One Photo Shows That We Have Destroyed Nature: Polar Bears Seen Killing & Eating Dolphins That Have Been Forced North By Global Warming

Image shows apparently very hungry bears eating dolphins for the first time, before freezing the leftovers in the snow.

Oldspeak:”The worlds oceans are boiling, acidifying and deoxygenating. As a result dolphins are ending up in the fucking arctic ocean that used to be covered in ice to avoid the conditions in the tropics. Polar bears whose habitats are rapidly shrinking and food sources dying off, likely because the Ocean is turning into a fucking toxic soup, have had to resort to eating those dolphins and saving their carcasses for later in the snow. Yeeaaaaaah. That’s normal.O_o Just another day in paradise kids, nothin to see here! LOOK! There’s a Church Shooting! OOOH! Donald Trump is running for president. OMG that white woman thinks she’s black! Enjoy your regularly scheduled Infotainment.” -OSJ

By Andrew Griffin @ The U.K. Independent:

It marks the first time that bears have been seen killing and eating dolphins. Usually, the dolphins only go up north during the warmer summer — but this year they have arrived in spring.

The bears catch the dolphins in a similar way to the seals that they usually eat. Both animals keep holes in the ice which they use to come up and breathe from — at which point, if the bear is lucky, it will snatch them up and eat them.

The researchers observed the behaviour for the first time last year. At least six different bears have been seen eating the dolphins since then, scientists write in a new report, ‘White-beaked dolphins trapped in the ice and eaten by polar bears’.

After eating the dolphin, the bear seemed to cover it with ice so that it could be kept for later. Such behaviour is rare in polar bears, and could be a result of the animals not having enough to eat.

The authors of the study describe the bear as having “clearly visible ribs” and being “very skinny”.

The habitat of polar bears is shrinking drastically as the Arctic warms. As such, scientists expect to be able to observe them much less in the coming years.

The same global warming appears to be trapping the dolphins, leaving them stuck and so able to be caught by the bears.

“We suggest [the dolphins] were trapped in the ice after strong northerly winds the days before, and possibly killed when forced to surface for air at a small opening in the ice,” the authors of the study write. White-beaked dolphins tend to travel north to Svalbard during the warmer summer, but haven’t been reported so far north in the early Spring.

Usually, the Svalbard fjords and coast is covered by ice. But in the winter of 2013 and 2014, when the dolphins and bears were first seen together, they were ice free.

As The World Burns: 2015 On Pace To Be Hottest Year Ever Recorded; The Latest Global Temperature Data Are Breaking Records

Road markings appear distorted as the asphalt starts to melt due to the high temperature in New Delhi, India, 27 May 2015. Photograph: Harish Tyagi/EPA

Oldspeak:”I am Jack’s complete lack of surprise.” –The Narrator, Fight Club

By John Abraham @ The Guardian:

Just today, NASA released its global temperature data for the month of May 2015. It was a scorching 0.71°C (1.3°F) above the long-term average. It is also the hottest first five months of any year ever recorded. As we look at climate patterns over the next year or so, it is likely that this year will set a new all-time record. In fact, as of now, 2015 is a whopping 0.1°C (0.17°F) hotter than last year, which itself was the hottest year on record.

Below, NASA’s annual temperatures are shown. Each year’s results are shown as black dots. Some years are warmer, some are cooler and we never want to put too much emphasis on any single year’s temperature. I have added a star to show where 2015 is so far this year, simply off the chart. The last 12 months are at record levels as well. So far June has been very hot as well, likely to end up warmer than May.

Global surface temperature estimates from NASA GISS.

So why talk about month temperatures or even annual temperatures? Isn’t climate about long-term trends?

First, there has been a lot of discussion of the so-called ‘pause.’ As I have pointed out many times here and in my own research, there has been no pause at all. We know this first by looking at the rate of energy gain within the oceans. But other recent publications, like ones I’ve written about have taken account of instrument and measurement quality and they too find no pause.

Second, there has been a lot of discussion of why models were running hotter than surface air temperatures. There was a real divergence for a while with most models suggesting more warming. Well with 2014 and 2015, we see that the models and actual surface temperatures are in very close agreement.

When we combine surface temperatures with ocean heat content, as seen below, a clear picture emerges. Warming is continuing at a rapid rate.

Global ocean heat content estimates from NOAA.

There is an emerging view that the so-called surface warming slowdown was caused from poor instrument coverage around the globe, volcanic eruptions, and a multi-year oscillation in the oceans. The issue of instrument coverage is being fixed as we speak.

But, any short term fluctuations can only temporarily influence the long term trend. In the ocean heat content image above, you might notice a slight change in the trend around 2005. The trend change has since disappeared; it was associated with the ocean oscillations I mentioned earlier.

The recent warming skyrocket has put the contrarians in a bad position. In 2013, when contrarian Christopher Monckton repeated a claim that temperatures might decrease by 0.5°C in two years, I challenged him to a $1000 bet. He never took that bet, but we can see he would have lost handily if he had.

More recently, contrarian Judith Curry was reported as warning about decades of cooling (or perhaps lack of warming) stretching out to the 2030s. We see that this prediction is not looking very likely. Other contrarians have made similar predictions and it makes one wonder how much evidence will have to pile up before they climb down.

Just a few months ago, Roy Spencer (another climate contrarian) claimed, “We are probably past the point of reaching a new peak temperature anomaly from the current El Niño, suggesting it was rather weak.” While it remains to be seen whether or not he is correct, his own data have shown an uptick in temperatures, and the most recent months have continued the very warm trend. Barring something really unusual, the trend will continue until the end of this year.

I asked climate expert Dr. Joe Romm, Founding Editor of Climate Progress for his thoughts. He reminds us,

Historically, the global temperature trend-line is more like a staircase than a ramp. It now appears we are headed for a step-jump in global temperatures that scientists have been expecting.

Let’s hope his prediction is wrong, but let’s plan for it to be correct.

U.S. West Coast Sardine Population Collapses, 91% Decline Prompting Ban On Commercial Fishing 2 Months Early

Oldspeak:”This is a huge step,this is one of the most lucrative fisheries in California, so to completely shut it down is a huge deal… We believe the harm has been irreparable and will already have ramifications for decades to come… We’ve basically reduced the carrying capacity of the ecosystem to support the populations of other species that depend on sardines. The more fish we take, the more it is going to make that situation even worse.” –Geoffrey Shester, California campaign director for Oceana

“The collapse this year is the latest in a series of alarming die-offs, sicknesses and population declines in the ocean ecosystem along the West Coast. Anchovies, which thrive in cold water, have also declined over the past decade due largely to fluctuating ocean temperatures and a lack of zooplankton, their food of choice…The number of herring seen in San Francisco Bay has fluctuated wildly, reaching a historic low in 2009….Record numbers of starving sea lions have recently been washing up on beaches in California because there aren’t enough sardines and anchovies for pups to eat. Fisheries scientists estimate that 70 percent of sea lion pups will die this year due to a lack of food…Brown pelicans, too, have suffered from mass reproductive failures and are turning up sick and dead in California and Oregon. A 2010 study by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the U.S. Geological Survey and other scientific organizations found that many of the starving and emaciated pelicans are eating worms and other prey inconsistent with their normal diet of anchovies and sardines.” -Peter Fimrite

“Utterly unsurprising, given the reality:Phytoplankton — which form the base of ocean food chains — have declined 40 percent since 1950..The trend is linked to warming of the surface of the oceans….The die-off could affect climate, fisheries and ocean health…In oceans around the world, there has been a surprisingly large and extensive decline in phytoplankton — the tiny algae that keep marine food webs afloat. So when the most abundant and essential part of the ocean food wed starts dying off, you’re gonna see things like this. The fact that humans are overfishing is just accelerating the inevitable. The real story here is the entire marine food web is in the process of collapse. Expect to see more stories like this as time passes and conditions worsen.” -OSJ

By Peter Fimrite @ The San Francisco Gate:

The sardine population along the West Coast has collapsed due to changing ocean conditions and other factors, including allegations of overfishing, prompting regulators Monday to cancel fishing next season and schedule a vote this week on an immediate emergency ban.

The Pacific Fishery Management Council agreed to close the fishery from Mexico to the Canadian border starting July 1, when the 2015 season begins, after federal scientists documented a 91 percent decline in sardine numbers along the West Coast since 2007.

The council, a 19-member policymaking organization made up of fishery representatives from California, Oregon, Washington and Idaho, scheduled a vote Wednesday on whether to take the bigger step of immediately halting sardine fishing. The current season would go until June 30 or until between 3,000 and 4,000 metric tons of the schooling fish are hauled out of the water, fulfilling this season’s quota.

“This is a huge step,” said Geoffrey Shester, the California campaign director for Oceana, an international conservation organization that has been fighting for eight years to lower the annual sardine take and implement stricter regulations. “This is one of the most lucrative fisheries in California, so to completely shut it down is a huge deal.”

Causes of crisis

A lack of spawning caused by unfavorable ocean conditions was blamed for the decline, but fishery biologists say faulty abundance estimates contributed by allowing regulators to set sardine fishing limits too high. It was a problem that scientists have been warning fishery managers about since 2012, Shester said.

“There’s a management failure here,” said Shester, whose group filed a lawsuit in 2011 demanding action. A judge refused to hear the case on grounds that it was not filed in a timely fashion, but the case is now on appeal.

“They didn’t respond fast enough to the decline,” said Shester, who blamed overfishing for worsening an already bad situation. “Now we find ourselves in a crisis situation.”

Don McIsaac, the management council executive director, said sardine populations often fluctuate, and cold water over the past three or four years has lowered the birth rate.

“Sardines like warm water,” McIsaac said, adding that staff biologists ruled out overfishing as a cause. “Their spawning plummets when it gets cold.”

The dilemma harkens back to the mid-1950s when the Monterey Bay canneries of author John Steinbeck fame began failing, mostly as a result of overfishing. Stiff quotas and catch limits required by the 1976 Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act helped save the sardines. The population of the tiny epipelagic fish increased throughout the 1990s.

