They're Taking Over - jellyfish bloom and the future of the ocean.
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It seems fairly clear at this point that as a race we're facing some fairly substantial problems that need to be addressed if we want to avoid major catastrophe, and yet almost without exception the people I speak to about these issues are dismissive and unwilling to make even minor changes to their lives. Nobody is willing to accept responsibility for the problems and everybody believes they will somehow be resolved without their personal intervention. Even as somebody who is genuinely concerned and willing to accept responsibility, there seems to be nothing of worth that I can actually do to help.
The scariest part is that we can well and truly pass the point of no return before we even realise there's a problem to be addressed. This is true for practically all the environmental issues we are facing. By the time we realise how much we've upset a system and that awareness propagates down to a significant proportion of the world's population, the damage is done and we can't do anything to fix it. Some people do notice earlier, and some of those people will jump up and down about it, but nothing real can change until a significant proportion of the population is staring down the Gun Barrel of Consequences. And so we just keep charging towards the bluff.
Her use of the word 'adapt' is quite prescient. Things are going to change; we have so much momentum at this point that it is unavoidable. And as it happens we will just have to ride it out as best we can. The thing that makes me saddest now is not that I might personally suffer (although that certainly used to worry me) but rather that we are going to destroy a lot that is quite beautiful, and once it's gone we cannot bring it back. But life will go on, and one day the world will probably be beautiful again.
There is also a lack of connectedness to these issues for many, who are simply trying to subsist or are otherwise entrenched in our endless culture of distraction. It's the same reason that we can engage in a war for over a decade, killing and maiming many of our own, as well as (some estimate) hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians, yet be largely consumed in our own personal lives. We compartmentalize, which is in part a human survival tactic. It is also because we literally do not connect our own actions with the problems or solutions, and we have a broken politics which makes many of us feel largely powerless.
To this mix, you add countervailing interests, who know that they need only use media and various other tactics to sow the slightest bit of confusion over an issue to freeze any meaningful mass action.
But, with all of this, there still seems to come a time for some things, wherein a critical mass or tipping point is reached. People mobilize and a new zeitgeist takes hold. Then it becomes comfortable, convenient, and important to be part of the solution. I think having enough people personally affected by an issue is one impetus, and another is what forces or other voices can be galvanized to participate (even if their own motives for doing so are selfish). See the Breast Cancer Awareness Movement.
I understand why this line of thinking is attractive but isn't it based on a fiction? That being; if it weren't for interference from intelligent life, humans, the earth would go on being in perfect environmental equilibrium for all time. In reality the earth's environment has always been changing. Those changes have been taking place since the beginning and many of them were the result of the effects of various living organisms humans included.
So isn't the desire of humans to preserve 'our' environment, in it's present state, in some sense a selfish desire to curtail the inevitable march of environmental change which might threaten the species but would almost certainly happen with or without us?
But you're right, there is a large component of self interest in preserving the environment, an environment that works prett well for humans.
But not without reason. Making a difference requires coordination. Coordination at such a large level requires government action (companies/NGO's/charities/etc. can't do it). And for climate/environment-related things, often action on the part of several/many/all governments.
But the fact is, the way democracies are built, they tend to be bad at this, and there's lots of research to back that up. People don't vote on candidates based on unproven consequencies that are decades from now, period. And non-democracies aren't going to worry about this stuff too much either.
Things change for reasons, which involve clear incentives. "Accepting responsibility" on a personal level doesn't really have a lot to do with it, I'm afraid, unless you're a world leader, and even as a world leader, you're awfully constrained in what you do.
Creating nearly free energy via thorium reactors or other nuclear options could could take a load of over fishing off the oceans by way of desalination and creating more agriculture.
I would prefer a bunch of messy waste the size of a football field rather than an ocean depleted of fish and mammals
The oceans are being acidified by absorbing CO2, which dissolves into the water. Does desalinating water solve that problem? Better yet, does it scale?? The amt of water humans need for drinking is nothing compared to the size of the ocean.
Nuclear fission is not a clean energy solution -- the waste lives on forever. Fusion is not an option at the moment, and we need to start on solutions now until/unless fusion energy happens.
I agree. Also, how about we stop driving personal cars and start using public transportation / bikes / hikes whenever possible, making it a priority in our lives to the point that a car trip makes us feeling guilty?
