Nothing in this article about the Gulf Steam which flows north from the Gulf of Mexico and has warmed Iceland for centuries. Contrary to the article, Iceland is not a cold country. It has very moderate temperatures in the the winter, compared to places like Minnesota. I lived there for a year in the early 60's. Yes we ate fish every day.
The article says that fish helped Iceland to become independent. I learned when I was a student there that it was the fact that the Germans overran and occupied Denmark which allowed the Icelanders to declare themselves a self governing nation.
10
Let`s catch the LAST fish then worry about it. That sounds like a Trump-GOP policy.
20
If humans keep on polluting the oceans there won't be any fish to fight over
14
Mankind must work together to find alternatives to lost fish habitats like man made under water habitats that provide adequate vegetation and oxygen and cooler water using deeper water pumped up .We can not exclude the very poor because when protein is in short supply they resort to exotic wild animals that carry diseases that carry Pandemic like outcomes.
1
The absolute root of the problem is that there are too many of us. As a species we have been so successful at growing the worldwide human population that planet is now exacting its cost to unrestrained population growth.
All other problems stem from that one fact. I highly doubt we are smart enough to consciously reduce our planetary footprint by 50%. It will be accomplished by one, or a combination of, war, famine or plague, perhaps all three.
Humankind can't agree on anything, let alone act globally on an existential problem.
We will do what we have always done in the past. Until we can't do it anymore.
27
The threats to Iceland's traditional fisheries and symbiotic cultures is not unique; it is a global phenomena. Every fishery in the world is facing the same crisis. It is well documented that most, if not all fisheries, are over exploited. The demand is greater than can be met via the wild caught fishery industry. Compounding the crisis - habitat destruction. We overfish the breeding stock and destroy the habitats critical to the life cycles of the resource. It does not take a fishery scientist to predict the future of fisheries and the cultures that depend upon them.
11
Who said that all this is just that we're heading toward another ice age? Really. I think it was probably the NYT maybe 20-25 years ago? I haven't read much along those lines in the recent years though. But, if it is a true happening, I don't think one can do much against geological forces at work except to try to ameliorate the ecological consequences for as long as possible.
3
@willw -- except we are not heading towards another ice age, we're going in the opposite direction.
And we're going in the opposite direction not because of geologic forces, but because of human actions. So along with the necessary work to ameliorate the harms, we have to stop causing the problem, too.
The good news is that a lot of the pollution as well as the source of warming, the source of ocean acidification as well, are fossil fuels. So moving briskly away from them will be helpful in many ways.
13
If the New York Times is concerned about climate change in Iceland then perhaps it should quit telling people to fly there in its travel section. Google "New York Times travel Iceland" and take a gander at how often it encourages its readers to fly there. And that is just one country.
If this paper believes the world is coming to an end, drop your travel section unless its by sail, by foot, or by bike.
These are just headlines of doom to get us to click. None of you really believe the world is doomed or you would start acting like Greta Thunberg or the Amish. I got some interesting looks from three doctors last month when I told them I was contemplating a vacation. It is between riding my bike from Seattle to Los Angeles or kayaking from Seattle to Ketchikan, Alaska (I'm retired). My last vacation was 5 years ago when I rode my old bike from Seattle across the Cascade Mountains and back on a trail. I don't own a car (haven't bought gas in 10 years now) and haven't been on a plane since 1991. And I consider myself a "climate change denier". Your excuse?
Contemplate how much CO2 the Democratic presidential candidates will add just flying around warning us about climate change this primary season. Bloomberg flies a helicopter around NYC probably because he doesn't have Secret Service like Hillary and is therefore afraid to ride the subway like the "deplorables". But he preaches about climate change.
2.7 million passengers fly EVERYDAY in this country.
28
Always remember, Trump had both 747’s fly to Europe so he could get back to Palm Beach earlier Sunday to play golf all day. Take that, Greta.
12
I've enjoyed fish for 70 years but I fear this pleasure will disappear before I'm gone because of climate change, which Trump denies so that Americans can buy gas and drive increasingly bigger cars.
While I never doubted the stupidity and malevolence of men and women in political power it appears they've actually become willfully dumber for no reason other than unbridled greed.
My 15-year old grandson's life will become seriously circumscribed because of climate change deniers who are unfathomably greedy and who use End Times to justify their greed and ignorance.
16
Stop eating fish. In fact, stop eating all seafood.
Would that help?
3
If Trump isn't removed we don't have a chance of making the changes needed to repair all the damage humans have done.
18
My brother has been fishing out of Dutch Harbor, Alaska for thirty-five years. He has just returned from his most recent fishing trip, one in which he reported that the ship has to steam out for forty hours before finding fish only to find depleted fish stocks.
He says global climate change is to blame. “The water is too warm,” he told me. Average water temperatures in the winter are higher than what they used to be in the summer. That spells disaster.
The fishing industry in Alaska is considering moving its deep-water harbors northward in an effort to find where the fish are going.
This is a crisis of our own making. We have done this.
20
There is only one solution to humanity's ever increasing problems... reducing population growth & finding energy sources that are not fossil fuels. -We must live sustainably on our limited space.
... In the U.S we have wiped out many species form bison to passenger pigeon..to cod in New England & salmon in the North Pacific. --Water begins to dry up from California to Kansas..---
---Yet many people continue to believe that humans could never push the world into disastrous tipping-point.. They rather believe in fairy tales.
14
All this doom and gloom, but statistically more people world wide have been elevated out of poverty over the last 10 to 20 years than ever before in the history of the world. In addition, the water levels rising have been linier over the last 120 years and more (not strong curve up as the media pushes to us) — so the present day hysteria of climate change is slightly out of proper raw-data-based focus.
We do need to put more pressure on social, economic, environmental and similar changes, but CO2 really is not one of them. CO2 is the present day scapegoat for the other issues. CO2 is being used as a magic item on the Monopoly board in order to alter outcomes good or bad.
5
@William Perrigo -- ah, so you've somehow managed to disprove 200 years of science?
Why didn't you tell the world sooner? Please, go get your Nobel, while we tell the ice it can stop melting, the waters can stop warming, the seas to stop rising, let the fish know they can stay safely where they live, and so on.
Sorry, William. But fossil fuel use is polluting the planet chemically, always has, but is also adding additional harms like those outlined in this article.
13
It is fortunate in a way that the oceans are able to absorb more than 90% of the heat trapped by accumulating greenhouse gases or the atmosphere would be heating up several fold faster than it is but the warming of oceans is also causing problems including the movement of fish as described in this article. It was assumed by many that the world would take appropriate action to limit global warming but so far it has not turned out that way.
2
The rate of change today--more than 100 times the rate coming out of previous glaciations--is problematic for many species and ecosystems we depend on.
The carbon cycle for the last 2 million years was doing 180-280ppm atmospheric CO2 over 10,000 years and we’ve done more change than that in 100 years.