Monterey Bay is once again the Bay Area hub of sardine fishing, but the oily pilchards can also be caught off the coast of San Francisco. Huge quantities of the nutrient-rich fish are hauled up at the Channel Islands in Southern California and along the Oregon coast, where fishermen are now catching as much as 65 tons a day of the schooling pescados. The only spot where sardines are known to be currently spawning is off the coast of Oregon.

The sardine fleet has been known to bring in between $10 million and $20 million in annual revenue from sales in recent decades, Shester said.

Sardines are mostly sold for bait. The fish are generally frozen in big blocks for use in commercial long-line fishing and for feed at Australian and Japanese blue fin tuna farms. There are some efforts, including among local Indian tribes, to promote it as a healthy local delicacy.

Severe downturn

The sardine population peaked in about 2007, according to a March 19 report issued by scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. But things recently took a turn for the worse. This season’s quota was set at 23,293 metric tons based on biomass estimates calculated last year, but the National Marine Fisheries Service report concluded the estimates were “unrealistically high.” The sardine population, it said, is about 26 percent lower than the estimates because of a lack of spawning due to poor ocean conditions in 2014.

Sardine numbers — which can only be measured using their collective weight — have dropped from 1,037,000 metric tons in 2007 to 96,688 metric tons, a 91 percent decline, the report said.

“We believe the harm has been irreparable and will already have ramifications for decades to come,” Shester said. “We’ve basically reduced the carrying capacity of the ecosystem to support the populations of other species that depend on sardines. The more fish we take, the more it is going to make that situation even worse.”

The collapse this year is the latest in a series of alarming die-offs, sicknesses and population declines in the ocean ecosystem along the West Coast. Anchovies, which thrive in cold water, have also declined over the past decade due largely to fluctuating ocean temperatures and a lack of zooplankton, their food of choice.

The number of herring seen in San Francisco Bay has fluctuated wildly, reaching a historic low in 2009.

Record numbers of starving sea lions have recently been washing up on beaches in California because there aren’t enough sardines and anchovies for pups to eat. Fisheries scientists estimate that 70 percent of sea lion pups will die this year due to a lack of food.

Sick pelicans

Brown pelicans, too, have suffered from mass reproductive failures and are turning up sick and dead in California and Oregon. A 2010 study by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the U.S. Geological Survey and other scientific organizations found that many of the starving and emaciated pelicans are eating worms and other prey inconsistent with their normal diet of anchovies and sardines.

Strange diseases have also been proliferating in the sea. Large numbers of sea lions have recently been found convulsing with seizures caused by a neurotoxin found in algae blooms or red tides. The blooms suddenly proliferate for unknown reasons, cover large areas and infuse shellfish, mussels, anchovies, sardines and other filter feeders with toxins that are then consumed by sea lions.

The number of epileptic sea lions has been growing for at least a decade, according to researchers.

The fishery management council, which is required by the Magnuson-Stevens Act to close ocean fishing if the number of fish do not reach conservation objectives, did not place limits on the sardine trade that supplies recreational fishers with bait. Nor are there additional limits on the quota for anchovies, which are also in decline, Shester said.

The council allows up to 7,000 metric tons of sardines to be caught annually as bycatch, meaning it is not the targeted fish. That includes 1,000 metric tons granted to the Quinault Indian Nation, along the port of Washington. Mistakenly netted sardines cannot make up more than 40 percent of a single catch, according to the rules.

“It’s a serious situation,” McIsaac said of the closure. “It’s a great disappointment and financial hardship on many ports up and down the coast, but this is being done to try to make things better.”

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Peter Fimrite is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: pfimrite@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @pfimrite

Sea Change: The Ecological Disaster That Nobody Sees

Oldspeak: “The ocean is alive; it is a living minestrone soup with an even greater diversity of life than on the land, It is where most of our oxygen is created and carbon is taken out of the atmosphere. With every breath you take, you need to thank the ocean… .The ocean drives climate and weather, It is a planetary life-support system that we have taken for granted . . . We simply must protect the machinery, the natural systems upon which our life depends.” –Sylvia Earle, former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) chief scientist.

“Experts warn that we are currently facing an extinction event in the oceans which may rival the “Great Death” of the Permian age 250 million years ago, when 95 percent of marine species died out due to a combination of warming, acidification, loss of oxygen and habitat – all conditions that are rife today…. Within the past half century the oceans have been transformed from the planet’s most productive bioregion into arguably its most abused and critically endangered…. Trillions of microscopic ocean plants called phytoplankton contribute seasonally between 50 to 85 percent of the oxygen in earth’s atmosphere, far more than all of the world’s forests combined. Nobody knows for certain how plankton will adapt to warming seas. But one study published in the United Kingdom last year suggested, worryingly, that changes in the temperature and chemical composition of the oceans would make these critical organisms less productive. Planktonremoves carbon from the atmosphere during the process of photosynthesis. Fewer plankton will mean less oxygen and more of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which will further intensify “a vicious cycle of climate change…Equally scary is the prospect that, as some researchers speculate, changes in ocean temperature may melt a frozen form of methane called “clathrates,” which is ubiquitous under the planet’s continental shelves. Methane is a greenhouse gas that is 20 times as potent in the short term as carbon dioxide. If these vast reserves bubble up into the atmosphere, it will truly be “game over” for the climate as we know it… But up to now, there has been little political will to tackle the tough issues that are leading to a death by a thousand cuts for the seas around us. The Global Ocean Commission reports that the toothless international treaties that purport to regulate human use of the oceans have failed utterly to protect them.” -Richard Schiffmann

“So basically, we’re running out of air. As time passes and conditions worsen, our air supply will steadily lessen, as greenhouse gasses further intensify. Our oceans in less than 50 years have been transformed from our planets most productive bioregion, into its most abused and critically endangered. Our oceans are the true lungs of the ecology. And they are boiling, acidifying, and dying. This cannot be stopped by human actions. While our attention is being directed toward manufactured threats like ISIS, Russia, and Ebola, We’re slowly and surely suffocating our way to extinction. Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick……” -OSJ

By Richard Schiffmann @ Truthout:

On September 21, in what is being advance-billed as the largest climate march in history, thousands of protesters will converge on New York City to focus public attention on the slow-motion train wreck of global warming. But while Americans are becoming increasingly aware that our industrial civilization is destabilizing the earth’s climate, fewer know about another environmental disaster-in-the-making: the crisis of the global oceans.

Experts warn that we are currently facing an extinction event in the oceans which may rival the “Great Death” of the Permian age 250 million years ago, when 95 percent of marine species died out due to a combination of warming, acidification, loss of oxygen and habitat – all conditions that are rife today.

Within the past half century the oceans have been transformed from the planet’s most productive bioregion into arguably its most abused and critically endangered. That is the conclusion of a report issued earlier this summer by the Global Ocean Commission, a private think tank consisting of marine scientists, diplomats and business people, which makes policy recommendations to governments.

The report catalogues a grim laundry list of environmental ills. Commercial fish stocks worldwide are being overexploited and are close to collapse; coral reefs are dying due to ocean acidification – and may be gone by midcentury; vast dead zones are proliferating in the Baltic and the Gulf of Mexico caused by an influx of nitrogen and phosphorous from petroleum-based fertilizers; non-biodegradable plastic trash – everything from tiny micro-plastic beads to plastic bags and discarded fishing gear – is choking many coastal nurseries where fish spawn; and increased oil and gas drilling in deep waters is spewing pollution and posing the risk of catastrophic spills like the Deepwater Horizon disaster which dumped an estimated 4.2 million barrels of petroleum into the Gulf of Mexico during a five-month period in 2010.

Yet these worrying trends have failed to spark public indignation. It may be a matter of “out of sight, out of mind.”

“If fish were trees, and we saw them being clear-cut, we would be upset,” renowned oceanographer Carl Safina observed in an interview with Truthout. “But the ocean is invisible to most people, an alien world.” It is hard for those of us who only see ocean life when it ends up on our dinner plates to get worked up about its destruction, Safina said.

Nevertheless, this world under the waves is vital to our survival, according to Sylvia Earle, former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) chief scientist. “The ocean is alive; it is a living minestrone soup with an even greater diversity of life than on the land,” Earle told Truthout. “It is where most of our oxygen is created and carbon is taken out of the atmosphere. With every breath you take, you need to thank the ocean.”

Trillions of microscopic ocean plants called phytoplankton contribute seasonally between 50 to 85 percent of the oxygen in earth’s atmosphere, far more than all of the world’s forests combined. Nobody knows for certain how plankton will adapt to warming seas. But one study published in the United Kingdom last year suggested, worryingly, that changes in the temperature and chemical composition of the oceans would make these critical organisms less productive. Planktonremoves carbon from the atmosphere during the process of photosynthesis. Fewer plankton will mean less oxygen and more of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which will further intensify “a vicious cycle of climate change,” according to the study’s authors.

Equally scary is the prospect that, as some researchers speculate, changes in ocean temperature may melt a frozen form of methane called “clathrates,” which is ubiquitous under the planet’s continental shelves. Methane is a greenhouse gas that is 20 times as potent in the short term as carbon dioxide. If these vast reserves bubble up into the atmosphere, it will truly be “game over” for the climate as we know it.

“The ocean drives climate and weather,” Earle said. “It is a planetary life-support system that we have taken for granted . . . We simply must protect the machinery, the natural systems upon which our life depends.”

But up to now, there has been little political will to tackle the tough issues that are leading to a death by a thousand cuts for the seas around us. The Global Ocean Commission reports that the toothless international treaties that purport to regulate human use of the oceans have failed utterly to protect them.

In an email to Truthout, former UK Foreign Minister David Miliband, a co-chair of the commission, wrote bluntly that the high seas are “a failed state . . . beyond the jurisdiction of any government, where governance and policing are effectively non-existent and anarchy rules the waves.” Miliband insists that the open ocean beyond national boundaries needs to be brought under the rule of international law. At present, global treaties make nonbinding recommendations, which are routinely violated by nations and commercial enterprises.

