Penguins starving to death is a sign that something's very wrong in the Antarctic

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
> Date: October 14, 2017 at 5:59:37 AM EDT
> To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Penguins starving to death is a sign that something's very wrong in the Antarctic
> Reply-To: dewayne-net () warpspeed com
>
> Penguins starving to death is a sign that something’s very wrong in the Antarctic
> Overfishing, oil drilling, pollution and climate change are imperilling the ecosystem. But ocean sanctuaries could 
> help protect what belongs to us all
> By John Sauven
> Oct 13 2017
> <https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/oct/13/penguins-starving-death-something-very-wrong-antarctic>
>
> The awful news that all but two penguin chicks have starved to death out of a colony of almost 40,000 birds is a grim 
> illustration of the enormous pressure Antarctic wildlife is under. The causes of this devastating event are complex, 
> from a changing climate to local sea-ice factors, but one thing penguins, whales and other marine life don’t need is 
> additional strain on food supplies.
>
> Over the next year we have the opportunity to create an Antarctic Ocean Sanctuary – the largest protected area on 
> Earth – which would put the waters off-limits to the industrial fishing vessels currently sucking up the tiny 
> shrimp-like krill, on which all Antarctic life relies.
>
> In 1990, the Voyager 1 space probe looked back at Earth from six billion kilometres away and took a historic selfie 
> of our solar system. What it saw, according to renowned astrophysicist Carl Sagan, was a “pale blue dot”.
>
> “Our planet is a blue planet,” echoed David Attenborough, in his opening words to the BBC’s landmark Blue Planet 
> series. With over 70% of our world covered by water, this is no exaggeration. Our oceans can be seen from across the 
> solar system.
>
> The majority of this water falls outside of national borders. In fact, almost half of our planet is a marine natural 
> wonder outside the boundaries of flags, languages and national divisions. These vast areas cover 230 million square 
> kilometres, and they belong to us all. To give a sense of scale, that’s the size of every single continent combined, 
> with another Asia, Europe and Africa thrown in for good measure. The size of our oceans may seem overwhelming. Our 
> collective responsibility to protect them, however, should not.
>
> It wasn’t long ago that the oceans were thought to be too vast to be irrevocably impacted by human actions, but the 
> effects of overfishing, oil drilling, deep sea mining, pollution and climate change have shown that humans are more 
> than up to the task of imperilling the sea and the animals that live there.
>
> All of us who live on this planet are the guardians of these environments, not only to protect the wildlife that 
> lives in them, but because the health of our oceans sustains our planet and the livelihoods of billions of people.
>
> Here’s the good news. The tide of history is turning. We on the blue planet are finally looking seriously at 
> protecting the blue bits. Just a few months ago, in a stuffy room far from the sea, governments from around the world 
> agreed to start a process to protect them: an ocean treaty.
>
> This ocean treaty won’t be agreed until at least 2020, but in the meantime momentum is already building towards 
> serious and binding ocean protection. Just last year a huge 1.5 million sq km area was protected in the Ross Sea in 
> the Antarctic. In a turbulent political climate, it was a momentous demonstration of how international cooperation to 
> protect our shared home can and does work.
>
> Over the next two weeks, the governments responsible for the Antarctic are meeting to discuss the future of the 
> continent and its waters. While limited proposals are on the table this year, when they reconvene in 12 months’ time 
> they have a historic opportunity to create the largest ever protected area on Earth: an Antarctic Ocean sanctuary. 
> Covering the Weddell Sea next to the Antarctic peninsula, it would be five times the size of Germany, the country 
> proposing it.
>
> [snip]
>
> Dewayne-Net RSS Feed: http://dewaynenet.wordpress.com/feed/
> Twitter: https://twitter.com/wa8dzp



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