Oceans Running Out of Time, Says Leading Reef Scientist

Humanity is running out of time. That is the stark, bleak message offered by leading Australian reef scientist J.E.N. Veron to a gathering of 50 or so members of the Boston Reef Society this Saturday. By 2030, the oceans as a whole will be too acidic to sustain the coral reefs; well before then, krill populations—which feed everything from mega-mammals to birds and sea creatures much lower on food chain–will have fallen below critical levels.

Veron, former Chief Scientist at the Australian Institute of Marine Science, attributed the acidification of the oceans and the future "mass extinction event" to the radical rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels driven by human activity since the industrial revolution. For those who realized that the 2030 date is but 22 years hence, Veron had one further caution: it will take the ocean at least 10 years to respond to any changes. The deadline for a complete reversal in trends is at most 12 years into the future. The message comes from the man who identified nearly 20 percent of the world's coral species.

Government policies necessary for a complete reversal are almost nowhere in place. While he praised the City of London and European public awareness in general for their recognition of the problem and need for radical policy solutions, he noted that the US and Australian governments are the worst in the world. Fortunately, he added the Australian government has recently changed.

Nonetheless, all of this may be for naught. Veron asserted that new developing economies pose challenges, although he added that it is the duty of the developed countries to foot the bill of the newly industrializing countries' carbon reduction measures.

Turning from government policy, a member of the audience enquired about the impact of the aquarium hobby on global climate distress. Veron tried to accommodate his interlocutor; he was after all speaking to a aquarium club. Their job, he suggested, was to educate the public; most people don't swim the Great Barrier Reef or even go snorkeling. Aquarium owners can help the public realize the beauty that we stand to lose if they saw a well-maintained tank. Veron's talk and his latest Harvard University Press-published book, A Reef in Time: The Great Barrier Reef from Beginning to End(2008) belied this message.

Introducing that book, he bemoans the confusion of different time frames: human, climatic, geologic and, he might as well have added, cosmological. The answer he offered seems to do just that. However, Veron did suggest that there are good examples of governments turning around and radically altering national economies. Interestingly, he noted the quick response of the government and industry to World War 2.

One wonders whether the incrementalist economics of Obama or the revisionist Global Warming denialism of McCain will be anything remotely like FDR's New Deal reformism and World War Two arms race, pushed as he was from insurgent social movements from below and threats abroad.

Check out the Boston Reef Society's website at http://www.bostonreefers.org/forums/