Perhaps not surprisingly, it is the wealthy countries that are disproportionally to blame for the ocean’s woes. According to the commission, the freedom of the seas is being “exploited by those with the money and ability to do so, with little sense of responsibility or social justice.”

One way this is happening is the chronic over-harvesting of the high seas by massive, technologically advanced ships largely from countries like France, Spain, Denmark, Japan and South Korea (the United States is actually a relatively minor player with a lower yearly catch than many far smaller countries). These floating factories frequently employ highly destructive methods like bottom trawling,the practice of dragging a heavy net on the bottom of the ocean, a process which can destroy ancient deep sea coral colonies and other fragile ecosystems.

Other questionable practices include fishing out of season and the use of cyanide and underwater explosives that stun or kill all marine life over vast swaths of the sea. Indiscriminate trawl nets and long-line fishing take untold thousands of sea birds, turtles, marine mammals and non-target fish species (called bycatch) daily, according to Earle. “It is like using a bulldozer to catch songbirds. You simply throw away the trees and all the rest.”

The results have been catastrophic. In 1950, less than 1 percent of fish species were overexploited or close to collapse. Today, that number has swollen to 87 percent, according to the Global Ocean Commission report. Not only are there “too many boats trying to catch too few fish,” but this overfishing is being abetted in many cases by government fossil fuel subsidies, which have driven an otherwise flagging industry into dangerous overdrive.

The irony is that, while the productivity of commercial fishing has never been lower, and boats need to go ever farther to catch fewer fish, the number of vessels exploiting the ocean has never been higher. While affluent countries spend tens of millions of their tax dollars to prop up their national fishing industries, coastal fisheries in the global south are being depleted and some fisher folk are barely able to survive on their diminished catches, as I discovered during a recent reporting trip to Barbados. They simply can’t compete with the big commercial fleets that are operating with impunity just beyond their territorial boundaries.

This problem is exacerbated in Barbados and elsewhere in the Caribbean by the rapid coral die-off. Instead of the thriving reefs that one would have seen only a few years back, there are now ghost forests of bleached white skeletons covered in slime. As the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide increasingly gets absorbed by the ocean’s surface waters, it creates carbonic acid, which changes the pH of the sea, making it more difficult for coral polyps and other shell-forming organisms to produce their rigid homes.

When corals die (Earle said fully half of the world’s reefs are already gone, or in steep decline) the fish and other organisms that breed among them die off as well. Equally important, reefs are an invaluable line of defense against storm surges and destructive waves. Without these natural seawalls, beach erosion and damage to low-lying coastal areas during hurricanes can spiral out of control.

Human-made physical changes to the world’s coastlines pose another threat. Productive natural hatcheries like mangrove swamps, mudflats and salt marshes are being cleared in many areas to make way for coastal development, barrier islands are dredged to build ship channels, and freshwater streams, which fish use to spawn, are blocked by dams.

In his eloquent book Running Silver, marine biologist John Waldman writes that in East Coast streams, where our forebears could “walk dry-shod on the backs” of schools of striped bass, shad, sturgeon and other fish during their spring migrations, today’s runs are as low as 2 percent of what they once were. In some cases, they’ve disappeared entirely. Cold-loving fish like salmon and cod are leaving their traditional ranges and heading toward the poles in search of cooler waters.

Amid this rising tide of bad news, however, there are some glimmers of hope. Carl Safina told Truthout that the US coastal fish populations were in free fall “until about 1998 when the Sustainable Fisheries Act went into effect [which sets strict fishing quotas]. We saw a recovery of inshore species which are wholly managed by US law and policy, at the same time as there was a continuing decline of the big offshore species like shark, tuna and many billfish in international waters.”

The challenge, as Safina sees it, is to bring the rule of law that has worked for some US fisheries to the high seas, which he calls “the Wild West in the space age.” We need something like a UN peacekeeper force for the open oceans, he said, to enforce treaties, clamp down on illegal fishing and draft strict environmental regulations.As a model for what he has in mind, Safina points to regional multination fishery boards (like those which already manage and set quotas for fisheries shared by the United States and Canada.) As this kind of international cooperation spreads, we’ll have a fighting chance to save imperiled species that are currently being fished to exhaustion. Safina alsosaid we need to stop fishing some critical areas to give them an opportunity to recover.

President Obama was clearly thinking along these lines when he announced in June the creation of the largest marine sanctuary on earth, a no-fishing and drilling zone comprising 782,000 square miles of open ocean surrounding small, unpopulated US territories in the South Pacific. Pacific island nations like the Cook and Kiribati quickly followed suit, banning fishing in their own territorial waters.

Sylvia Earle told Truthout that these are big steps in the right direction: “Here’s the good news: places where fish are protected, where we stop the killing, if enough resilience is there, these systems can be returned to abundance. It’s happened in the Florida Keys; it’s happened in protected areas off the coast of Chile, in Mexico, where grouper, snapper and sharks are making a reappearance.”

Still, until we address climate change and pollution, and find a way to establish justice and accountability on the high seas, the prospects for the world’s largest ecosystem remain grim.

 

 

 

 

–

NOAA Report: Summer 2014 Hottest On Record, 2014 On Pace To Be Hottest Ever. World’s Oceans Account For Most Heat Rise.

Oldspeak: “All the conditions that existed in Earth’s previous 5 mass extinctions, exist right now. Today. No other extinction event has progressed as rapidly as the one we’re bearing witness to. The oceans are heating & dying at an unprecedented rate.  We have zero ability to stop what is happening.  We must accept this. I can’t say it better than the esteemed eco-pirate Captain Paul Watson:

“The world is full of ecological fools who deny ecological reality. The world is full of mindless mobs of morons obsessed with petty trivialities or distracted by fantasies ranging from silly religions to entertainment.

What the world is lacking are ecological engineers and warriors ready and willing to address the threats to our planet and especially to our oceans.

What the great majority of people do not understand is this: unless we stop the degradation of our oceans, marine ecological systems will begin collapsing and when enough of them fail, the oceans will die.

And if the oceans die, then civilization collapses and we all die.

It’s as simple as that….

One thing for certain however is that we are running out of time.”

TICK, TICK, TICK, TICK, TICK, TICK….

By NOAA National Climatic Data Center:

 

Global Highlights

• The combined average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces for August 2014 was record high for the month, at 0.75°C (1.35°F) above the 20^th century average of 15.6°C (60.1°F), topping the previous record set in 1998.
• The global land surface temperature was 0.99°C (1.78°F) above the 20^th century average of 13.8°C (56.9°F), the second highest on record for August, behind 1998.
• For the ocean, the August global sea surface temperature was 0.65°C (1.17°F) above the 20^th century average of 16.4°C (61.4°F). This record high departure from average not only beats the previous August record set in 2005 by 0.08°C (0.14°F), but also beats the previous all-time record set just two months ago in June 2014 by 0.03°C (0.05°F).
• The combined average global land and ocean surface temperature for the June–August period was also record high for this period, at 0.71°C (1.28°F) above the 20^th century average of 16.4°C (61.5°F), beating the previous record set in 1998.
• The June–August worldwide land surface temperature was 0.91°C (1.64°F) above the 20^th century average, the fifth highest on record for this period. The global ocean surface temperature for the same period was 0.63°C (1.13°F) above the 20^th century average, the highest on record for June–August. This beats the previous record set in 2009 by 0.04°C (0.07°F).
• The combined average global land and ocean surface temperature for January–August (year-to-date) was 0.68°C (1.22°F) above the 20^th century average of 14.0°C (57.3°F), the third highest for this eight-month period on record.

---

Supplemental Information

• Year-to-date Temperature Comparisons

Introduction

Temperature anomalies and percentiles are shown on the gridded maps below. The anomaly map on the left is a product of a merged land surface temperature (Global Historical Climatology Network, GHCN) and sea surface temperature (ERSST.v3b) anomaly analysis developed by Smith et al. (2008). Temperature anomalies for land and ocean are analyzed separately and then merged to form the global analysis. For more information, please visit NCDC’s Global Surface Temperature Anomalies page. The maps on the right are percentile maps that complement the information provided by the anomaly maps. These provide additional information by placing the temperature anomaly observed for a specific place and time period into historical perspective, showing how the most current month, season, or year compares with the past.

The most current data may be accessed via the Global Surface Temperature Anomalies page.

[ top ]

Temperatures

In the atmosphere, 500-millibar height pressure anomalies correlate well with temperatures at the Earth’s surface. The average position of the upper-level ridges of high pressure and troughs of low pressure—depicted by positive and negative 500-millibar height anomalies on the August 2014 and June 2014–August 2014 maps—is generally reflected by areas of positive and negative temperature anomalies at the surface, respectively.

August

August 2014 Blended Land and Sea Surface
Temperature Anomalies in degrees Celsius

August 2014 Blended Land and Sea Surface
Temperature Percentiles

With records dating back to 1880, the global temperature across the world’s land and ocean surfaces for August 2014 was 0.75°C (1.35°F) higher than the 20^th century average of 15.6°C (60.1°F). This makes August 2014 the warmest August on record for the globe since records began in 1880, beating the previous record set in 1998. Nine of the 10 warmest Augusts on record have occurred during the 21^st century. Additionally, August 2014 marked the 38^th consecutive August with a temperature above the 20^th century average. The last below-average global temperature for August occurred in 1976. The departure from average for the month was also record high for the Northern Hemisphere, at 0.92°C (1.66°F) above average. The Southern Hemisphere temperature was 0.56°C (1.01°F) above average, the fourth highest on record for this part of the world.

Globally, the average land surface temperature was the second highest on record for August behind only 1998, at 0.99°C (1.78°F) above the 20^th century average. Warmer than average temperatures were evident over most of the global land surfaces, except for parts of the United States and western Europe, northern Siberia, parts of eastern Asia and much of central Australia stretching north. Overall, 26 countries across every continent except Antarctica had at least one station reporting a record high temperature for August. The United States and the Russian Federation each had stations that reported record warm temperatures as well as at least one station with a record cold temperature for the month. One station in Antarctica also reported a record cold August temperature for its 30-year period of record. The period of record varies by station.

