Climate Change Mitigation Strategies Should Focus on the Seas as Well as the Land

Hard to believe as it may be, the United States used to have Energy Secretaries who knew something about energy.  Here’s an article that describes talks given by nuclear physicist Dr. Ernest Moniz (Energy Sec. 2012 – 2016) and climate solutions Ecologist Jane Lubchenco (pictured) on ways to broaden our approach to slowing global warming to include the oceans.

Dr. Lubchenco, former administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) told the audience, “Already, the oceans are warming, growing more acidic, holding less oxygen, rising due to higher water temperatures, generating more storms, producing fewer fish stocks, and becoming more polluted from plastics factors depleting and disrupting the oceans.”

If our civilization is to avoid the environmental catastrophe that is headed its way, it will come by heeding the advice of people who have spent their lives trying to understand what precisely is happening, who are now offering solutions to deal with it.  At this point, we don’t seem to be up to the task, to put it politely.