Transitioning into the last interglacial period 150,000 years ago when CO2 went from 180-280ppm global temperature increased by around 5 degrees C and sea level rose 130 meters.
Here’s a graph of the last 400,000 years of global temperature, CO2 and sea level:
http://www.ces.fau.edu/nasa/images/impacts/slr-co2-temp-400000yrs.jpg
Although rapid, the change we've made so far is small compared to natural variability, but we could make changes as big as any natural change.
When disruptions in long term carbon cycles, like we are doing today, occurred in the past they've been linked to mass extinctions of varying degrees.
11
@Erik Frederiksen — Interesting that you mention 180ppm, because at 149ppm plants die. Many people don't realize that. They think zero would be the CO2 goal due to the massive climate change reporting equating CO2 to poison. We all know now that the 150ppm level is not a goal in any CO2 reduction plan, which I'm sure you would agree with, Mr F.
What is an optimal CO2 level on this planet? That's hard to pinpoint exactly but starting from roughly 300ppm plants are safe, but they would rather have 1,500ppm, because they grow 30-40% better at the higher level, which greenhouse CO2-injection programs validate.
Humans, similar to plants, appear to be quite happy within this 300ppm to 1,500ppm range, although there are work environments which consistently allow for CO2 levels to rise to approximately 8,000ppm (submarines remaining submerged for months).
Since the snowfall vs. water-loss on Antarctica and Greenland (land-based) are stable at the moment according to continuous measurements and the Arctic ice floating on the water has not disappeared, we can come to the conclusion that although the relatively new technologies of wind, solar as well as new-nuclear research (utilization of waste product) are all valid and worthy of intensive investment, we still don't have to freak out about the climate impact caused by petroleum, although we should be willing to pay more for petroleum in order to pay for the safe drilling and the aforementioned new technology, especially in the USA.
2
@William Perrigo - nobody things bringing CO2 to zero makes sense, so just keep waving your straw man somewhere else.
The goals are to bring CO2 emissions down to zero so the planetary atmospheric concentration can (over the next couple hundred years) sink back down closer to the 280ppm we developed our entire civilization under.
So we are justified in "freaking out" over petroleum and coal and natural gas. Not just because of the abundantly clear climate impacts, but because of the health impacts the pollution causes to members of the public - costs which are also not reflected in the price of fossil fuels.
6
Norweigan Salmon was $9 a pound at my local market last week. I want to return to Portland for a mountain of fried Maine seafood ($31 a plate, meals tax included) at a restaurant on the waterfront. I barely had enough room to finish it.
No fish problem where I am.
@Dan M
From the Scripps Oceanographic Institute marine ecologist Jeremy Jackson from a TED Talk entitled How We Wrecked the Ocean.
"It's not just the fish, though, that are disappearing. Industrial fishing uses big stuff, big machinery. We use nets that are 20 miles long. We use longlines that have one million or two million hooks.
And we trawl, which means to take something the size of a tractor trailer truck that weighs thousands and thousands of pounds, put it on a big chain, and drag it across the sea floor to stir up the bottom and catch the fish.
Think of it as being kind of the bulldozing of a city or of a forest, because it clears it away. And the habitat destruction is unbelievable. This is a photograph, a typical photograph, of what the continental shelves of the world look like.
You can see the rows in the bottom, the way you can see the rows in a field that has just been plowed to plant corn. What that was, was a forest of sponges and coral, which is a critical habitat for the development of fish.
What it is now is mud, and the area of the ocean floor that has been transformed from forest to level mud, to parking lot, is equivalent to the entire area of all the forests that have ever been cut down on all of the earth in the history of humanity.
We've managed to do that in the last 100 to 150 years."
https://www.ted.com/talks/jeremy_jackson/transcript?language=en
25
No more sardines in America . Why ?
They fished them all and gave them either to eat directly to the cows to make hamburgers or to make fertilizer to grow plants to give them to the cows to eat and make hamburgers.
Americans have exhausted all their sardines into hamburgers.
Brilliant !
13
@JPH Americans are so brilliant that they did not understand that the sardines stock was a major link in the ocean food chain.
For Americans everything is a commodity. It is the Quid pro quo of nature.
Let's change sardines into hamburgers ! No big deal ...
8
Eventually we will be consuming food made in factories from yeast. There will be no reason to farm, fish or hunt. Until then we will continue to live as savages depleting the natural world of its resources.
So don’t worry so much about humans being hungry as lonely.
5
The only possible solution to global warming is a Manhattan Project-like effort to develop and implement the technology to convert sunlight to electrical energy directly and store it in amounts large enough to offset significant amounts of energy produced by burning fossil fuels. Unfortunately, I don't think we've got the will to do it. Things are therefore only going to get worse...much worse...especially in countries with large, dense populations and low productivity (i.e., obsolete technology). As for accusations that this all could have been avoided if homo sapiens were just smarter, those thoughts are nonsense. The fundamental problem is overpopulation and a much higher quality of life created by a scientific and technological boom that is almost beyond comprehension. Hindsight is always 20-20 and, in this case, utterly useless.
8
@Enabler - Hm. So you want people to figure out how to develop - let me make up some terms here - "solar panels" and "wind turbines" and "power storage".
Good news. We have those things, they are being deployed worldwide today, they are very attractive to research investment and are improving all the time.
We have to speed up that process. But the wheels have already been invented, now to continue deploying while also working on improvements.
Some of the many interesting recent innovations in energy storage at these two articles.
First is a combination of different storage technologies combining into a single very large system in Utah
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/utah-aims-to-shatter-records-with-1000-mw-energy-storage-plant
Second is like pumped hydro storage, but using cranes and concrete.
https://qz.com/1355672/stacking-concrete-blocks-is-a-surprisingly-efficient-way-to-store-energy/
2
Climate is changing and with it to the ecology of our planet. We will adjust to change, but the faster rate of change makes adjustment more painful. As necessary as it is to take measures to curb carbon dioxide emissions, we can only slightly slow the rate of global warming. As humanity has spread all over the globe, there is no "empty space" to move into.
And we are facing the "common's dilemma", too many expect other people to make the necessary sacrifices. As of the Chinese curse goals, we live in interesting times.
5
As someone from Iceland, I would like to point out the irresponsibility of the author of this article in not pointing out that fish farms are heavily unsustainable. The amount of resources that the fish needs to become a full grown fish is significantly more that the meat the fish itself will provide. As simple as that.
Incredibly unsustainable.
23
@Palli
I'm afraid humanity is unsustainable. As simple as that.
9
@C. - Humanity may be sustainable but just not at 9 billion people. Any gardener can tell you what happens if you try and plant too many seedlings in one area. Years ago, China realized the path they were headed towards when they implemented "one man, one woman, one child". If they had let things go as they were, they would have run out of food and water and had no choice but to invade neighbors for resources. If we tried such a thing here, liberals and conservatives would be out in the streets. The quickest way to save the planet is to only have one child and that alone would cut emissions and every other climate change threat.