Select national information is highlighted below. (Please note that different countries report anomalies with respect to different base periods. The information provided here is based directly upon these data):

• Averaged across the country, Australia was only 0.06°C (0.11°F) above its 1961–1990 average; however, there were some large variations between regions. Western Australia had its fifth highest maximum August temperature on record (10^th highest average temperature) while the Northern Territory had its fourth lowest minimum August temperature on record (also fourth lowest average temperature).
• Following a record warm July, August was a bit more temperate in Norway, although still warm compared to normal, with a monthly temperature that was 1.0°C (1.8°F) higher than the 1961–1990 long-term average for the country.
• The United Kingdom had its coolest August since 1993, with a temperature 1.0°C (1.8°F) below its 1981–2010 average. This ended a streak of eight consecutive warmer-than average months.
• August was 1.1°C (2.0°F) cooler than the 1981–2010 average in Austria, marking the country’s coolest August since 2006. The high alpine regions were 1.5°C (2.7°F) cooler than average.

The average August temperature for the global oceans was record high for the month, at 0.65°C (1.17°F) above the 20^th century average, beating the previous record set in 2005 by 0.08°C (0.14°F). It was also the highest departure from average for any month in the 135-year record, beating the previous record set just two months ago in June 2014 by 0.03°C (0.05°F). Record warmth was observed across much of the central and western equatorial Pacific along with sections scattered across the eastern Pacific and regions of the western Indian Ocean, particularly notable in the waters east of Madagascar. After cooling briefly in July, ocean temperatures in the Niño 3.4 region—the area where ENSO conditions are monitored—began warming once again. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center estimates that there is a 60–65 percent chance that El Niño conditions will develop during the Northern Hemisphere fall and winter. This forecast focuses on the ocean surface temperatures between 5°N and 5°S latitude and 170°W to 120°W longitude.

August	Anomaly		Rank (out of 135 years)		Records
	°C	°F			Year(s)	°C	°F
Global
Land	+0.99 ± 0.24	+1.78 ± 0.43	Warmest	2nd	1998	+1.03	+1.85
			Coolest	134th	1912	-0.75	-1.35
Ocean	+0.65 ± 0.05	+1.17 ± 0.09	Warmest	1st	2014	+0.65	+1.17
			Coolest	135th	1910, 1911	-0.45	-0.81
Land and Ocean	+0.75 ± 0.12	+1.35 ± 0.22	Warmest	1st	2014	+0.75	+1.35
			Coolest	135th	1912	-0.51	-0.92
Northern Hemisphere
Land	+1.07 ± 0.21	+1.93 ± 0.38	Warmest	1st	2010, 2014	+1.07	+1.93
			Coolest	135th	1912	-0.94	-1.69
	Ties: 2010
Ocean	+0.84 ± 0.04	+1.51 ± 0.07	Warmest	1st	2014	+0.84	+1.51
			Coolest	135th	1913	-0.57	-1.03
Land and Ocean	+0.92 ± 0.15	+1.66 ± 0.27	Warmest	1st	2014	+0.92	+1.66
			Coolest	135th	1912	-0.65	-1.17
Southern Hemisphere
Land	+0.80 ± 0.12	+1.44 ± 0.22	Warmest	7th	2009	+1.37	+2.47
			Coolest	129th	1891	-0.78	-1.40
Ocean	+0.51 ± 0.06	+0.92 ± 0.11	Warmest	4th	1998	+0.57	+1.03
			Coolest	132nd	1911	-0.48	-0.86
	Ties: 2003, 2005, 2013
Land and Ocean	+0.56 ± 0.06	+1.01 ± 0.11	Warmest	4th	2009	+0.67	+1.21
			Coolest	132nd	1911	-0.51	-0.92
	Ties: 1997

August Global Land and Ocean plot

August Global Hemisphere plot

The most current data August be accessed via the Global Surface Temperature Anomalies page.

[ top ]

Seasonal (June–August)

June 2014–August 2014 Blended Land and Sea Surface
Temperature Anomalies in degrees Celsius

June 2014–August 2014 Blended Land and Sea Surface
Temperature Percentiles

June–August 2014, at 0.71°C (1.28°F) higher than the 20^th century average, was the warmest such period across global land and ocean surfaces since record keeping began in 1880, edging out the previous record set in 1998. The global ocean temperature was a major contributor to the global average, as its departure from average for the period was also highest on record, at 0.63°C (1.13°F) above average. The average temperature across land surfaces was not far behind, at fifth highest for June–August. Regionally, the Northern Hemisphere temperature across land and oceans combined was also record high for its summer season, while the Southern Hemisphere temperature was fourth highest for its winter season.

Select national information is highlighted below. (Please note that different countries report anomalies with respect to different base periods. The information provided here is based directly upon these data):

• Winter (June–August) was warmer than average for Australia; however, while the maximum temperature was 0.68°C (1.22°F) above average, the minimum temperature was 0.14°C (0.25°F) below average, making for a greater-than-average daily temperature range. The highest maximum temperature anomalies were observed in the states of Tasmania (second highest on record) and Western Australia (tied for third highest on record). The Northern Territory had below-average winter maximum and minimum temperatures, with the average temperature tying as the 33^rd coolest winter temperature in its 105-year period of record.
• Summer 2014 was 0.2°C (0.4°F) higher than the 1981–2010 average for Austria, but it also marked the coolest June–August for the country since 2005. The north and east were 0.4–0.7°C (0.7–1.3°F) above average while most other regions were near average.
• The summer temperature for Norway was 1.9°C (3.4°F) above its 1961–1990 average. Western Norway, Trøndelag, and Nordland saw temperatues 2–3°C (4–5°F) above their long-term averages.
• Summer in Denmark was 1.6°C (2.9°F) warmer than its 1961–1990 average and 0.4°C (0.7°F) warmer than the more recent 2001–2010 average. The second highest July temperature on record contributed to the summer warmth.

June–August	Anomaly		Rank (out of 135 years)		Records
	°C	°F			Year(s)	°C	°F
Global
Land	+0.91 ± 0.20	+1.64 ± 0.36	Warmest	5th	2010	+1.02	+1.84
			Coolest	131st	1885	-0.58	-1.04
Ocean	+0.63 ± 0.05	+1.13 ± 0.09	Warmest	1st	2014	+0.63	+1.13
			Coolest	135th	1911	-0.48	-0.86
Land and Ocean	+0.71 ± 0.12	+1.28 ± 0.22	Warmest	1st	2014	+0.71	+1.28
			Coolest	135th	1911	-0.46	-0.83
Northern Hemisphere
Land	+0.94 ± 0.18	+1.69 ± 0.32	Warmest	5th	2010	+1.17	+2.11
			Coolest	131st	1884	-0.68	-1.22
	Ties: 2006
Ocean	+0.76 ± 0.05	+1.37 ± 0.09	Warmest	1st	2014	+0.76	+1.37
			Coolest	135th	1913	-0.54	-0.97
Land and Ocean	+0.83 ± 0.15	+1.49 ± 0.27	Warmest	1st	2014	+0.83	+1.49
			Coolest	135th	1913	-0.50	-0.90
Southern Hemisphere
Land	+0.80 ± 0.12	+1.44 ± 0.22	Warmest	5th	2005	+1.01	+1.82
			Coolest	131st	1911	-0.70	-1.26
Ocean	+0.53 ± 0.06	+0.95 ± 0.11	Warmest	4th	1998	+0.59	+1.06
			Coolest	132nd	1911	-0.50	-0.90
	Ties: 2002
Land and Ocean	+0.57 ± 0.07	+1.03 ± 0.13	Warmest	4th	1998	+0.65	+1.17
			Coolest	132nd	1911	-0.53	-0.95

June–August Global Land and Ocean plot

June–August Global Hemisphere plot

The most current data August be accessed via the Global Surface Temperature Anomalies page.

[ top ]

Year-to-date (January–August)

January–August 2014 Blended Land and Sea Surface
Temperature Anomalies in degrees Celsius

January–August 2014 Blended Land and Sea Surface
Temperature Percentiles

The first eight months of 2014 (January–August) were the third warmest such period on record across the world’s land and ocean surfaces, with an average temperature that was 0.68°C (1.22°F) above the 20^th century average of 57.3°F (14.0°C). If 2014 maintains this temperature departure from average for the remainder of the year, it will be the warmest year on record.

The average global sea surface temperature tied with 2010 as the second highest for January–August in the 135-year period of record, behind 1998, while the average land surface temperature was the fifth highest.

January–August	Anomaly		Rank (out of 135 years)		Records
	°C	°F			Year(s)	°C	°F
Global
Land	+1.01 ± 0.23	+1.82 ± 0.41	Warmest	5th	2007	+1.14	+2.05
			Coolest	131st	1885, 1893	-0.68	-1.22
Ocean	+0.55 ± 0.05	+0.99 ± 0.09	Warmest	2nd	1998	+0.57	+1.03
			Coolest	134th	1911	-0.50	-0.90
	Ties: 2010
Land and Ocean	+0.68 ± 0.11	+1.22 ± 0.20	Warmest	3rd	1998, 2010	+0.70	+1.26
			Coolest	133rd	1911	-0.51	-0.92
Northern Hemisphere
Land	+1.08 ± 0.28	+1.94 ± 0.50	Warmest	5th	2007	+1.29	+2.32
			Coolest	131st	1893	-0.78	-1.40
Ocean	+0.61 ± 0.07	+1.10 ± 0.13	Warmest	1st	2014	+0.61	+1.10
			Coolest	135th	1910	-0.49	-0.88
Land and Ocean	+0.79 ± 0.17	+1.42 ± 0.31	Warmest	2nd	2010	+0.81	+1.46
			Coolest	134th	1893, 1913	-0.51	-0.92
Southern Hemisphere
Land	+0.84 ± 0.15	+1.51 ± 0.27	Warmest	6th	2005	+1.00	+1.80
			Coolest	130th	1917	-0.77	-1.39
Ocean	+0.52 ± 0.05	+0.94 ± 0.09	Warmest	5th	1998	+0.60	+1.08
			Coolest	131st	1911	-0.52	-0.94
Land and Ocean	+0.57 ± 0.07	+1.03 ± 0.13	Warmest	3rd	1998	+0.66	+1.19
			Coolest	133rd	1911	-0.54	-0.97
	Ties: 2002, 2003, 2005

January–August Global Land and Ocean plot

January–August Global Hemisphere plot

The most current data August be accessed via the Global Surface Temperature Anomalies page.