As I understand it, CO2 emissions from cars is one of the major reasons for the ocean acidification and, considering the immense magnitude and consequences of it, it's almost a crime not to care about it (as most of us do).
Come on, let's wisen up - most of us in the first world coutries live in cities with decent public transportation and other sustainable options. Let's use them!
The Ozone problem was successfully solved with the Montreal Protocol without adding more tec into the mix for which no one understands the impact completely nor the harm done to the environment.
If you insist on a technical solution invent or use one to reduce your personal CO2 emissions to 1 metric ton per year. Some exist already, e.g. bikes.
And I've come to the conclusion that that's what politics are for. Or, should I say "should be for"?
I think there are two ways to get a critical mass of people to move a certain way: through a massive ad campaign, or through laws.
Unfortunately, both ways are not guaranteed to work. For instance, women's rights were greatly improved in the 20th century through a massive campaign, the feminist movement. It lead to women's right becoming a focal topic, in the media and then in society, and by raising awareness and being persistent, slowly things started improving. Today, however, my impression is that by and large women's rights are on the decline again. Intuitively, it seems to me that if there's someone with an agenda pushing against certain topics, such as for instance some global corporations against environmental actions, it becomes and arms race between those who benefit from the status quo and campaign members. If the latter fail to create a new status quo in a certain window of time, the campaign will eventually lose steam. Not that the topic will disappear completely, but it will be harder and harder to motivate others for the cause because the novelty has worn off.
Therefore if people cannot be convinced - and of course it's always more comfortable for people not to have to change - an alternative could be to force changes by law. Again, if we look at environmental issues, a lot of improvements have been made that way, but how many more have been missed?
The goal of a politician is not to change, it is to be re-elected. So s/he has to be convinced that doing a certain thing will get her/him closer to that goal. Again, we're looking at an arms race, this time it's the lobbying race. The campaigning discussed above plays into that as well because if the public opinion can be influenced that will definitely be heard by politicians as well. It doesn't automatically mean that the public's will is going to be put into law, but the more pressure from outside the better.
I've given up trying to get people to even read up on environmental issues let alone change their behavior. And believe me, I've tried. I've given up because it's too frustrating. I think people have to be forced (through laws), they won't change by themselves.
When I look at my surroundings, majority of the people are struggling to make ends meet. Food, healthcare, jobs - this is what bothers them. Expecting them to take actions with not-so-visible outcome and be concerned about something which will happen sometime in future with unforeseen circumstances is a bit un-realistic.
This holds true for a huuge part of world's population so I guess 'adapting' is the only way now.
Take Graeber's recent book "The Democracy Project". It's quite an entertaining first-person view on what that entails. (http://gawker.com/5994421/a-discussion-with-anarchist-activi...)
In contrast, elite-led environmental efforts often fall for the dismal traps Naomi Klein mentions: (http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/eij/article/nao...).
One of the issues she mentions is overfishing. You can vote with your dollars and take care with what you buy, and contribute to non-profit funds working to secure wildlife preservations, many found at the link below. Don't stop to make a change in your own life because everyone else isn't doing it.
http://marinebio.org/oceans/conservation/organizations_issue...
Last time I tried jellyfish tentacles (American Chinese food restaurant), they were rubbery and very chewy - Maybe flavor them and make a new gummy worm substitution? Lasting longer than a jaw-breaker?
Food, (Animal food, human food. What can they be processed into, do they contain any useful nutrients or protein, if so, blend them up, add something to incapacitate the stingers, add flavour and et voilà: Soylent jellyfish!), Fuel, Plastic, Medicine...Glue?
I mean it doesn't solve the underlying problems, but they might be a relatively unexplored resource.
Even still, the article addresses deeper problems. Killing back the jellyfish won't stop the conditions that we are causing in the oceans -- conditions that are extremely suitable to jellyfish, and seem suitable to little else. Acidification, warming, pollution, etc.
One little-heralded fact, for instance, is that we're coming dangerously close to driving sharks to extinction in many of the world's ecosystems. An ocean with fewer sharks in it? It's tough to find people who will shed a tear. But killing off the keystone predators in an ecosystem throws the whole thing into chaos -- and as it turns out, paradoxically, killing off sharks is a fantastic way to kill off most of the fish sharks feed on.
