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Well I've been real busy, but if the BBC has time to smack this on their front page, I guess I do too.
Bad news for our seas and marine life:
"The oceans are in a worse state than previously suspected, according to an expert panel of scientists. In a new report, they warn that ocean life is 'at high risk of entering a phase of extinction of marine species unprecedented in human history.'"
The contributing factors? Climate change, pollution and overfishing - to name a few.
"We've sat in one forum and spoken to each other about what we're seeing, and we've ended up with a picture showing that almost right across the board we're seeing changes that are happening faster than we'd thought, or in ways that we didn't expect to see for hundreds of years."
Hundreds? Shit. That is bad.
The truly troubling part is that individual marine stressors such as agriculture runoff and ocean acidification are "working together" in their damaging effects on the marine ecosystem.
The panel of scientists was brought together by the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO), who made the following suggestions to avoid a marine species mass extinction event:
• "Stopping exploitative fishing now, with special emphasis on the high seas where currently there is little effective regulation
• Mapping and then reducing the input of pollutants including plastics, agricultural fertilisers and human waste
• Making sharp reductions in greenhouse gas emissions."
Full article here (BBC)
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