[ top ]

Precipitation

August

The maps below represent precipitation percent of normal (left) and precipitation percentiles (right) based on the GHCN dataset of land surface stations using a base period of 1961–1990. As is typical, August precipitation anomalies varied significantly around the world. As indicated by the August precipitation percentiles map below, extreme wetness was observed across part of the central United States, parts of northern Europe, central Siberia, Japan, and eastern Australia. Much of Japan received heavy rainfall from Typhoons Nakri and Halong during the first half of the month. Extreme dryness was scattered across small regions of each of the major continents.

Select national information is highlighted below. (Please note that different countries report anomalies with respect to different base periods. The information provided here is based directly upon these data):

• August was wet across Japan. Western Japan received 301 percent of its average precipitation, making this its wettest Ausgust since national records began in 1946. Typhoons Halong and Nakri, along with fronts and moist air flow, contributed to this extreme wetness.”
• The cooler-than-average August temperatures in the U.K. were accompanied by wet conditions. August tied as the seventh wettest such period since national records began in 1910, thanks in part to ex-Hurricane Bertha passing over the UK on the 10^th and 11^th. Northern Scotland was record wet.
• Latvia reported its fifth wettest August on record and second wettest for the 21^st century, with 178 percent of the country’s long-term average precipitation.

August 2014 Land-Only Precipitation
Percent of Normal

August 2014 Land-Only Precipitation Percentiles

Seasonal (June–August)

The maps below represent precipitation percent of normal (left) and precipitation percentiles (right) based on the GHCN dataset of land surface stations using a base period of 1961–1990. As is typical, precipitation anomalies during June 2014–August 2014 varied significantly around the world.

• According to the India Meteorological Department, the Southwest Monsoon brought just 82 percent of the long-term (1951–2000) average rainfall to the country from June 1 to August 27. All regions were below average. Northwest India received just 66 percent of its average amount for the period, while the South Peninsula was closest to its long-term average among all regions, at 89 percent of average. By the end of August, the monsoon trough was generally near the Himalayan foothills.
• In France, even with a drier than average June, total summer (June–August) precipitation was more than 140 percent of average, marking one of the 10 wettest summers since national records began in 1959. It was the wettest July–August period on record.

June 2014 – August 2014 Land-Only Precipitation
Percent of Normal

June 2014 – August 2014 Land-Only Precipitation Percentiles

[ top ]

References

Peterson, T.C. and R.S. Vose, 1997: An Overview of the Global Historical Climatology Network Database. Bull. Amer. Meteorol. Soc., 78, 2837-2849.

Quayle, R.G., T.C. Peterson, A.N. Basist, and C. S. Godfrey, 1999: An operational near-real-time global temperature index. Geophys. Res. Lett., 26, 333-335.

Smith, T.M. and R.W. Reynolds, 2005: A global merged land air and sea surface temperature reconstruction based on historical observations (1880-1997), J. Clim., 18, 2021-2036.

Smith et al., 2008, Improvements to NOAA’s Historical Merged Land-Ocean Surface Temperature Analysis (1880-2006), J. Climate., 21, 2283-2293.

 

“We’re running out of time. The laws of physics are non-negotiable”: Ocean Acidification & Greenhouse Gases Soar Fastest In 30 Years To New Record Levels

Oldspeak: “We know without any doubt that our climate is changing and our weather is becoming more extreme due to human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels…The Greenhouse Gas Bulletin shows that, far from falling, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere actually increased last year at the fastest rate for nearly 30 years. We are running out of time. The laws of physics are non-negotiable….The Bulletin provides a scientific base for decision-making. We have the knowledge and we have the tools for action to try to keep temperature increases within 2°C to give our planet a chance and to give our children and grandchildren a future. Pleading ignorance can no longer be an excuse for not acting.” –Michel Jarraud, secretary-general, World Meteorlogical Organization

“As I’ve said many times before, it’s just physics at this point. Emissions and ocean acidification are accelerating faster and faster each day Industrial Civilization plunders on. We are in deadly paradox. If Industrial Civilization continues, we’re fucked. If Industrial Civilization stops, we’re fucked.  Contrary to the secretary-generals assertion, the knowledge and tools for action even if by some stretch of the imagination they are ever used, are useless. There are no truly effective mitigation plans or actions to make. Keeping temperatures below 10c is not gonna happen, much, much less 2c.  We’ve exited the window of time where human actions could affect the madness to come 40 years ago. Multiple non-linear irreversible positive feedback loops have started and there’s noting we can do to stop them. As the earth warms, more and more carbon will be released from permafrost & sea floors. There is no way to stop this from happening. We barely even understand truly what’s going on. The complex interactions among various systems in the ecology are too variegated and unpredictable for our climate models to account for. It’s just a matter of time before our mother ceases to support complex life. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick…” -OSJ

By Alex Kirby @ Climate News Network:

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reports that the amounts of atmospheric greenhouse gases reached a new high in 2013, driven by rapidly rising levels of carbon dioxide.

The news is consistent with trends in fossil fuel consumption. But what comes as more of a surprise is the WMO’s revelation that the current rate of ocean acidification, which greenhouse gases (GHGs) help to cause, appears unprecedented in at least the last 300 million years.

The details of growing GHG levels are in the annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin [3], published by the WMO—the United Nations specialist agency that plays a leading role in international efforts to monitor and protect the environment.

They show that between 1990 and 2013 there was a 34 percent increase in radiative forcing—the warming effect on our climate—because of long-lived greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2), methane and nitrous oxide.

Complex interactions

The Bulletin reports on atmospheric concentrations—not emissions—of greenhouse gases. Emissions are what go into the atmosphere, while concentrations are what stay there after the complex system of interactions between the atmosphere, biosphere (the entire global ecological system) and the oceans.

About a quarter of total emissions are taken up by the oceans and another quarter by the biosphere, cutting levels of atmospheric CO2.

In 2013, the atmospheric concentration of CO2 was 142 percent higher than before the Industrial Revolution started, in about 1750. Concentrations of methane and nitrous oxide had risen by 253 percent and 121 percent respectively.

The observations from WMO’s Global Atmosphere Watch [4] network showed that CO2 levels increased more from 2012 to 2013 than during any other year since 1984. Scientists think this may be related to reduced CO2 absorption by the Earth’s biosphere, as well as by the steady increase in emissions.

Although the oceans lessen the increase in CO2 that would otherwise happen in the atmosphere, they do so at a price to marine life and to fishing communities [5]—and also to tourism. The Bulletin says the oceans appear to be acidifying faster than at any time in at least the last 300 million years.

“We know without any doubt that our climate is changing and our weather is becoming more extreme due to human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels,” said the WMO’s secretary-general, Michel Jarraud.

Running out of time

“The Greenhouse Gas Bulletin shows that, far from falling, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere actually increased last year at the fastest rate for nearly 30 years. We are running out of time. The laws of physics are non-negotiable.

“The Bulletin provides a scientific base for decision-making. We have the knowledge and we have the tools for action to try to keep temperature increases within 2°C to give our planet a chance and to give our children and grandchildren a future. Pleading ignorance can no longer be an excuse for not acting.”

Wendy Watson-Wright, executive secretary of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission [6] of UNESCO, said: “It is high time the ocean, as the primary driver of the planet’s climate and attenuator of climate change, becomes a central part of climate change discussions.

“If global warming is not a strong enough reason to cut CO2 emissions, ocean acidification should be, since its effects are already being felt and will increase for many decades to come.”

The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere reached 396.0 parts per million (ppm) in 2013. At the current rate of increase, the global annual average concentration is set to cross the symbolic 400 ppm threshold within the next two years.

More potent

Methane, in the short term, is a far more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2—34 times more potent over a century, but 84 times more over 20 years.

Atmospheric methane reached a new high of about 1,824 parts per billion (ppb) in 2013, because of increased emissions from human sources. Since 2007, it has started increasing again, after a temporary period of levelling-off.

Nitrous oxide’s atmospheric concentration in 2013 was about 325.9 ppb. Its impact on climate, over a century, is 298 times greater than equal emissions of CO2. It also plays an important role in the destruction of the ozone layer that protects the Earth from harmful ultraviolet solar radiation.

The oceans currently absorb a quarter of anthropogenic CO2 emissions—about 4kg of CO2 per day per person. Acidification [7] will continue to accelerate at least until mid-century, according to projections from Earth system models.

 

 

 

Scientists Discover Hundreds Of Methane Leaks Bubbling From The Floor Of The Atlantic Ocean… Again.

Oldspeak: “Fast on the heels of news of a gigantic chasm of a methane blow hole opening in the permafrost in Siberia, we see this.  Not sure why this is surprising any more. We’ve gone from zero gas seeps in these areas off the U.S. east coast to the largest seeps in the atlantic since the mid 2000s. Methane hydrates are being released from countless, unknown numbers of leaks all over the planet.  The most disturbing lines in this article for me are “about 40 of the leaks they detected came from depths of over 3,300 feet, likely originating from deeper reservoirs below the initial sediments that make up the sea floor. If that’s the case, those reservoirs could be a target for extraction by fossil fuel companies…” Translation: the bottom of the deep dark ocean is too hot too keep methane hydrates frozen, and energy corporations are licking their chops. As ocean warming increases, we’ll see more and more and more of these leaks discovered. Climate scientists view them with concern. Energy conglomerates view them as profit. Meanwhile, we have no idea which of these deep reservoirs of gas will become the catastrophic release; The methane time bomb that will release 50 or more gigatons of methane in to the atmosphere & collapse human civilization. Only time will tell. And there’s nothing we can do to defuse it. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick….” –OSJ

By Jeff Spross @ Climate Progress:

In what could be a clue to the future effects of climate change, scientists have discovered a huge collection of methane leaks from the ocean floor off the United States’ eastern seaboard.

