Sylvia Earle has an excellent piece today in the Washington Post about our oceans. Dr. Earle is one of most highly esteemed ocean scientists working today but her voice has been falling on deaf ears for years.
For a period of time in the mid 90's I worked at the Center for Marina Conservation and the issues she cites in her piece today were things the Center was working hard on back then but not having much headway with in the mainstream press. Others more knowledgable than myself can pipe in but the one thing I have taken away from fifteen years of working within various environmental organizations that singularly oceans are like our canary in a coal mine, and we are killing the canary. In general, most people can't see beneath the ocean, and we are feeling none of the ill effects of what is happening, so therefore little changes. But the collapse is near and has happened in small ways already.
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I went to see Gore's movie this weekend and for the first time a long time, I was scared for our planet. When you work in something for so long, you get desensitized to the topic. This woke me up. The same things have been discussed over and over again for the past thirty years. It is time for EVERYONE to change. Including those of us who know better.