8
The answer to sustaining world fisheries, disruptive swings from flood to drought on the worlds farm lands, and cultural human failings, is education. Confronting the serious problems created by climate change with education. But it's too late. The climate debate is over! And the world lost.
4
I did something, and continue to do it now, for almost 40 years...stop eating animals.
No fish, not bird, not flesh. Their lives are not for your enjoyment. Plenty of other ways to get your nutrition, many much better for the human body.
15
Extraordinary article: great reporting and photography.
4
Unchecked immigration may play a role here. New studies at MIT and Stanford conclude that US bound immigrants from El Salvador, Honduras, etc. multiply their carbon footprint by a factor of 1,193. How? Once they arrive in the US they acquire older, high emission jumbo SUV’s which, combined with their very high birth rate increases their carbon footprint by a factor of 1,193. I worked on the studies. I know. It’s emotionally disturbing.
8
@Legendary Economist -- so you claim, yet a search on Google Scholar for "el salvador immigration carbon footprint " or variations, looking for papers since 2018, turns up nothing.
So where's the paper? Where's your evidence? To put it in proper skeptic terms "I don't believe you without a paper to look at".
7
December 2nd, and still no reply from Imaginary Economist....
1
Even a mere sport diver, never getting more than 100 feet down, or out into deep blue water, sees that some reefs are dead due to that inlet getting too much heat...and all the live coral is in the path of plumes of colder water coming off the bottom of the depths. The temperature change is that small, and the results that great.
8
Reporters with an elite education flying to iceland to report on climate change without feeling flygskam or even giving mention in the article. Such a disconnect between those who cause global warming and those who will suffer.
5
Good ecology starts with a smug attitude on all matters environmental and wearing orthopedically correct shoes, all of which encourages early onset flygskam. By the way, flygskam is not in the NYT comments’ section “spell checker.” The horror.
2
@somsai
Cut the deflection. You can make that comment if and only if you have minimized your own burning of fossil fuels.
3
A new word! Shame from flying.
1
Couple of weeks ago there was an article about mussels and other kinds of shelled sea food dying off because of the warm water. And before that there was an article about lobsters in Maine leaving the warming waters there and heading north. Now there is this article about the fish around Iceland leaving for colder waters. Kinda looks like something is going on, doesn't it? When do you think the head in the sand people are look to look up?
19
Yes, and what happens when you get to “as far north as north can go”? The end.
3
( Proposal includes the arctic circle ),
I have a proposal for removing gigatonnes of CO2 from the South Pacific Ocean and in doing so, reducing not only the acidity of the ocean but also reducing atmospheric CO2. To achieve this will require the South Pacific Ocean becoming a marine park.
The method of removing the CO2 is by growing a vast free-floating kelp forest ecosystem between New Zealand and South America and the key to growing this, is individual bamboo kelp buoys. The kelp buoys carry the iron minerals required by the growing kelp plants and assist the juvenile kelp plants to stay afloat. ( It will be necessary within the foreseeable future to include the Southern Ocean and the Arctic Circle in the kelp growing regions.) These additional areas also becoming marine parks. The fishing industries evolving into kelp growing, park management and large scale aquaculture. This transition will have to be funded by the UN and the world bank.
The full proposal can be viewed using the link below,
https://southpacificmarinepark.com/
Kind regards,
Geoffrey Peel, Auckland, New Zealand.
7
This is an emergency. Re -electing Trump would be an act of complicity in climate destruction.
10
Just a couple of questions> Do we know the range of temps these fish can tolerate? Do they live at the surface -- or deeper -- where any observed warming would have little effect -- and do we have the historical temp record for Icelandic seas say, one hundred feet down -- going back to say -- 1850 or so?
2
@Ralphie -- the fish are moving from one area to another area, following the temperatures they are evolved to live with. Nobody's making them move, they're responding naturally to changes in their environment. So they are presenting their own natural version of a thermometer.
Kind of like the extensive records of wine harvests in southern Europe document the warming temperatures and shorter winters there. The grapes know without having to consult instruments.
1
The Black Sea is now on the way to recovery after European countries stopped polluting the rivers that flow into it. The Thames was, at one time, so polluted that if on fell in, one would certainly die. Sheets soaked in bleach were hung outside of the windows of the Houses of Parliament to intercept the stench and disease. Now, fish caught in the river are edible. Fish farming in a properly ecological manner, increasing hatcheries, returning rivers to their natural state, can all help turn the tide. It is possible, but not with the idiots in power like Trump, Putin, etc. The economies are little if at all the result of any politician. Leaders deal with sociological and ethical issues. The economy would have recovered after the 2008 recession with of without Obama. Trump has had next to nothing to do with today's economy. It is time to elect leaders with more than half a brain.
4
A small bone to pick. A caption under one of the photos indicated that cod "brought in $ 1 billion in profit to Iceland last year". Strictly speaking, it should be $ 1 billion in sales or sales revenues not profit.
5
@Jimmy . Maybe the author studied accounting and gave the number that should always be reported. Revenues or total sales is really quite a meaningless number without knowing the total expenses in any enterprise. Net profit is what matters.
Here we go down the ecological rabbit hole. The news every day will grow ever more dark. Taking human nature into account along with our track record - Carl Sagan deeply worried that we would not pass through our species 'childhood' and survive to eventually become a star-system travelling entity. And one of the conjectures of why we haven't heard from other intelligent advanced species by now is that few intelligent life forms are able to make it through their own childhoods. Americans have access to universal education, the world's best universities and we are the wealthiest nation on Earth. When only 50 % of Americans support Trump's impeachment - with a hundred things he has done, any one of which had Obama committed would have had a clear majority of Americans screaming for his impeachment - I see little to no hope for my children and their children. We will hand them a depleted planet. How pathetic and shameful.
287
@Ed Smith but there will be a handful of very rich individuals
19
@Ed Smith ... I wonder why humans consider themselves as collectively intelligent or advanced. Human arrogance, self-serving greed coupled with ignorance of its history, violence and destructive behaviours has brought the species to a lemming-like free fall off the cliff. Humans warring, killing, raping, pillaging and soiling Mother Earth along with exponential population growth delivers us our self-induced and self-perpetuated destruction. We have refused to live within the laws of nature and respect those laws. We have refused to see our species as a small part of a greater whole and we used our unique skills to overpower the planet's order. We were and are capable of devising, implementing the greatest war humans will have ever seen, the destruction of a livable environment, the wrath of Mother Earth. Human arrogance and ignorance prevents us from realizing our true place and responsibility in the natural order of Mother Earth. The necessary collective, interactive harmony of our species with all earth ecology, was never considered. How we thought our planet could maintain its livability for humans without continuous care taking, preservation, acknowledging our dependence upon the earth ecology as first and foremost and caring for it as the only true "religion", is the tragedy of the human species. As a species we are neither intelligent nor advanced.