Their work, published Sunday in Nature Geoscience, used a research vessel equipped with sonar to map a 94,000-square-kilometer area that arcs from North Carolina up to Massachusetts. Within that expanse, according to Scientific American, they discovered around 570 separate plumes of bubbles rising from the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. And while the scientists haven’t yet collected samples, the bubbles’ sources suggest they contain methane.

The study is surprising, because such leaks are usually found atop known methane reservoirs — or above active tectonic regions — and scientists had previously thought very few such leaks were to be found in that area of the Atlantic shelf. “This is the first time anyone has systematically mapped an entire margin,” Christian Berndt, a marine geophysicist at GEOMAR in Kiel, Germany, who was not involved in the study, told Science Magazine. “They found that there was much more methane coming out than was suspected beforehand.”

Methane is a greenhouse gas, far more potent on a pound-for-pound basis than carbon dioxide. But at 90 metric tons per ear, the methane being released by the 570 leaks is dwarfed by the annual releases from human industrial and agricultural activity, as well as other natural sources. Still, the researchers estimate there could around 30,000 more of the leaks all over the world.

There’s also the possibility that climate change and alterations to ocean temperatures could lead to far bigger releases.

“These little bits of bubbling here or there will not make a memorable impact,” Jens Greinert, who heads the deep-sea monitoring unit at GEOMAR, told Science Magazine. “It becomes interesting only if you have a catastrophic release.”

Carolyn Ruppel of the United States Geological Survey, one of the study’s co-authors, told the New York Times that about 40 of the leaks they detected came from depths of over 3,300 feet, likely originating from deeper reservoirs below the initial sediments that make up the sea floor. If that’s the case, those reservoirs could be a target for extraction by fossil fuel companies, though more research will be needed to confirm. But most of the leaks came from 800 to 2,000 feet down, and pictures Ruppel and her colleagues were able to take with a submersible show that most of the methane is likely trapped in ice structures called hydrates in the initial sediments at the seabed.

That raises the possibility that the hydrates, which are extremely sensitive to changes in temperature, are being melted by warming waters. That heat could be brought by natural cycles and variability — or by climate change. Another twist is that most of the methane is absorbed by the ocean long before it breaches the surface. The process reacts with oxygen and releases carbon dioxide, which in turn increases the acidification of the ocean in the vicinity. So there’s the possibility that warming waters from climate change could release more methane, thus further speeding up the ocean acidification that is itself being driven largely by humanity’s carbon dioxide emissions.

But with the current evidence, what connection can be drawn to climate change — if any at all — remains unclear. The undersea pictures taken by the research team suggest at least some of the methane leaks have been active for hundreds of years or even a millennia.

“It highlights a really key area where we can test some of the more radical hypotheses about climate change,” John Kessler, a professor at the University of Rochester who was not involved in the research, told the New York Times. “How will those release rates accelerate as bottom temperature warms, or how will they decelerate if there are some cooling events?”

“We don’t really have all of the answers. But this is a great place to try to find them.”

 

The Pacific Ocean Has Become Acidic Enough to Dissolve Sea Snails’ Shells: Acidification Is Happening Sooner & On A Larger Scale Than Scientists Predicted; Coastal Biomes Under Threat

Oldspeak: “A new study, among the first to examine how the process called ocean acidification impacts marine life, has confirmed that about half of all the pteropods off the west coast are fighting off the acid burn. It builds on previous work that has shown pteropods dissolving in other waters; it’s a disturbing trend, considering they’re a key link in the oceanic food chain….research determined that “large portions of the shelf waters are corrosive to pteropods in the natural environment…This is worrisome, not just because it’s kind of horrifying on a micro-level—imagine the air that surrounds you slowly eroding, say, your cartilage—but because these sea snails are a major food source for other important species like salmon, herring, and mackerel. Their disappearance would radically transform the coastal biome.” -Brian Merchant

“It’s happening now. I’m not speculating about the distant future. The first crack in our global life support system is widening now and we are about to experience our first major systems failure….We are on the threshold of the first major eco-system collapse of the Homocene…What the great majority of people do not understand is this: unless we stop the degradation of our oceans, marine ecological systems will begin collapsing and when enough of them fail, the oceans will die… And if the oceans die, then civilization collapses and we all die… It’s as simple as that.”  -Captain Paul Watson

“It really is that simple. The degradation of our oceans is not stopping, it is in fact accelerating. The Pacific Ocean will continue to be transformed into a radioactive acid bath. Marine ecological systems will continue to collapse, and that will be that.  We’re fucked. There is no fixing this. There is no avoiding extinction.” -OSJ

 

Related Story:

NOAA-led researchers discover ocean acidity is dissolving shells of tiny snails off the U.S. West Coast

 

By Brian Merchant @ Vice Magazine:

Meet the tiny, translucent “sea butterfly,” whose home is currently being transformed into an acid bath. Off the US’s west coast, there are anywhere between 100 and 15,000 of these free-swimming sea snails per square meter. And the oceans are beginning to dissolve the tiny shells right off their backs.

A new study, among the first to examine how the process called ocean acidification impacts marine life, has confirmed that about half of all the pteropods off the west coast are fighting off the acid burn. It builds on previous work that has shown pteropods dissolving in other waters; it’s a disturbing trend, considering they’re a key link in the oceanic food chain.

The world’s oceans have absorbed a third of humans’ carbon emissions, a process that increases their acidity. Scientists have long noted the changing chemistry of the waters, and voiced concern that this leaves calcium-based creatures, like coral and pteropods, extremely vulnerable. Now, it appears, they have proof.

“These are some of the first insights into how marine creatures are affected by acidification,” Dr. Nina Bednarsek told me in a phone interview. She’s the lead author of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration study, which was just published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The research determined that “large portions of the shelf waters are corrosive to pteropods in the natural environment.”

“Fifty percent of those pteropods are affected by acidification,” Bednarsek said. “It’s a lot—more than we expected.” And sooner. She tells me that acidification is happening sooner and on a larger scale than scientists predicted. “This is just an indication of how much we are changing the natural environment,” she said.

The study estimates “that the incidence of severe pteropod shell dissolution owing to anthropogenic [ocean acidification] has doubled in near shore habitats since pre-industrial conditions across this region and is on track to triple by 2050.” In other words, thanks to human carbon pollution, twice as many marine creature shells are dissolving as were before the industrial era. And three times as many will be dissolving by mid-century.

Image: NOAA

This is worrisome, not just because it’s kind of horrifying on a micro-level—imagine the air that surrounds you slowly eroding, say, your cartilage—but because these sea snails are a major food source for other important species like salmon, herring, and mackerel. Their disappearance would radically transform the coastal biome.

Acidification primarily effects the snails’ outer shell layer, and is especially dangerous to juveniles, which are born with very tiny shells. The outer shell, which is comprised of “a more soluble form, they are just dissolved away. In that sense, shells are getting more thin,” Bednarsek said. “It is just a few micron in juveniles. If you dissolve that, the whole shell can just disappear in two months time.”

This means they have to use precious energy to try to build shells with less soluble materials, while the absence of a shell restricts mobility and leave them vulnerable to infection. So is this an existential threat to a highly prevalent species?

“Yes, basically,” Bednarsek said.

“By 2100, 50 percent of the oceans would no longer be viable for pteropods,” Dr. Richard Freely, the study’s co-author, told me, if we continue emitting carbon pollution apace. And that’s exactly what’s expected to happen.

“Estimates of future carbon dioxide levels, based on business as usual emission scenarios, indicate that by the end of this century the surface waters of the ocean could be nearly 150 percent more acidic, resulting in a pH that the oceans haven’t experienced for more than 20 million years,” NOAA estimates.

In other words, the oceans are on track to become an acidic mess, and plenty of things that lived in them for millions of years may simply no longer be able to. The future, it seems, is a place where sea snails’ shells begin dissolving in acid as soon as they’re born. And then, eventually, a place without sea snails.

“We’re already there… You can actually see this happening…It’s not something a long way into the future. It is a very big problem.” : The Oceans Extinction Event Appears To Be Underway

Much of the carbon dioxide we spew into the atmosphere dissolves in the oceans, where it causes the water to become increasingly acidic and therefore corrosive to the materials that form coral reefs. In the images above (based on observations and computer simulations), warmer colors indicate less corrosive conditions, whereas cooler colors show increasingly corrosive conditions. Ocean water in the 1700′s (left) was much less corrosive than what is projected for the year 2100. This is one way that we humans have been leaving a geological mark. (Source: NOAA Science on a Sphere)

Oldspeak: “As far as science is concerned, the rate of change of pH in the ocean is “off the charts.” Therefore, and as a result, nobody knows how this will play out because there is no known example in geologic history of such a rapid change in pH. This begs the biggest question of modern times, which is: Will ocean acidification cause an extinction event this century, within current lifetimes?…

….Today’s human-induced acidification is a unique event in the geological history of our planet due to its rapid rate of change. An analysis of ocean acidification over the last 300 million years highlights the unprecedented rate of change of the current acidification. The most comparable event 55 million years ago was linked to mass extinctions… At that time, though the rate of change of ocean pH was rapid, it may have been 10 times slower than current change.” (IGBP, IOC, SCOR [2013], Ocean Acidification Summary for Policymakers – Third Symposium on the Ocean in a High- CO₂ World, International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, Stockholm, Sweden, 2013.)

