The May 2009 issue of BioScience carried a Viewpoint column written by Conrad Lautenbacher Jr entitled, “Ocean and Atmosphere– The Future”. Lautenbacher is no light weight. He was a Vice Admiral in the US Navy and Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and a NOAA administrator. In otherwords, when he speaks, it is time to listen.
In the column, he responded to the question, “What are the global trends affecting the ocean and atmosphere?”. I quote it below in full:
“In the atmosphere, human-produced contaminants threaten the health and welfare of all air-breathing species. In the ocean, marine debris generated by one country washes up on the shores of another. The absorption of increased atmospheric carbon has made the ocean more acidic (or less basic, to be accurate), thus jeopardizing the existence of organisms that depend on calcification and are essential to the entire food chain. Biodiversity is declining at an alarming rate, and overfishing worldwide has brought about a rapid decrease in populations of large fishes. Trends in the ocean and atmosphere are clearly affecting the sustainability of the human race.
Population trends are alarming. With almost seven billion people, the earth is strained as never before to support the human species. People are moving to the coasts and large cities, thus magnifying the need to study, understand, and apply large-scale ecosystem approaches to the management of human activities.
Climate change and global warming are clearly affecting the ocean and atmosphere; or better said, observed changes in the ocean and atmosphere indicate that the earth is warming and climate is changing.”
There is not much more to be said. This is the same message echoed by hundreds and even thousands of scientists worldwide. Will mankind listen before it is too late or will we literally reproduce ourselves to extinction. The Earth will live on quite nicely without us.
February 2nd, 2010 at 12:55 pm The writer of visions.visionengineers.com has written a superior article. I got your point and there is nothing to argue about. It is like the following universal truth that you can not disagree with: Leaning on your horn longer than 3 seconds is indicative of psychopathy I will be back.