Another True Fish Story
For many hundreds of years people living all along this coast have set out upon the sea to catch fish. It has been a livelihood for many villages and towns and the original reason for the growth of some, such as Foz and Ribeira. Shellfish, which used to be the mainstay of many poor households, has also become a source of livelihood for many ever since people have recognized its quality. In Galicia the fishing sector, which includes shellfish, is about 10% of the region's gross national product. But that might be changing.
Some years ago scientists detected that much of the carbon dioxide was being absorbed by the oceans. That was helping to brake climatic change and slow it down. The by-product of that absorption has only been recently noticed and is just as troubling as the rise in global temperatures. The oceans are becoming acidified. That doesn't mean they'll change into sulfuric acid overnight, but it means trouble to the organisms that live in them. The pH level of the ocean is around 8.1, slightly alkaline. That is what gives it a slightly slippery feel. Soap is generally between 9 and 10 on the pH scale. Fresh water is 7, completely neutral. The problem is that since the Industrial Revolution, the pH of the oceans have gone down .1, from 8.2 to 8.1. It doesn't sound like much, but the pH scale is like the Richter scale. Sometimes between a mild earthquake that doesn't do anything and a moderate one that will bring down a building there is a difference of .1 on the scale. That pH of .1 is a thirty percent increase in acidity. That has previously happened naturally over a scale of between 5,000 and 10,000 years. This present increase has happened only in the past 80 years. And ocean life has not had time to adapt.
So what? There are many shellfish in the sea that create their shells from calcium carbonate, of which there is an abundance in the layers of water where most life congregates in the ocean. They include shellfish which this region is famous for, such as clams, berberechos (cockles), mussels, and other moluscs and crustaceans. Acidification will mean that their shells will become brittle and they will begin to die off from predators that will find it easier to eat them, or from stress caused to their organisms from the acidified sea water. These shellfish have already experimented a drop in population, making them more expensive and bringing less money to those who live from cultivating and selling them. So you don't like shellfish or are allergic to it, and it doesn't matter that much to you. Crustaceans also include tiny creatures such as pteropods, which are at the bottom of the food chain. Pteropods have shells that dissolve in acidic water. If they disappear, a major food source for smaller creatures will disappear, which will cause ripples of starvation to flow outward throughout marine life. Larger fish will eventually die out from lack of food. Millions of people throughout the world depend on fish for their diet. Fishmeal, which is the byproducts of fish and non-commercial fish dried and ground into flour, is used to feed farm animals. So someone who never eats fish, yet eats pork or chicken or beef, will still have problems if fisheries start dying out.
What can we do? Use energy responsibly and opt for public transport where possible. And petition our governments to use clean energy and to support its use, unlike the Spanish government, which actually makes it more expensive for homes to use solar panels. In other words, what we should have been doing for over thirty years but have always found too hard or uncomfortable. Because if we continue the course, we will starve the oceans and ourselves.
Some years ago scientists detected that much of the carbon dioxide was being absorbed by the oceans. That was helping to brake climatic change and slow it down. The by-product of that absorption has only been recently noticed and is just as troubling as the rise in global temperatures. The oceans are becoming acidified. That doesn't mean they'll change into sulfuric acid overnight, but it means trouble to the organisms that live in them. The pH level of the ocean is around 8.1, slightly alkaline. That is what gives it a slightly slippery feel. Soap is generally between 9 and 10 on the pH scale. Fresh water is 7, completely neutral. The problem is that since the Industrial Revolution, the pH of the oceans have gone down .1, from 8.2 to 8.1. It doesn't sound like much, but the pH scale is like the Richter scale. Sometimes between a mild earthquake that doesn't do anything and a moderate one that will bring down a building there is a difference of .1 on the scale. That pH of .1 is a thirty percent increase in acidity. That has previously happened naturally over a scale of between 5,000 and 10,000 years. This present increase has happened only in the past 80 years. And ocean life has not had time to adapt.
So what? There are many shellfish in the sea that create their shells from calcium carbonate, of which there is an abundance in the layers of water where most life congregates in the ocean. They include shellfish which this region is famous for, such as clams, berberechos (cockles), mussels, and other moluscs and crustaceans. Acidification will mean that their shells will become brittle and they will begin to die off from predators that will find it easier to eat them, or from stress caused to their organisms from the acidified sea water. These shellfish have already experimented a drop in population, making them more expensive and bringing less money to those who live from cultivating and selling them. So you don't like shellfish or are allergic to it, and it doesn't matter that much to you. Crustaceans also include tiny creatures such as pteropods, which are at the bottom of the food chain. Pteropods have shells that dissolve in acidic water. If they disappear, a major food source for smaller creatures will disappear, which will cause ripples of starvation to flow outward throughout marine life. Larger fish will eventually die out from lack of food. Millions of people throughout the world depend on fish for their diet. Fishmeal, which is the byproducts of fish and non-commercial fish dried and ground into flour, is used to feed farm animals. So someone who never eats fish, yet eats pork or chicken or beef, will still have problems if fisheries start dying out.
What can we do? Use energy responsibly and opt for public transport where possible. And petition our governments to use clean energy and to support its use, unlike the Spanish government, which actually makes it more expensive for homes to use solar panels. In other words, what we should have been doing for over thirty years but have always found too hard or uncomfortable. Because if we continue the course, we will starve the oceans and ourselves.
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