Fifty-five million years ago, during a dark period of time known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), huge quantities of CO₂ were somehow released into the atmosphere, nobody knows from where or how, but temperatures around the world soared by 10 degrees F, and the ocean depths became so corrosive that sea shells simply dissolved rather than pile up on the ocean floor…

“Most, if not all, of the five global mass extinctions in Earth’s history carry the fingerprints of the main symptoms of… global warming, ocean acidification and anoxia or lack of oxygen. It is these three factors — the ‘deadly trio’ — which are present in the ocean today. In fact, (the situation) is unprecedented in the Earth’s history because of the high rate and speed of change.” (Rogers, A.D., Laffoley, D. d’A. 2011. International Earth System Expert Workshop on Ocean Stresses and Impacts, Summary Report, IPSO Oxford, 2011.)  -Robert Hunziker

“You know, everything has changed because we have a population of seven billion people on the planet right now, and the oceans are dying. The oceans have been so severely diminished that there’s a good chance we could kill them. And if the oceans die, we die. In light of that prospect I find it very difficult to be sympathetic to any cultural needs in order to destroy endangered species. Yeah, sure, it isn’t the Inuit’s fault that the whales have been diminished, but they can finish the job. When you get right down to it, it’s all about human beings. I don’t divide them into groups – the human species has been an extremely destructive species and has the potential to destroy the life support system for humanity. So this traditional stuff really gets to me – anything that involves killing an endangered species or destroying a habitat, if that involves tradition, I say ecology comes before tradition.  I’d rather be ecologically correct than politically correct.” –Captain Paul Watson

By Robert Hunziker @ Dissident Voice:

Something is out of kilter in the ocean.

The problem is found throughout the marine food chain from the base, plankton (showing early signs of reproductive and maturation complications) to the largest fish species in the water, the whale shark (on the endangered species list.)

The ocean is not functioning properly. It’s a festering problem that will not go away. It’s called acidification, and as long as fossil fuels predominate, it will methodically, and assuredly, over time, kill the ocean.

Scientists already have evidence of trouble in the sea water.

The use of fossil fuel, in large measure, is the primary pathway behind this impending extinction event. Excessive quantities of CO₂, of which the ocean absorbs 30% of CO₂ emitted into the atmosphere, are changing the ocean’s chemistry, called acidification, which eventually has the potential to kill most, but not all, ocean life forms.

This problem is unquestionably serious, and here’s why: The rate of change of ocean pH (measure of acidity) is 10 times faster than 55 million years ago. That period of geologic history was directly linked to a mass extinction event as levels of CO₂ mysteriously went off the charts.

Ten times larger is big, very big, when a measurement of 0.1 in change of pH is consistent with significant change!

According to C.L. Dybas, On a Collision Course: Oceans Plankton and Climate Change, BioScience, 2006: “This acidification is occurring at a rate [10-to-100] times faster [depending upon the area] than ever recorded.”

In other words, as far as science is concerned, the rate of change of pH in the ocean is “off the charts.” Therefore, and as a result, nobody knows how this will play out because there is no known example in geologic history of such a rapid change in pH. This begs the biggest question of modern times, which is: Will ocean acidification cause an extinction event this century, within current lifetimes?

The Extinction Event Already Appears to be Underway

According to the State of the Ocean Report, d/d October 3, 2013, International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO):  “This [acidification] of the ocean is unprecedented in the Earth’s known history. We are entering an unknown territory of marine ecosystem change… The next mass extinction may have already begun.”

According to Jane Lubchenco, PhD, who is the former director (2009-13) of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the effects of acidification are already present in some oyster fisheries, like the West Coast of the U.S.  According to Lubchenco: “You can actually see this happening… It’s not something a long way into the future. It is a very big problem.” ( Fiona Harvey, Ocean Acidification due to Carbon Emissions is at Highest for 300M Years, The Guardian, October 2, 2013.)

And, according to Richard Feely, PhD, (Dept. Of Oceanography, University of Washington) and Christopher Sabine, PhD, (Senior Fellow, University of Washington, Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean): “If the current carbon dioxide emission trends continue… the ocean will continue to undergo acidification, to an extent and at rates that have not occurred for tens of millions of years… nearly all marine life forms that build calcium carbonate shells and skeletons studied by scientists thus far have shown deterioration due to increasing carbon dioxide levels in seawater.” (Dr. Richard Feely and Dr. Christopher Sabine, Oceanographers, Carbon Dioxide and Our Ocean Legacy, Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, April 2006.)

And, according to Alex Rogers, PhD, Scientific Director of the International Programme on the State of the Ocean, OneWorld (UK) Video, Aug.  2011: “I think if we continue on the current trajectory, we are looking at a mass extinction of marine species even if only coral reef systems go down, which it looks like they will certainly by the end of the century.”

“Today’s human-induced acidification is a unique event in the geological history of our planet due to its rapid rate of change. An analysis of ocean acidification over the last 300 million years highlights the unprecedented rate of change of the current acidification. The most comparable event 55 million years ago was linked to mass extinctions… At that time, though the rate of change of ocean pH was rapid, it may have been 10 times slower than current change.” (IGBP, IOC, SCOR [2013], Ocean Acidification Summary for Policymakers – Third Symposium on the Ocean in a High- CO₂ World, International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, Stockholm, Sweden, 2013.)

Fifty-five million years ago, during a dark period of time known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), huge quantities of CO₂ were somehow released into the atmosphere, nobody knows from where or how, but temperatures around the world soared by 10 degrees F, and the ocean depths became so corrosive that sea shells simply dissolved rather than pile up on the ocean floor.

“Most, if not all, of the five global mass extinctions in Earth’s history carry the fingerprints of the main symptoms of… global warming, ocean acidification and anoxia or lack of oxygen. It is these three factors — the ‘deadly trio’ — which are present in the ocean today. In fact, (the situation) is unprecedented in the Earth’s history because of the high rate and speed of change.” (Rogers, A.D., Laffoley, D. d’A. 2011. International Earth System Expert Workshop on Ocean Stresses and Impacts, Summary Report, IPSO Oxford, 2011.)

Zooming in on the Future, circa 2050 – Location: Castello Aragonese

Scientists have discovered a real life Petri dish of seawater conditions similar to what will occur by the year 2050, assuming humans continue to emit CO₂ at current rates.

This real life Petri dish is located in the Tyrrhenian Sea at Castello Aragonese, which is a tiny island that rises straight up out of the sea like a tower. The island is located 17 miles west of Naples. Tourists like to visit Aragonese Castle (est. 474 BC) on the island to see the display of medieval torture devices.

But, the real action is offshore, under the water, where Castello Aragonese holds a very special secret, which is an underwater display that gives scientists a window 50 years into the future.  Here’s the scoop: A quirk of geology is at work whereby volcanic vents on the sea floor surrounding the island are emitting (bubbling) large quantities of CO₂. In turn, this replicates the level of CO₂ scientists expect the ocean to absorb over the course of the next 50 years.

“When you get to the extremely high CO₂ almost nothing can tolerate that,” according to Jason-Hall Spencer, PhD, professor of marine biology, School of Marine Science and Engineering, Plymouth University (UK), who studies the seawater around Castello Aragonese.  (Elizabeth Kolbert, The Acid Sea, National Geographic, April, 2011.)

The adverse effects of excessive CO₂ are found everywhere in the immediate surroundings of the tiny island. For example, barnacles, which are one of the toughest of all sea life, are missing around the base of the island where sea water measurements show the heaviest concentration of CO₂. And, within the water, limpets, which wander into the area seeking food, show severe shell dissolution. As a result, their shells are almost completely transparent. Also, the underwater sea grass is a vivid green, which is abnormal because tiny organisms usually coat the blades of sea grass and dull the color, but no such organisms exists. Additionally, sea urchins, which are commonplace further away from the vents, are nowhere to be seen around the island.

The only life forms found around Castello Aragonese are jellyfish, sea grass, and algae; whereas an abundance of underwater sea life is found in the more distant surrounding waters. Thus, the Castello Aragonese Petri dish is essentially a dead sea except for weeds.

This explains why Jane Lubchenco, former head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, refers to ocean acidification as global warming’s “equally evil twin.”

To that end, a slow motion death march is consuming life in the ocean in real time, and we humans are witnesses to this extinction event.

What to do?

The logic is quite simple. If fossil fuels cause extinction events, stop using fossil fuels.

Postscript: Alex Rogers, Scientific Director of IPSO and professor of Conservation Biology at the Department of Zoology, University of Oxford (Fellow of Somerville College): “Climate Change affects are going to be extremely serious, and it’s interesting when you think many people who talk about this in terms of what will happen in the future… our children will see the effects of this. Well, actually we’re seeing very severe impacts from climate change already… We’re already there.” (Source: State of the Ocean.org, Video Interview, Dr. Alex Rogers).

Robert Hunziker (MA in economic history at DePaul University, Chicago) is a former hedge fund manager and now a professional independent negotiator for worldwide commodity actual transactions and a freelance writer for progressive publications as well as business journals. He can be contacted at: rlhunziker@gmail.com. Read other articles by Robert.

Walking In An Anthropocene Wonderland

Oldspeak: “In the Anthropocene Epoch, in our manic flight from consequence and accountability and our attendant estrangement from empathic imagination, we have come to regard all the things of the world as fodder for our empty appetites, as commodified, meretricious objects that exist to distract us and then be discarded. By our actions, we are destroying the living things of the world by caprice. The fetishization of mechanization and its concomitant soulless and habitual reductionism has mortified our psyches inflicting alienation that we attempt to remedy with the palliative of perpetual media distraction…

Self-absorption, hubris and ignorance are traits that Unnecessary Death finds irresistible thus moves in for the seduction. The air is redolent with the intoxicating perfume of self-deception. When possessed by feelings of indestructibility, one feels immortal while dancing on the precipice overlooking a yawning abyss. Intoxicated: The rules of gravity don’t seem applicable. Yet the delusion of being imbued by the immortal makes consummation with Death inevitable. This is the manner that an addict is dispatched from the world. A compulsion to remain high provokes a jealous fury from the spurned ground and she smothers the errand consort in an endless embrace….

