Climate change effect on oceans causing sea change

Douglas Fischer | Daily Climate

The most pressing example of climate changes impact is not monster hurricanes, retreating glaciers or water wars. Its the humble swimming sea snail.

The tiny pteropod has difficulty growing a shell in a warmer planet’s acidified ocean waters. Given the snails’ role at the base of the cold-water food chain, its struggle threatens the entire polar ecosystem, through salmon to seals and whales.

The problem is one of many associated with ocean acidification. That change is well underway – a consequence of warming that has already happened and fossil-fuel emissions that have long since been dumped into the atmosphere.

In absorbing those emissions the oceans have buffered humanity from the worst effects of climate change. But in doing so ocean chemistry has changed, acidifying to levels not seen in 800,000 years.

The result, according to a new report issued today by Oceana, is that today’s ocean chemistry is already hostile for many creatures fundamental to the marine food web. The world’s oceans — for so long a neat and invisible sink for humanity’s carbon dioxide emissions — are about to extract a price for all that waste.

The effects are not local: Entire ecosystems threaten to literally crumble away as critters relying on calcium carbonate for a home — from corals to mollusks to the sea snail — have a harder time manufacturing their shells. Corals shelter millions of species worldwide, while sea snails account for upwards of 45 percent of the diet of pink salmon.

 

To avoid the most serious problems associated with acidification, Oceana and other scientists warn, society must hold atmospheric carbon dioxide levels at 350 parts-per-million, roughly 25 percent higher than the pre-industrial mark.

The rub is that the globe has already passed 385 ppm. And many economists and climatologists figure the peak will lie somewhere north of 570 ppm before society figures out how to curb emissions.

“Climate change has been happening for a long time,” said Jackie Savitz, Oceanas senior director of pollution campaigns and co-author of the report, Acid Test: Can we save our oceans from CO2? “The oceans are so big, so vast, and everyone thought they were untouchable. But the fact is we’ve been touching them all along.”

Read on here.

Report: Greenhouse gases imperil oceans’ web of life

By RENEE SCHOOF | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — Corals, lobsters, clams and many other ocean creatures – including some at the bottom of the food chain – may be unable to withstand the increasing acidity of the oceans brought on by growing global-warming pollution, according to a report Tuesday from the advocacy group Oceana.

Based on scientific findings of the past several years, Oceana’s report “Acid Test” examines the far-reaching consequences of the accumulation of heat-trapping gases, particularly carbon dioxide, in the world’s oceans.

A high level of carbon dioxide in seawater depletes the carbonate that marine animals need for their shells and skeletons. Creatures that are at risk if trends continue include corals, which provide habitats for about a quarter of the world’s fish; things many people like to eat, including shrimp and lobster; and pteropods, or swimming sea snails, which are an important part of the base of polar and sub-polar food chains.

Oceana, an international organization that calls for reducing pollution in order to save marine life, called for sharp reductions in carbon dioxide emissions worldwide through increased energy efficiency, a shift away from fossil fuels and the protection of forests, which absorb carbon dioxide.

“We set the goal at saving the corals,” said Jacqueline Savitz, one of the authors of the report. The goal is in line with the emissions reductions that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported last year would be necessary: an 85 percent reduction globally from 2000 levels by 2050.

Oceana’s report said that would require a 25 percent to 40 percent reduction by industrialized countries by 2020.

The acidity of the oceans’ surfaces has increased 30 percent since before the Industrial Revolution, and the current trend would increase it 100 percent by the end of this century, exceeding levels of the past 20 million years, the report says.

“Scientists are realizing that climate change and acidification are progressing much faster than science originally predicted,” said another of the Oceana report’s authors, Ellycia Harrould-Kolieb.

Acidification adds to other problems for corals: warmer water causing bleaching, overfishing, pollution and the use of dynamite to capture fish in Asia.

Here are some of the findings about ocean acidification in the report:

-The increased amount of carbon dioxide absorbed by the oceans changes the movement of nutrients and chemicals and also affects the growth, reproduction and disease resistance of many species.

-Impacts on corals and pteropods could have ripple effects through ecosystems, ultimately harming large ocean animals and commercial fisheries.

