NOAA chief warns of rapid onset of ‘unprecedented’ changes in oceans
A combination of climate change, overfishing, pollution and other threats is changing the world’s oceans at an “unprecedented” rate, the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said yesterday.
“For the oceans as well as the rest of the planet, the rates and scales and kinds of changes that are under way now are absolutely unprecedented,” NOAA chief Jane Lubchenco said in remarks at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. “And they are happening even faster than our ability to measure or track some of them, much less have institutions that are responding in a fashion that is appropriate.”
She touted the national ocean policy that President Obama implemented by executive order last year. The policy created a National Ocean Council to coordinate federal planning on a wide range of issues, including climate change, pollution, oil drilling and fisheries.
It also calls for regional bodies to use marine spatial and regional planning, a kind of ocean zoning, to balance competing uses of coastal waters and protect ecologically sensitive areas.
That kind of approach will be important as the climate changes, Lubchenco said.
“It’s pretty mind-boggling to think that we are changing the actual chemistry of the ocean, the physical structure of the ocean, the biological contents of the ocean,” she said. “The scale at which our activities play out is really beyond most people’s ability to comprehend.”
to be continued
