our local oceans. These changes have a profound impact on sea life. We have seen the growing influx of warmer water predators, and the warming of the ocean overall, which reduces phytoplankton production in general and reduces the food supply. But increasingly wider fluctuations of warm and cold - the hallmark of global warming - are creating a more serious problem.

Phytoplankton blooms so large they can be seen from space are creating conditions favourable for the growth of a giant “dead zone” where massive plankton consumption by bacteria depletes all oxygen from surrounding waters. This, put simply, kills everything that relies on oxygen.

The recurring phytoplankton blooms are triggered by northerly wind, which generates a process known as upwelling in which nutrient-rich water is brought to the surface from lower depths.

“We are seeing wild swings from year to year in the timing and duration of the winds that are favorable for upwelling,” Jane Lubchenco, professor of marine ecology at Oregon State and a member of the Pew Oceans Commission, said from Corvallis. “This increased variability in the winds is consistent with what we would expect under climate change.”

Bottom fish and crabs are washing up dead on beaches. Other animals are struggling to get out of the path of the dead zone:

Deep water fish, such as ling cod, wolf eels and rockfish, are showing up in Oregon tide pools, apparently driven toward shore by the advancing dead zone, said Lubchenco.

Although the dead zone has been documented along 70 miles of coast, dead crabs and fish also have been showing up along Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, Barth said.

“If we continue like we are now, we could see some ecological shifts,” Barth said. “It all depends on what happens with the warming and the greenhouse gases.”

Please take note of the growing bulletproof evidence that climate change will have a profound impact on YOU, regardless of where you live. Global systemic change means EVERYONE is going to feel these changes. We can take action to mitigate and reduce the impact of our warming-producing activities. See the Stop Global Warming site for suggestions you can enact right now. Check the DesmogBlog if you are still not convinced.