Monday 9 June 2014

6 ways climate change is screwing with your seafood (and what to do about it)

Have you not finished reading the latest IPCC report? The definitive summary of what we’re doing to the Earth’s climate is only 1,552 pages long — that’s like a single George R. R. Martin novel, right?

Well, sushi-loving non-speedreaders are in luck, because a new reportby the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL for short — pronounced, I assume, “sizzle”), along with the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership, turns the IPCC tome into the SparkNotes version of climate change’s impact on the seafood biz.

Annnnd if that’s not good enough for you busy bumble bee gobies, I’m going to shrink that down into even tinier chunks. I bring you the six ways that climate change is affecting your fish — and for bonus points, a few things you can do about it.

Think of this as your bare bones climate-change-and-seafood study guide, and be ready for the pop quiz next week.

1. Climate change is, drumroll please … bad for fish. Warmer water holds less oxygen, which will lead to smaller fish on average. Less oxygen means more dead zones, especially in near-shore areas where nitrogen-laced runoff contributes to algal blooms. Plus, ocean acidification is putting a lot of pressure on the small organisms which make up the base of the food chain. As a result of these stresses, in most parts of the world, fish catches will decrease by 40 to 60 percent. Meanwhile, catches at higher latitudes may actually increase, as equatorial fish flee warmer waters — but plenty of fish in tropical or enclosed seas may just flat out go extinct. Plus, food webs don’t necessarily migrate intact, so predators and prey are likely to lose track each other in the shuffle.

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