The point of my digression is that doing something about the "jellyfish menace" is probably necessary at this point. But it's not sufficient. It's a band-aid on a bullet wound.
Also let them rot into methane and burn the methane (probably combined with option 1 above).
You can't make a decent compost with pure 100% jellyfish, but added to another waste deficient in different nutrients, it might add up.
The article didn't discuss weaponization of jellyfish, which is the most likely funding source. Shutting down a regions desal and power plants by releasing a short lived poorly adapted jelly is a lot less visually impressive than a bombing campaign, but probably a lot cheaper. Or rather than the animals themselves, dump food for them, perhaps.
That said, I doubt that the cost to harvest and transport would be competitive with more conventional feedstocks such as slaughterhouse leavings, crop wastes / stalks, and plain old manure.
Food for thought, anyway. Floating digester platforms, maybe?
[edit: added missing word 'ratio']
1. It doesn't solve the underlying problem.
2. It guarantees that the underlying problem will never be solved because there is now an industry dependent on the problem existing. They will fight tooth-and-nail to keep the problem in existence.
Maybe if we are part of a process that lowers the number of Jellyfish, another part of the equation will surface to help: Natural predator, loss of needed food/fuel for Jellyfish, etc.
We are always having to adapt to changing circumstances, this may help solve the immediate problem and may give us time to face the changing environment of the future.
I do not think humans can ever do anything that would be considered perfect on all fronts...
I share your suspicions about the coincidental rise of jellyfish and modern mankind.
I don't see any indication that we're not on a path to surefire destruction. Climate change is happening. The sea level is rising. And as this article (and many more) points out- it's a snowball effect. Faster and faster. When will it stop? When will governments actually take notice and do something about it?
I don't think that the earth in 50 years will be able to support nearly as many people as it has now. We're going to see massive migration, famine, and starvation. We'll have to learn to live on our new planet, one that isn't quite as nutritious as this one, has a worse climate, and even less habitable surface area.
I actually have my fingers crossed for something drastic to happen before that. We need a silver bullet. This could be something good like a new energy technology- or it could be something bad like a disease that wipes out 50% of the earth's population. In any case, staying the course is not something I want to do. We're headed right for disaster.
It still wouldn't change the tons and tons of nitrogen fertilizer runoff that is going into our oceans and creating the oxygen poor "dead zones".
Nor would it stop every seafaring nation on the planet from overfishing (they all do).
And don't forget all that radiation from Fukashima that's already in the Pacific.
But at least it would help the CO2 problem. It might be too late for that however. The current CO2 is already in our atmosphere, so unless we have a really good method (and the resources and want to implement that plan) to fix it back into the ground we're still going to see it's accumulated effects. Combine that with the already smaller polar ice caps which aren't reflecting as much sun and we might already be past the point of no return.
I dunno, I think we're fucked and there's really no solution other than a drastic decrease in the human population.
This is a lot more concerning than the widely publicized reduction in shark numbers. Though that particular problem is easier to fix.
I wonder if more marine reserves would help resolve some of these problems, by allowing a place for natural ecosystem balance to be restored. Or if rising temperature and acidity is just to prevailing for that to be effective.
From Wikipedia:
"[Jellyfish] predators include tuna, shark, swordfish, sea turtles and at least one species of Pacific salmon."
...i.e. a list of fisherman favourites
Here's a YouTube clip of some volunteers who gave themselves jellyfish stings. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GK_Cl_54Qh8) It looks intensely painful!
> It had presumably arrived in ballast water.
I'm kind of surprised that ballast water isn't somehow sterilised - boil it for 30 minutes or have strong UV lamps in the tank with water filtering over it?
Ballast water probably has too much mass to be boiled cost-effectively. We're talking thousands of tonnes of water in some cases.
UV isn't a bad idea, but probably wouldn't work well for well-protected species like bivalve molluscs. Unfortunately, those are some of the most invasive species that we have -- see Zebra Mussels, for instance.
Some progress was made on this last year:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/2012/12/12...
For an extreme example, see submarines.
Lots of turtles.
Unless you count poison, which isn't that special. Lots of plants use it.
The fact that our efforts of only several decades/centuries could return jellies to a state that was 10 million of years ago is astounding.