52
@John R.
How long will the super rich and their private gated communities survive the increasing human upheaval caused by global climate change?
31
( This proposal includes the arctic circle ),
I have a proposal for removing gigatonnes of CO2 from the South Pacific Ocean and in doing so, reducing not only the acidity of the ocean but also reducing atmospheric CO2. To achieve this will require the South Pacific Ocean becoming a marine park.
The method of removing the CO2 is by growing a vast free-floating kelp forest ecosystem between New Zealand and South America and the key to growing this, is individual bamboo kelp buoys. The kelp buoys carry the iron minerals required by the growing kelp plants and also assist the juvenile kelp plants to stay afloat. ( It will be necessary within the foreseeable future to include the Southern Ocean and the Arctic Circle in the kelp growing regions.) These additional areas also becoming marine parks. The fishing industries evolving into park management, kelp growing, kelp harvesting, and large scale aquaculture projects. These transitional phases being funded by the United Nations and the World Bank.
south pacific marine park .
Geoffrey Peel, Auckland, New Zealand.
1
The Icelanders have been way ahead of other fishing nations in conserving their fisheries. I said that with both admiration and sadness. Sadness because the fishing community where I grew up in my UK home town of Hull was devastated in just a year or two after Iceland — by the end of the 3rd Cod War — legally extended its exclusion zone to 200 nautical miles. Iceland is not the most popular kid on the block but had other fishing nations been so sustainably minded our overall fisheries would be in much better shape.
6
My family were 3 of the hordes of tourists who have traveled to Iceland. I thought it was an important trip, a firsthand history and science lesson for our 6 year old son. The geological importance of his tiny country cannot be understated. On our whale watching expedition, our guide excitedly pointed out, “Port side- basking shark!” While it was enthralling to see this unique creature, we were then dismayed when the guide explained how unusual it was to see this shark in the water of that particular harbor, as it usually didn’t appear until 2 months later. He was forthright in saying that due to increasing water temperature, these sharks were changing their migration pattern and searching for food in other areas. On another expedition to a glacier in the center of the country, our guides had markers that showed the distance the glacier has retreated, and the past 50 years and the pace it has shrunk compared to the thousands of years prior was stark. Every day we saw examples of the impact of climate change within the country. The knowledge and acceptance of the Icelandic people was sobering. Two years later, our son recalls these examples- this trip did impact his view. I hope this is what the youth will take to make the difference in our world, if it isn’t already too late for them as for certain those before them have greatly let them down.
1
My son is a commercial fisherman on US west coast (OR/WA). He sees what we are doing to our oceans every season. It’s a tragedy in the making. Solving it won’t be easy, but we need to get after it or one of nature’s greatest foods will disappear and that won’t be good for anyone!
5
The article also points out a reason we all have to get moving sooner, rather than later, on ending our greenhouse habit. The amount of changes in the oceans, the precipitation patterns, the flooding, the transformation of habitats is all keyed to how much more fuel we add to the climate system.
And our ability to deal rationally on a complex problem that requires international as well as local effort is going to be ever-more difficult as we face battles over resources. Fish is a good case, because not only is it a critical food source, but it's a heavily over-subscribed one and it increasingly depends on international and regional cooperation on how much to harvest sustainably.
Harvest estimates depend on good data, but with the system in flux, the data suddenly becomes less clear. We see the same happening on our own coasts, as species regulated in one region suddenly are less common there, but appear farther north.
This resource battle is very similar to what's coming locally, regionally over fresh water, and the predictability of that resource is getting less predictable too, while the available supply is, also, typically oversubscribed.
Why end fossil fuel addiction early? Because hungry, thirsty people tend to make bad decisions.
3
Their size and numbers began to decrease with the European fishing vessels; later in powered trawlers nearly wiped them out.
Plus small fish were thrown back into the water and didn't survive.
3
The "canary in the coal mine" has been considered to be the melting of Arctic sea ice. Since the sea ice is melting away very quickly due to temperature increases in northern areas being roughly twice what the lower latitudes experience, the ice loss is a strong indicator of anthropogenic global warming.
However, ocean temps and ocean acidification (less alkaline) may end up being the most initially devastating problems with climate change. The fact that fish (and lobsters) are moving to new areas over a very short period of time indicates a severe disruption of food chains. Another couple decades could see even bigger issues.
9
There was a story a few months ago about a glacier that has melted away in Iceland. Climate activists held a funereal for it. And said that man made climate change is the cause of death. Missing from many of the stories is the glaciers age. It died at 700 years old. 700 years ago there was no glacier there also. Like allot of glaciers in the world they formed at the beginning of the little ice age and began melting at the end of it.
I believe that man is playing its part in global warming but much of it is happening naturally. I would like the truth to be told rather then stretching or fabrication of it. Seems that the climate scientists say one thing and then the press and climate activists embellish the science to there liking. Doing this works for the uninformed but for others like me it builds skepticism.
And when the answers to climate change is a massive money transfer from one country to another I grow even more skeptical.
5
@Jim
Ice is melting all over the planet because the world is above average in temperature. The N hemisphere is above average, the S hemisphere is above average, the Arctic is way above average, the tropics are above average, the Antarctic is above average.
We have thermometers analyzed by NASA, NOAA, the British Met Office, the Japanese, the Berkeley group.
If you throw away every thermometer in the city, temperatures in the country show warming.
Thermometers in the ground show warming, thermometers in the ocean show the ocean is warming, thermometers in balloons show warming, looking down from satellites they show warming.
Warmer air contains more moisture, so some areas are seeing storms with heavier than usual snowfall, such as Boston in some of the last few years.
But if you look at the snow and ice that care about temperature the most, we have less river ice than we used to, less lake ice, less seasonal snow cover, less seasonally frozen ground, less perennially frozen ground, we have smaller glaciers, we have shrinking ice sheets, we have loss of sea ice.
All the big pieces of snow and ice which care about temperature are shrinking.
21
@Jim, Being skeptical is one thing, but stubborn is another. Just look around at the earth in its entirety. Taking politics and economics out of your analysis will provide a more balanced decision making process.
19
@Jim "I believe that man is playing its part in global warming but much of it is happening naturally."
Because the Earth was slowly cooling for 6,000 years prior to the Industrial Revolution it is easy to say how much of the current rapid warming is due to human activity.
More than all of it, because first we reversed a gradual cooling trend.
Graph of the last 20,000 years of global temperature:
http://cdn.antarcticglaciers.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/shakun_marcott_hadcrut4_a1b_eng.png
12
Simple temperature change is but a small part of the real issue here. There are 8 billion of us, increasing still 15% per decade.
We pollute the air, releasing carbon which is acidifying the ocean. Killing coral, destroying fish, shellfish, sea mammals.
We talk about farming our fish. Concentrating our footprint even more. In foul “ fish tanks”
We drag the shallower shoreline, under 200 feet with nets that destroy the young, forage fish, etal.