-Cooler water holds higher levels of carbon dioxide and becomes more acidic. The current trend of carbon dioxide emissions would leave cold-water corals severely stressed by 2040, and two-thirds of them would be in a corrosive environment by the end of the century.

Read the report: www.oceana.org

The Sant Ocean Hall at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History.

Washington: City takes on global warming

By Jon Savelle | Issaquah Press

Issaquah officials are gearing up to do battle with climate change.

But it’s not like the old days. Now, it is all about data. Lots of data.

The city has teamed up with ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability, an international association of governments that promote sustainable development, to determine what Issaquah’s carbon footprint is. That means, how much carbon dioxide enters the atmosphere as a result of the city’s activities and policies. 

Carbon dioxide is important because it is a greenhouse gas — one that traps heat in the atmosphere and thus contributes to global warming. But determining Issaquah’s role in such warming is no simple task.

That’s where ICLEI comes in. Founded in 1990 as the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, the group has a sophisticated software tool that governments can use to gauge their carbon output in dozens of ways, such as solid waste, vehicle miles driven and energy use.  

Issaquah is gathering that data from many sources, said David Fujimoto, manager of the Resource Conservation Office. Besides the city’s operations, information is coming from Puget Sound Energy, the state Department of Ecology, the Puget Sound Clean Air Authority and others. 

“It is a ton of information,” Fujimoto said. “We look at it as the starting point for the city. It is a useful tool for us as we start to develop policies and programs. It is a tool for measuring change, for forecasting and planning.”

Amy Shatzkin, program director in ICLEI’s Seattle office, said this initial greenhouse gas inventory provides a baseline of data. Local groups are joining with others nationally to develop a standardized way of monitoring and reporting such information. 

Issaquah has plenty of company in this region. Shatzkin said ICLEI is working on similar efforts with Kirkland, Bellevue, Mercer Island, Edmonds, King County and Seattle; statewide some 35 governments are involved. 

“The mantra of our organization is, you can’t manage what you can’t measure,” she said. “It’s not just to gather data for the sake of gathering data, but to be able to make decisions about energy use and emissions moving forward.”

The initial inventory may be finished during the first half of 2009, Fujimoto said. Its findings will be presented to the administration and City Council then. But the report will contain no policy recommendations.

“This is just purely a data exercise,” Fujimoto said. “This is a foundation for policy.”

Global investors urge action on climate change

by Rachelle Younglai and Andre Grenon | Reuters

WASHINGTON  – Global institutional investors holding more than $6 trillion in assets pushed policymakers Tuesday to quickly hash out a binding agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions and promote clean technology.

 

More than 130 big investors, including London Pensions Fund Authority, want countries to agree to reduce the climate- warming emissions by 50 percent to 80 percent by 2050.

 

Those numbers are in line with global warming policy favored by U.S. President-elect Barack Obama, who supports an 80 percent reduction in carbon emissions by mid-century.

 

The investors also want policymakers to set long and medium term emission reduction targets for developed countries and to provide for an expanded and more liquid global carbon market.

 

Already big U.S. investors, such as the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, with $185.6 billion of assets under management, have been calling for legislation to promote new and existing clean technologies.

 

They have also called on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to force publicly traded companies to disclose climate-related risks along with other factors that affect their business.

 

“As institutional investors, we are concerned with the risks presented by climate change to the global economy and to our diversified portfolios,” said Mike Taylor, chief executive of London Pensions Fund Authority. “We are … urging world leaders to implement strong and effective policies to support us in allocating capital toward low carbon investments.”

 

The group of global investors want countries to sign on to a new binding agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol climate pact, which set binding targets for industrialized countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

 

The European Union is aiming to cut greenhouse gas emissions 20 percent by 2020 and increase the share of wind, solar, hydro, wave power and biofuels in their energy mix by the same date.

 

The United States is alone among major industrialized countries in rejecting the Kyoto Protocol, but is participating in discussions to craft a follow-up global agreement.

 

“It is time to put an agreement in place where the United States is involved,” said Mindy Lubber, the president of Ceres, a coalition of investors and environmental groups working on climate change issues.

 

The global group of investors is hoping its voice is heard ahead of a December climate change convention in Poland.