Oceans In Peril

You know I read an article like this one from McClatchy and just don't want to get out of bed. But I do and get my stuff in gear and move on, just like you do.

The article gets into a new report that lists the troubles that are ailing the world's oceans. The report is stunning. Stunning in the sense that you can't breathe after you read it if you actually contemplate the enormity of the problem. You are stunned into a deep trance.

But we persevere. We have to fix the problem. We have to collectively get our act together. There's no other choice.

McClatchy: It's not just BP's oil in the Gulf that threatens world's oceans

# The average temperature of the upper level of the oceans has increased more than 1 degree Fahrenheit over the past 100 years, and global ocean surface temperatures in January were the second warmest ever recorded for that month.


# Though the increase in acidity is slight, it represents a "major departure" from the geochemical conditions that have existed in the oceans for hundred of thousands if not millions of years.


# Nutrient-poor "ocean deserts" in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans grew by 15 percent, or roughly 2.5 million square miles, from 1998 to 2006.


# Oxygen concentrations have been dropping off the Northwest U.S. coast and the coast of southern Africa, where dead zones are appearing regularly. There is paleontological evidence that declining oxygen levels in the oceans played a major role in at least four or five mass extinctions.


# Since the early 1980s, the production of phytoplankton, a crucial creature at the lower end of the food chain, has declined 6 percent, with 70 percent of the decline found in the northern parts of the oceans. Scientists also have found that phytoplankton are becoming smaller.