We destroy our rivers ecology with dams, pollution, drawing water off through pipes to grow grain to feed cows and pigs .
It’s simple folks, we are living in a bubble, eatting itself up.
Global warming is a small part a symptom which if looked at alone, the fish would move north no problema.
13
@HJR We also dump million tons of plastic into the ocean every year. Those plastic won't go anywhere, they just break down into smaller and smaller pieces.
2
There is a big controversy in France with the presence in the Channel of several huge German and Dutch industrial fishing boats capable of lifting 250 tons of fish per day, the equivalent of 50 small French fishing boats per year .
They are in compliance with the EU law because of the lobbying ( American style ) of big food corporations.
Last year there was a fight with guns on boats between French fishermen and English boats coming to Brittany to catch scallops during the reproduction season and the French law forbids French fishermen to catch scallops at that time to conserve stock.
The British were coming with guns on their big boats to shoot small artisan size French fishermen coming to confront them, arguing that the European law authorized them to fish. The French law is more restrictive than the law of the EU .
13
Much of this article is useful, but the last few lines made me groan: farming carnivorous fish poses tremendous ecological costs, from the massive amount of energy devoted to, and inefficient exploitation of, wild populations to feed captive populations, to the tendency to bioaccumulate toxins in the bodies of farmed species at rates far above wild populations. Their toxic content already make some farmed species problematic consumables. One very clearly documented ecological face of fish farming is that, when it comes to carnivorous species, wild populations in the oceans inhabit a lower trophic level on the toxic ecology food chain than farmed populations.
18
Ocean warming is certainly going to change things, Besides fish moving toward cooler waters the coral reefs are dying and a good percentage of sea life depends on these reefs. Eventually ocean acidification from absorbing CO2 will take a big toll on sea life that depend on shells for protection. The problem remains of how to turn these changes in the ocean from global warming into political action. If Americans keep voting for politicians who call climate change a hoax where is there hope? Is there any way to reach American voters who support climate deniers to make them understand what is at stake?
18
@Bob
Amen, I have been listening to the jane Fonda websdt Fire and Drill where she has certified scientist talking about climate change in the uS and across the world. Her webcast is for concerned people who want to educate themselves so that when we contact our politicians they realize that people are serious.
I remember when Ron Brown fight before he died went to Cape Cod and told the fishermen that they were over fishing , no one wanted to hear the message but the message need to be heard.
I am sure if hedge funds invested in climate change technology they would make more money than they are in the fossil fuel industry. Climate change is forcing investment in medical technology why not do the same for other industries affected directed by climate change
At this point in time we have to do something, doing nothing is not an option the planet is dying and for all the ignorant smug people who feels its not their issue it is everyone's issue we need to stop electing politicians who are proud to be ignorant and are the problems not the solutions..
The current mass extinction, the 6th on earth, has started. The extinction event includes humans. Political leaders cannot work globally to immediately address human extinction. Extinction is a near-term immediate problem; reversing climate change will take centuries. Putting in place mechanisms to preserve some segment of humanity in this century is the challenge -- and that challenge will be met by NGOs and non-profits, globally, not by nations or politics.
21
Also in the mix: other fishing nations with giant factory ships troll the waters near Iceland. The more small time Icelanders say they’re scooping up part of the catch and there’s not much they can do to compete at their relatively tiny level.
11
Let's summarize what we know. First, according to scientific research, the oceans will be devoid of life if humans do not stop fishing and polluting. Second, absolutely no human needs to eat fish.
Taking these two scientific findings together, the solution we humans can contribute to is fairly easy.
12
Overhunting and fishing, habitat loss, pollution and now global warming.
None of these happen in a vacuum but there are synergies among them which make the whole vastly greater than the sum of the parts.
The climate change we’ve made so far is small compared to natural variability (+5 degrees coming out of glaciations) but we could make change as big as any natural change and a whole lot faster.
And we’re pushing the system in multiple ways.
32
That is 5 degrees Celsius which is almost double Fahrenheit. Of that, humans probably account for 1 or 2 degrees which is a huge acceleration on the geological time scale.
9
@Craighton Chin
The change now is very rapid. The carbon cycle for the last 2 million years was doing 180-280ppm atmospheric CO2 over 10,000 years and we’ve done more change than that in 100 years.
The last time CO2 went from 180-280ppm global temperature increased by around 5 degrees C and sea level rose 130 meters.
Here’s a graph of the last 400,000 years of global temperature, CO2 and sea level http://www.ces.fau.edu/nasa/images/impacts/slr-co2-temp-400000yrs.jpg
They say know your history …
8
I have to give China credit — they covered all the bases in their climate change hoax. Getting the fish to move north? Brilliant!
Or maybe it’s not a hoax and we have to make real hard choices to address real bad problems... Nah, it must be the Chinese convincing Icelandic fish to move north. Nothing to see here. Move along, slowly, in your gas guzzler.
23
@Pierson Snodgras, also, China convinced shellfish to eat away their own shells just to make us look bad.
I've seen brave homeowners, seeing their house in flames, take a garden hose to try their best to do what they can in the current situation. It might turn the flames back until the fire department gets there! If the fire department has no intention of coming to help you, your house will burn down, probably.
If you do your best with the garden hose, for as long as possible, with your neighbors helping you in a bucket brigade, fire hydrant, their own hoses, trucks with tanks, etc, maybe you can minimize the absolute devastation. Maybe their houses won't catch.
Even if the worst happens and you lose several houses, you know you did your best. You know that at least you gave your pets time to get out, or saved the family's generational photos....
Can you haters-of-climate-change see the similarity? Think stewardship if nothing else.
Global warming is a Hoax, until it isn't. Then its too late. Trump and the fossil fuel industry leaders will be dead and we can only blame ourselves for listening to them and doing nothing.
32
@dave
Or we could blame Republicans who watch Fox and believe the science deniers.
2
We didn’t always know what we have done was as harmful to our environment, but we do know now. If we don’t get this right, we may not be here all that much longer. Humanity must rid itself of the “fools gene”.
25
At least the federal government in Iceland recognizes the climate emergency for what it is, unlike the U.S., where Trump denies its very existence.
This is slightly off the topic of Iceland, but I sure hope that when the TV debates take place next year between Trump and the Democratic candidate, the moderators will ask both for their concrete proposals in tackling the crisis. And don't let him off easy when he starts spewing denialist nonsense.
19
@Brian
Andrew Yang impressed me with his in depth knowledge and understanding of this problem when he was asked at the NYC CNN town hall meeting what concrete things would he do to address climate change. He was asked by experts in the field difficult questions for other candidates to answer but his answers were measured and on target .
Any politician who has no plan should not get our vote the storms are coming faster and more furious , we have to have a plan and hire people who can address this overwhelming issues, it is happening now and we need to laugh at any politician who is calling this a democratic scare tactic. they were nothing but a fool who believes that they will be dead so who cares. We don't believe in every man for themselves we are all in this together.