To avoid this lamentable fate, we, as a species, must listen to the earth’s entreaties. To demur, we invite our undoing. Ecocide should be regarded with the same sense of abhorrence as genocide, for the two abominations align to the same destination: The world shattered beyond recognition; mountains of corpses looming over a hideous and forsaken valley of denial.” -Phil Rockstroh

“Was watching Bill Moyers the other day. He was interviewing historian Richard Slotkin about the history of guns and violence in america. He says in his book gunfighter nation “Violence is an essential and necessary part of the process through which American society was established and through which its democratic values are defended and enforced” This ethos permeates all aspects of society. Violence, structural and a myriad of other forms of violence are necessary to the continuation of globalized capitalism. How do we rationalize the madness we have wrought?  Moyers cristalized it perfectly when he said: “…we create myths to help us organize our beliefs against the reality that we cannot factually deny.” Our genius at creating myths enables us to regard global, industrial scale ecocide with a bored yawn and an indifferent shrug. We are a mutant, locust like horde of “Happiness Machines” consuming ever more shit we don’t need to make us happy.  it enables us to continue, with brutal efficiency, cutting down tress; a vital part of our life support system, ornamenting them with toxic substances and piling piles of planned obsolescent trinket capitalism crap around their rootless trunks to celebrate a religious holiday that in all probability is one of the world’s greatest and most destructive myths.  Our myths enable our headlong rush to extinction. Our myths are unsustainable. The Great Mother  will make us fatally aware of that fact before long.” -OSJ

By Phil Rockstroh @ Dissident Voice:

According to a recent, exhaustive study commissioned by the US Department of Energy and headed by a scientific team from the U.S. navy, by the summer of 2015, the Arctic Ocean could be bereft of ice, a phenomenon that will engender devastating consequences for the earth’s environment and every living creature on the planet.

Yet, recently, Chuck Hagel, US Defense Secretary, said (in defiance of common sense and even a modicum of sanity) that the US military will escalate its presence in the Arctic, due to the fact that “[the] potential for tapping what may be as much as a quarter of the planet’s undiscovered oil and gas.”

Secretary of Defense? More like Commissar of Mass Suicide.

This situation is like a family of self-destructive drunks inheriting a brewery.

Sans hyperbole, it is exactly like making the choice to exist as fatally self-involved consumers as opposed to multidimensional human beings possessed of heart, mind and soul.

I mean, just what kind of suicidal clowns flounce through life gibbering on about bacon straws, cupcakes, online images of kitty cats, and the latest Playstation model when the specter of extinction looms and their psychotic leaders are doubling down on the criteria of doom?

This is like giving Charles Manson the codes to nuclear missile silos.

In the Anthropocene Epoch, in our manic flight from consequence and accountability and our attendant estrangement from empathic imagination, we have come to regard all the things of the world as fodder for our empty appetites, as commodified, meretricious objects that exist to distract us and then be discarded. By our actions, we are destroying the living things of the world by caprice. The fetishization of mechanization and its concomitant soulless and habitual reductionism has mortified our psyches inflicting alienation that we attempt to remedy with the palliative of perpetual media distraction.

Devoid of the musk and fury of true communal engagement, this communion with electronic phantoms only exacerbates our alienation and decimates one’s ability to evince empathy, when, conversely, empathy is the quality required to feel the suffering that hyper-capitalist industrialization has wrought. If we are to pull back from the brink of extinction, we must lament what has been lost to cupidity.

Yet, one must resist the temptation to become intoxicated by grim prophesy. It is possession of the qualities of sadness and gravitas that separates an individual bearing accurate augury from false prophets. The tears of the world will saturate the soul of an individual who lives in the truth of our era of Climate Chaos and global-wide ecocide.

“And I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinking,
But I’ll know my song well before I start singing…” — Bob Dylan, “A Hard Rain Gonna Fall”

Allow the images of thinning polar icecaps, of oceanic acidification and depletion, and of the 150 to 200 species of plants, insects, reptiles, amphibians, birds and mammals that become extinct on a daily basis to permeate your heart and mind. Thus, you will know the tears at the heart of things.

Then decide what your song will be, arrange it according to your individual talents, and start to sing. Because we must end this paradigm or it will end us.

The changes we yearn for must be first glimpsed and nurtured in the heart. Creative expression (e.g., art, poetry, fiction, inspired prose) serves as the quickening agent of dreams. Language constellates from the quanta of possibility, where it gains scope and shape, so that ideas can become manifested by means of action and form.

The heart must be allowed to dream, grief, and yearn before the world itself even becomes possible.

When thwarted, life becomes seized with the quality of a reoccurring nightmare. Due to the ongoing, relentless destruction of the earth’s biosphere, the next episode of the planet’s periodic, epoch-ending Great Die Offs will not be caused by an earth-decimating comet but an earthbound (and apparently equally mindless) source i.e., us. Although we have been graced with life with all its possibilities and abundance, it has become apparent, we have fallen in love with Extinction.

Self-absorption, hubris and ignorance are traits that Unnecessary Death finds irresistible thus moves in for the seduction. The air is redolent with the intoxicating perfume of self-deception. When possessed by feelings of indestructibility, one feels immortal while dancing on the precipice overlooking a yawning abyss. Intoxicated: The rules of gravity don’t seem applicable. Yet the delusion of being imbued by the immortal makes consummation with Death inevitable. This is the manner that an addict is dispatched from the world. A compulsion to remain high provokes a jealous fury from the spurned ground and she smothers the errand consort in an endless embrace.

To avoid this lamentable fate, we, as a species, must listen to the earth’s entreaties. To demur, we invite our undoing. Ecocide should be regarded with the same sense of abhorrence as genocide, for the two abominations align to the same destination: The world shattered beyond recognition; mountains of corpses looming over a hideous and forsaken valley of denial.

Late capitalism’s putrefying paradigm has but one remedy for the devastation reaped by the system…insanely, more production and more consumerism. Bafflingly, despite the vast carnage inflicted and multiple promises betrayed, why does the storyline of the capitalist/consumer state still resonant with so many? Consumerism, in the US and elsewhere, is one of the few activities in the capitalist paradigm whereby fantasy and human libido merge (albeit a facsimile thereof). The mall, the big box store, even upscale stores and department stores are phantasmagoric agoras, much like the fairways of old style roving carnivals wherein the modus operandi of carnies was to bamboozle gullible, repressed rubes by bait-and-switch scams involving the commodification of curiosity and desire.

The social repression, attendant atomization and ennui inherent to existence in the corporate/consumer age give rise to a form of a pent-up longing for release. And that is where the bait-and-switch comes in, vis-à-vis Edward Bernay’s and his mercenary misappropriation of his uncle, Sigmund Freud’s theories regarding the dreamscape of desire (i.e., Eros). When we approach the dominion of Eros, we enter the realm of both beauty (Eros’ mother Aphrodite) and soul, Psyche (Eros’ eternal mate). Although the union of Eros and Psyche is fraught with mistrust, betrayal, outside interference (both human and divine), estrangement, struggle, the lover’s shattered bond wends, ultimately, toward rapprochement. (Familiar tumult to anyone who has pursued art and surrendered to love.)

In short, to survive the exploitation of the consumer paradigm, it becomes imperative to regain one’s soul. First step: the reclamation of beauty. Hint: The quality cannot be found in a retail outlet.

Beauty reveals herself in the longings of the heart. Tell me what you long for and I will tell you who you are. Hint: You are not the sum total of your consumer preferences.

Living things are closer to works of art: never finished, yet ever alluding to something hidden, subtle, and sublime — an immense and deathless quality within that we long to quantify, but remains elusive. This is what we concretize — despoil — when we seek consumer gratification.

Eric Hoffer summarized the hapless state of being thus: “You can never get enough of what you don’t need to make you happy.”

That is why the following incantation cast by the dark magicians of the consumer paradigm seizes the psyche, literally steals one’s soul: “No one can eat just one.”

Attention: Consumer State shoppers: The world was never your oyster — nor your salt-spiked snack food. Beware, although you believe you possess the consumer item, in reality, the consumer item possesses you.

The heart is untamable. It is not a poor creature in a circus that can be goaded and bribed into performing demeaning tricks. When we attempt to dominate and coerce it into accepting the dishonest, the artificial, and the demeaning, the heart will lash out, sink into sorrow, or even damage its host.

My heart grieves yet will not cease to yearn that we, as a species, will begin to resist, heart, mind and spirit, the reckless course that the economic elite have set us upon. We do not have the luxury of acting as though the carnage wrought by the Anthropocene Epoch is not upon us. We cannot deceive ourselves that the crisis can be ignored.

By choosing to retreat from the challenge, one exiles oneself from the heart’s landscape — a state of being comprised of angst and ashes. In this limbo of destiny deferred, the heart turns away from you. Your face will have become unrecognizable to it. Yet the moment one calls it by its name a rapprochement can begin.

How not to be a bystander in your own life:

Be attentive to the things of the world that evoke within you quicksilver enthusiasm or roil you with apprehension.

Remain open, allow yourself to be remade by the interplay of innocence and experience…by transitory wonders and eternal forms.

Tell the story of it all, in your own time and in your own way, and whenever and wherever you can.

Never bore your audience.

The above can be achieve by telling an honest tale. In short, like an inspired storyteller who appropriates artifice to limn reality, you will be able to lie the truth. If you do so, people will be moved or angered — but they will not be bored.

Before us, the denizens, operatives, propagandists and enforcers of the old order grow more certain of their convictions in direct proportion to its accelerating rate of decay. Stoned-faced phalanxes of soldiers and bristling clutches of militarized cops stand guard before the entrances of shoddy, swaying towers. But lies cannot be built to last. The lipless grins of a billion skulls mock the illusory staying power of deceit, while the perennial yearnings of the heart and its perpetual coupling with the eternal present endure. Love songs ring out among the rot of empires.

Phil Rockstroh is a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York City. He may be contacted at phil@philrockstroh.com and FaceBook. Read other articles by Phil, or visit Phil’s website.