Oceans In Sorry Shape

I’m not feeling well.

I’m sick and I’m grumpy.

And I’m especially rankled by the news today that the Earth’s oceans are in worse shape than originally thought.

Just once, I’d appreciate a bit of good environmental news. Maybe something like “Experts announced today that Global Warming is actually increasing the range of the Amur Tiger, and in fact the big cats have responded by tripling in population…”

Unfortunately it’s more bad news for the environment.

The AP reports that at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston:

Researchers studying 17 different activities ranging from fishing to pollution compiled a new map showing how and where people have impacted the seas.

The map was released and published in Friday's edition of the journal Science.

The areas most affected include the North Sea, the South and East China Seas, Caribbean Sea, the east coast of North America, the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Bering Sea and parts of the western Pacific, the study found. It said the least affected areas are near the poles.

Not so fast.

However, the researchers said it is likely that human activities will affect polar regions more and more as climate change warms those areas.

Damage includes reductions in fish and sea animals as well as problems for coral reefs, seagrass beds, mangroves, rocky reefs and shelves and seamounts.

However, Ben Halpern, an assistant research scientist at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis at the University of California, Santa Barbara deserves a hearty hand shake and a week’s worth of “attaboys” for trying desperately to put a hopeful spin on the truly depressing situation:

"There are some areas in fairly good condition. They are small and scattered, but have fairly low impact," he said. "That suggests that with effort from all of us, we can try to protect these patches and use them as a guideline for what we'd like the rest of the ocean to start looking like."

Small and scattered…

Fairly good condition…

Right…

I think the bright spot on the horizon is really the headlamp of a Japanese fishing trawler headed there right now.