2
I wonder what the fish were doing when Vikings were growing grapes in Greenland...
7
@EGD - pardon if my earlier reply shows up too, but the Vikings didn't grow any grapes in Greenland. Barley and hay, yes, because they do OK along the edge of a giant ice sheet, but not grapes.
More important for people who live in places like California is the fact that when Vikings were shivering out a brief colony along the southern edge of the Greenland icesheet, civilizations in what's now the US Southwest were collapsing from factors including decade-long droughts.
Are you willing to increase populations in Greenland in exchange for drying up your part of the country?
6
There werent 8 billion vikings and they didnt spew megatons of industrial carbon waste. See the difference?
3
@EGD - fantasyland. Vikings didn't grow grapes in Greenland, just as they didn't grow wheat there, which is another false story some repeat. For a few hundred years, they managed to grow some barley (a cold-weather grain) and pasture cows. Vikings were big on beer and mead, not wine. Even the evidence from their brief stay in northeastern Canada isn't really clear on whether they made grape wine - maybe, maybe not is the current state of that question.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinland
3
Earth has more humans than our can support. After a while something has to give and it wont be pretty.
17
This is stark evidence of why the recent United Nations report on climate change needs to be heeded ASAP. The earth is a shared environment with limited resources that must be managed not hoarded. A country whose leader declares it to be first over others is a naive force for conflict dissemination and worldwide catastrophe. Willful ignorance of the science underlying a warming of the seas is a chosen act of belligerence. Challenges from within and without are critically rightful and necessary.
68
Free contraception for all.
End fossil fuel subsidies and transfer them to solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, tidal and battery storage technologies and energies.
That's the way out of this manmade Gas Oil Pollution mess.
November 3 2020.
Reject the GOP climate hackers and science denialists.
118
@Socrates One more magic ingredient: Get Out The Vote.
If we don't all work to get more people to the polls to vote for progressive values, none of the policy ideas you mentioned will ever see the light of day.
9
Decades ago I lived in Torremolinos for three years. In those days, we would see the fishermen in small row boats just off shore laying their nets late at night. Then early the next morning, we could watch as their hauled in their nets onto La Carihuela beach. The local fishermen generally had decent sized catches, which they took away in wheelbarrows directly to the Fishermen’s Cooperative on the street behind us. There they were cleaned and sold fresh from the sea for eating that same day. Since there was no fishing on Sunday nights, only frozen fish were available on Mondays.
The bars in the area almost always served freshly fried Chanquetes, salty and delicious with cold draft beer or white wine! Restaurants offered tasty fresh caught fish in a variety of traditional recipes. Fishing was generally local, and employed many in the beach towns. Now, it’s my understanding that much of the commercial fishing is done much further off shore, on bigger boats outfitted with refrigeration facilities and sonar capabilities to better search for the declining resource. Chanquetes have now been fished out, and when you see them in the grocery store’s frozen section, the package label says ‘imported from China’!
Climate change is influencing our lives in so many ways. Thank you, New York Times, for your reporting on this complex global issue.
109
It is the same here in Newfoundland. The inshore fishery supported hundreds of small villages up and down the rugged coastline. Now the fishery is controlled by large corporations and much of the fishing is offshore. Many of those small fishing villages no longer exist. There are weeks in the early spring when you can not buy fresh cod in St. John’s. In Newfoundland! You can buy frozen cod in the supermarkets but most of it is from out of province and yes, some is from China.
I don’t think most people know that fresh cod doesn’t smell like “fish” - it smells of the wind and sea. Fish that smells like “fish” is inevitably several days old.
21
Tourism air travel, which is in no way "necessary," is also a backbone of the Icelandic economy. Many commenters will tell us of their travels. The irony that one economic boon contributes to another sector's decline.
14
@woodyrd - one interesting way that Iceland is taking advantage of their abundant hydro and geothermal energy is a move into making aluminum, which takes huge amounts of electricity.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/01/us/politics/american-companies-still-make-aluminum-in-iceland.html
1
Every living organism reacts to changes in their environment which also includes humans. The difference is that humans are capable of understanding change and how to adjust. Fresh water, food, droughts, fire, floods, mass migrations, corruption, social unrest, wars, fallen governments are all in our near future as what we are beginning to see now only intensifies. Will a world of 7.5 billion people be able to come together? It's not looking promising. Meanwhile Black Friday is the important news of the day as we continue to ignore what really matters.
47
The sad fact is that moral arguments alone will not change the trajectory of climate change. Even slavery in recent European and American history was abolished only once it became less profitable due to emerging technologies and geopolitical factors. One would hope that democratic systems would be able to guide capitalist forces, but today democracies are in retreat.
32
@Alexander K.
I agree, but keep in mind that slavery was abolished in the UK in 1833, when payments to slave owners were authorized, while abolition in the USA took another three decades and a civil war. Both were collective choices based at least in part on moral arguments. Similarly, capping anthropogenic global warming will require economic and moral choices. I, for one, see encouraging trends along both axes. We are at a historic juncture, in any case.
4
@Mal Adapted
The simple fact is that slavery became economically less viable for Britain sooner than it did for the US. Obviously, moral arguments are important, but they will never be sufficient without economic incentives behind them.
1
Overfishing has decimated fishing towns and villages around the world for a very long time and it is difficult to believe that it is that, rather than global warming, that is hurting the fishing industry in Iceland. And the assertion that the oceans today are “simmering” is the kind of hyperbole that makes reasonable people skeptical. Even if—and it’s a big if, temperature readings from the oceans (that cover 70% of the earth’s surface) since 1950 are accurate or comprehensive enough to provide a full picture, a slight warming does not mean the warming will continue. Climate ebbs and flows. Arctic sea ice melts in summer and freezes again in the winter. In the early part of the 20th century, when CO2 levels were low, the Arctic was much warmer and sea ice less than today. Just like arctic ice, temperatures of air and ocean will ebb and flow.
3
The warming has just begun. If we stopped doing everything it would take many lifetimes to reverse it, if can be reversed by us at all. We have to prepare for the collapse that is coming and figure out the next way to live.
15
@ehillesum - your comment is an unreasonable attempt to pretend rejecting the overwhelming evidence is something "reasonable" people do if they really look at the science and the data.
Comparing a small reduction in Arctic ice in the early 20th century to the much larger loss now is one example of you trying to, basically, shirk our responsibility for our actions.
