Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
by the industrial nations of the north, and this data was in agreement with scientific climate
models (Hansen et al. 2008 and 2010). After analyzing temperature data for the entire world,
scientists concluded that 2005 and 2010 ended up in a tie for the hottest year on record (NOAA
2011).
Recent estimates by a team of climate scientists, including a group from MIT, calculate that
even if we implemented the most stringent greenhouse gas limits currently proposed by some
of the world's governments, our climate is likely to warm between 6.3˚F and 13.3˚F over the
next century, leading to disastrous crop failures in most of the world's productive farmlands
and “breadbaskets” (
Wall Street Journal
2009).
3. Collapse of the World's Oceans
“
Experts on invertebrates have expressed 'profound shock' over a government report showing a de-
cline in zooplankton of more than 70% since the 1960s. The tiny animals are an important food for
fish, mammals and crustaceans. . . . 'But, despite this experience, we were profoundly shocked to
read that zooplankton abundance has declined by about 73% since 1960 and about 50% since 1990.
This is a biodiversity disaster of enormous proportions.'
”
—“Fall in Tiny Animals a Disaster,”
BBC
News
, July 10, 2008
With eleven out of fifteen of the world's major fisheries either in collapse, or in danger of col-
lapse, our world's oceans are in serious trouble. The ocean's planktons form the bottom of both
the food chain and the bulk of the carbon-oxygen cycle for our planet. According to a recent
British government report, the oceans have lost 73 percent of their zooplankton since 1960, and
over 50 percent of this decline has been since 1990, and the phytoplanktons are also in serious
decline.
Unfortunately, the coral reefs aren't doing much better than the planktons. By 2004, an es-
timated 20 percent of the world's coral reefs had been destroyed (up from just 11 percent in
2000), an additional 24 percent were close to collapse, and another 26 percent were under long-
term threat of collapse (Allsopp et al. 2007, 10). The oceans' roll in sequestering atmospheric
CO
2
and maintaining a breathable concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere is even more vi-
tal to our planet's health than the rainforests, but perhaps because the damage is occurring out
of sight beneath the surface, we appear to be less concerned with what we are doing to the
oceans.
4. Deforestation
