REGULATING AND REDUCING POLLUTION - Marine Pollution: What Everyone Needs to Know - page 234

and remain stratified longer, intensifying hypoxia in deeper
waters. Warmer water is likely to be conducive to blooms of
nuisance algae.
Healthy oceans provide food, jobs, and recreation for large
numbers of people and are a potential source of clean energy
and new medications. There is no shortage of international
recommendations and action plans for restoring the oceans'
health. Countless reports have come out from different organi-
zations that sound an alarm about the state of the oceans and
call for action—with little response from the powers that be.
Individual countries cannot do it alone but have to cooperate
since pollution does not honor national boundaries, nor does
marine life. A 2013 report from the International Programme
on the State of the Ocean (IPSO), a nongovernmental group of
leading scientists, has concluded that the world's oceans are
under greater threat than previously believed from a deadly
trio of global warming, declining oxygen levels, and acidifica-
tion. The report indicated that conditions are ripe for the sort
of mass extinction event that has happened in the past, but
for the most part, the public and policymakers are failing to
recognize—or are ignoring—the severity of the situation. The
report makes it clear that deferring action will increase costs
in the future and lead to even greater, perhaps irreversible,
losses. These findings, while not really new, are a cause for
alarm, as well as a blueprint for action. In order to protect the
worlds' oceans and their resources that we depend on, it is
vital that nations and the international community take major
steps to reduce inputs of marine pollutants and reduce green-
house gases. In 2014, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change reported that global emissions of CO 2 rose 2.2% annu-
ally between 2000 and 2010.
To paraphrase Bob Dylan's famous civil rights and anti-war
song, “How many floods will it take . . .? and how many dead
coral reefs will it take . . .?” Let us hope the answer is rapid and
effective and not just “blowin' in the wind.”