Read this carefully, and read the whole paper, too:
"We compare the magnitude and patterns of sea ice variability between the first half of the twentieth century (1901–40) and the more recent period (1980–2010), both marked by sea ice decline in the Arctic. The first period contains the so-called early-twentieth-century warming (ETCW; ~1920–40) during which the Atlantic sector saw a significant decline in sea ice volume, but the Pacific sector did not. The sea ice decline over the 1979–2010 period is pan-Arctic and 6 times larger than the net decline during the 1901–40 period."
https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/JCLI-D-19-0008.1
Yes, climate ebbs and flows. Greenhouse gas concentrations are one of the major causes of such changes. Every time in the past we've seen significant warming or cooling, we've seen greenhouse gases play a significant role. That's why, for example, the planet was warmer in the far distant past, even while solar radiation then was weaker. It's also how the "snowball Earth" freezes ended. Volcanic CO2 buildup over very long times raised temperatures again.
7
@ehillesum
"Climate ebbs and flows."
Over thousands of years, not hundreds, not tens. Thousands of years gives most organisms a chance to change; ten years does not.
"In the early part of the 20th century, when CO2 levels were low, the Arctic was much warmer and sea ice less than today." Really, is that why the Northwest Passage was so successful that we built the Panama Canal? Or were you referring to the 20th century BCE?
3
I recently returned from an amazing trip to Iceland - I wish I could have gone sooner! Anyway, Icelanders have a fatalistic view regarding climate change. They know its already happening because they see it every day, all over their small nation. They're already changing everything they can, from geothermal energy to electric cars and other measures. But IT'S UP TO ALL OF US.
81
@northeastsoccermum
They certainly are trying. However, Iceland's per capita carbon dioxide emissions are the highest in Europe and exceed those in the US.
5
@Alexander K. : That's because they are an island and need to import so much. The scourge of tourism is certainly exacerbating the problem. The actual population of Iceland is only around 300,000. So when you divide the carbon dioxide emissions (which include all the emissions from the tourist industry -- the tour buses, the rental cars, all the food that needs to be imported, all the energy being used to build hotels, the massive airport, etc) by this small population, the per capita emissions seem larger than they actually are.
35
@Alexander K.
Iceland emitted 12.1 tonnes of CO2 per capita in 2018.
The USA emitted 16.1 tonnes.
How is 12 bigger than 16?
12
I know it won't happen, but it would be nice if this story was atop the fold instead of the person with the orange face, ridiculous coiffure and tiny busy hands who's constantly spewing a hot air stream of lies, inanities and invective.
Although it probably wouldn't make a dent in the thick skulls of those who buy his Chinese Hoax, for the rest of us who see what's coming, we need to realize with great urgency that it's not in ten, twenty or fifty years, it's now. We are in desperate need of intelligent leadership - crisis is on the way and gaining speed.
169
It’s also below the articles on shopping, shopping, shopping. Overconsumption drives climate change.
32
@Marta : Indeed! And it's also worth noting that travel/tourism is the new shopping -- the "must have" for those with a little extra time and money who want to signal their status.
11
Too many humans, too much use of fossil fuels, too much greed, too much ignorance of science.
131
Remember when the brief period in time when America was a leader in solving global issues?
99
@Sean
Remember when science was not part religion and leftwing ideology?
8
@Sean
We didn't do a very good job though, did we? Evidence of climate change and scientific warnings have been around for quite a few years. Bad educations in ecology and science for Americans as well as the cavalier belief that the natural world was created for humans to plunder. Italy is doing something very important in introducing ecology into school curricula. It can't happen here where many still don't accept evolution.
14
@EGD - That's an optical illusion caused by many on the right in the US fleeing rapidly from scientific truth - kind of an ideology red-shift illusion. Science isn't moving left, opponents to responsible action are moving right.
The US Air Force sponsored some of the critical research done in the 1950s and 1960s in the properties of atmospheric greenhouse gases, not because our military during the Cold War was a hotbed of liberalism, but because they wanted heat-seeking missiles to be more accurate, and that required understanding the changes in heat radiation coming from the air as we add more heat-trapping gases. They found more CO2 traps more heat.
Exxon asked their in-house scientists in the 70s and early 80s to look into the outcome of increasing greenhouse gas levels. Surprising nobody, they found the same thing academic researchers found: more fuel use = more warming of our climate. They wrote it up for management in 1982.
https://archive.org/details/1982ExxonPrimerOnCO2GreenhouseEffect
Then management started funding misinformation groups and anti-regulatory groups. Rather than doing the responsible thing.
Bonus third group: Koch Industries helped fund the Berkeley Earth lab, led by a skeptical physicist, Robert Muller. He wasn't convinced the data was showing warming or a human impact. Then he analyzed temperature data from all sources - and was convinced by the evidence.
Yet Koch Industries still funds denial and delay.
5
Climate change and warming ocean waters are the new reality no matter what people want or who doubts the evidence. The fish stocks worldwide are affected by the change in ocean water temperature. Future fish populations are not guaranteed. Looking beyond what might happen to the jobs of fishermen, what will happen if the fish stocks collapse? What will replace the protein contained in the current ocean fish harvest? The change in human population from a hunter-gatherer mode to agriculture allowed the population to flourish. The move from hunter-gatherer mode of ocean fishing to systematic farm-fishing is the next generation of human development.
9
@Cyril
“Already, there are reports of salmon farmers in Australia relocating their pens because waters are getting too warm, and US oyster farmers are moving their hatcheries away from the acidified waters of the Pacific Northwest.” — Futurity; September 19, 2918 (research news from leading universities).
5
If we keep fishing with indiscriminate nets, will we will hasten the time when there will be no fish to catch? I'm not convinced that it is only a question of warmer water. However, I certainly do not want to go back to eating mammals.
4
@ChesBay - the oceans are facing multiple problems all at once, as we poke at becoming a more responsible species.
The following are big issues even without our greenhouse habits:
1 - overfishing, especially of top predators
2 - nutrient runoff leading to algal blooms and dead zones (the Bay gets a lot of that)
3 - development removing productive waterfront wetlands
4 - sediment runoff damaging coral and other light-dependent creatures
5 - toxic pollutants from industry, oil spills, etc.
Our fossil habit adds the following
- Greenhouse gases warm the waters, lowering oxygen levels.
- CO2 dissolves into oceans and lakes, changing the pH and making it harder for shellfish, coral and some plankton to build and maintain shells.
- The change in pH also has various effects on fish, since it changes what they can sense in the water around them.
- Flooding on land dumps lots of fresher water into bays and estuaries - Louisiana seafood producers were hurt by that
I could go on, but really, the short answer is that industrialized human civilization has an awful lot of growing up to do in a very short time - we could pull it off, but the slower we go, the harder it gets.
1
@ChesBay
Cultivate your garden. Vegetables and fruits are--so far--renewable.
2
I live in Sweden, but I eat fish from Iceland. They have had, at least until recently, a recognized sustainability program that would guarantee the future of their fish populations and fishing industry. Climate change is going to change that along with everything else. I've stopped worrying. It is over. While the best case scenarios now demand order of magnitude shifts in all aspects of our societies within a few decades, we diddle and dawdle and complain about the price of gas. It seems we think that this is someone else's problem. At the moment it mostly is. People without food in Africa would disagree. But hey, that's their problem, right?
From the climate to the oceans to insects, report after report confirms approaching tipping points in all of our biosphere systems. Once those dreadful frontiers are crossed, it won't matter what we do, because we will have pushed the planet into a state of flux where the release of carbon and methane from the oceans and the permafrost will flood the atmosphere with green house gases and the temperature will runaway in a vicious spiral until the planet is mostly uninhabitable. You doubt me I'm sure. Let's hope you are right, and I am wrong.
400
So insightful and well said, Kevo. No, not over but we balance on the precipice of another epoch in the human inhabitation of Earth. This article is totally splendid. Thanks to NYTimes for bringing this talented journalist on board. Keep up the struggle, dear friends. The stakes could not be higher.
34
@Fraser
Actually, the greatest opportunity is the electrification of road transport - which is 15% of global CO2 production, versus 2% for aircraft travel.
28
I agree with you and believe you are right, unfortunately. it’s just that that this deathspiral has started a little bit sooner than I preferred; because I wanted to get in my jollies And travel back to northern Europe like I did in 1986 (you know, where radiation was detected in Sundsval, as I was sleeping in the open at night), and experience more cultures in the colder climates , before it, I, all goes away.
Things like nations fighting over fisheries will become something comparable to a punctuation mark in the final analysis, with the world just getting too hot for those fisheries to even survive in the southern central equatorial latitudes. A bubbling chiopino, or fish stew
6
It’s too late for a lot of the world. Action was required in the 70s not now. Every country will experience these types of changes. In some instances they will be able to readjust to the new species and maybe some species will be able to adapt more quickly than humans anticipate. My mother was an Icelander and I could see the differences in their catches over the years to farm raised vs wild.
Instead of long term solutions the response is often let’s get ours now. In this country fisherman have a deep mistrust of government re quotas and closing some species harvesting because they see these species in large quantities. Or maybe because it’s their livelihood. In Maine where I was from, the shrimp harvest has been cancelled for at least four years. It’s anticipated the lobster migration to colder waters is right around corner. Yet they fight any type of regulation and vote against their interests. Why? We have not been very good stewards of our earth have we?
Instead adults in power look to short term power and immediate gratification and ridicule passionate young people who demand action. Sorry kids some of tried in the 70s to wake the world.
61
Inevitable. The fish migrations described here are the "end of the beginning" of climate change. As crops start to fail under the increasing heat, the de facto migration of the most productive food crops out of the tropics is next. The next installment of upheaval will see many desperate West Africans, deprived of their only widespread source of protein, and other food, attempting to migrate in the millions to countries that don't want them. World political instability, human conflict and mass atrocities are on the horizon.
Only the diligent application of technology can now mitigate the impact of a climate change that is now underway in earnest.
74
@Richard
Oil and coal dependent technology and economic development started this mess.
50 years ago, I heard arguments that new technology would save us from climate change we are now rapidly experiencing.
17
It is not just about temperature. The oceans are a giant carbon sink, absorbing massive amounts and becoming more acidic all the time. Increasing acidity and temperatures are detrimental to most sea life.
Humans, the most invasive and destructive of all species, will eventually destroy the oceans.
132
Cod? Wow, eating Icelandic cod in Iceland is a real treat. Last October in a four day stopover in Iceland to see gorgeous waterfalls called "foss," pounding surf against the rocky coast, and other breath taking scenery, every night we had cod, which was always fresh, fresh, and delicious.
14
Were you aware at the time that the abundance of cod, and your enjoyment, was enhanced by the warming ocean? I’m not being snarky. Each day a new impact of human activity on earth, and my personal contribution to the consequences, challenges me to DO SOMETHING.
19
@Martina
Glad you had a wonderful time, enjoying the earth. What are you doing now to address climate change, working with groups, The fight is now not later, get engaged so others can have your meal in ten years.
1
Climate change is real, it is self evident. Fact: the fish are moving due to warmer waters. By warm, the article points out a temperature increase of 1.8 degrees. I say to the climate naysayers, try setting your thermostat 2 degrees warmer. It won't take long before you are uncomfortable. Climate change is one of, if not, the major issue for this world of ours. I am heartened by the fact that the younger generation (college age) takes climate change seriously, I hope it is not to late.
63
I get your point about raising the thermostat, but fish are cold-blooded and humans are warm-blooded, so the analogy doesn't really work very well. We become uncomfortable because we are trying to maintain body temperature. Dissolved oxygen, as mentioned in the article, is a more likely concern, as well as availability of whatever a certain species feeds on.
7
..., “We have to start fish farms because we cannot count on the sea,” echoed Petur Birgisson.
Or rather: “..., because we cannot count on mankind to take care of the sea.”
120
Iceland is Little Greenland.
There is no room for either lands melting glaciers without raising the level of our worldwide singular sea.
The science of climate change has no gender aka color aka race aka ethnic aka national origin aka sectarian aka educational aka political aka socioeconomic partisan bias.
12
And still, the President and his advisors will tell us it’s all a hoax.
93
So other than my personal contributions WHY aren’t we moving on this. There are absolutely no none schools of fish any more on the Daytona Beach shores yet NOTHING major is being done WHY. I am so at loss.
27
@Calleen Mayer The reason so little is being done is money. No matter what they say, almost every country, every state, every stock market (and thus every mutual and pension fund) is in one way or another deeply invested in and dependent on oil and gas and other polluting industries. Rapid change is not going to happen until those industries become unprofitable and can no longer afford to buy political and media support.
17
@Eric
When we wanted South Africa to change their racist ways, we put our words supported by the mighty dollars of all of the US pension funds. I have raised this question in writing to the candidate's, we need to stop buying products whose investments are in fossil fuel, we need to hold NYC and demand all of the pension funds to show their investments and demand change.
Change will only come when politicians realize we are educated and we will not allow our children to suffer in a depleted world.
We can do better than this
2
While it’s true that if you travel far enough west from Iceland you will eventually encounter the Faroe Islands, a closer approach would be to the east and south.
14
Global warming of the oceans and consequent climate change , together with worldwide demographic explosion give us a gloomy picture for our future .
These changes appear unstoppable because human greed prevails over common sense .
The end of life on our planet is getting closer than we forecasted.
We fought Mother Nature endlessly and it appears that she will prevail .
34
@inter nos Only because she is endlessly creative. Homo Sapiens has caused many species to die off, others to be greatly reduced. When the Anthropocene ends, and most of the our species dies, there will be new and other life forms, some of which we cannot begin to imagine.
10
The ecological concerns raised by fish farming nag can likely be lessened by close monitoring of the collateral damage. In the late no run as “wild sources” diminish the price point for farmed fish will increase and allow for increased capital investment aimed at decreasing the untoward effects of fish farming.
6
@FredTerr
Ocean fish farming will not end global climate change or the dying of our oceans and the rapid destruction of natural ecosystems that sustain human life.
6