Shifting Baselines

Posted by Jack Sterne, jack@oceanchampions.org

This week, I'm going to start with another tidbit from last week's theme of how far we've come in a year, and then pivot to global warming as an "ocean issue," and posit the question of whether it is the ocean issue that eclipses all others.

Here's the clip from Reuters:

The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday, aiming to put an end to the debate over whether global warming is actually occurring, passed legislation recognizing the "reality" of climate change and providing money to work on the problem....

By inserting a declaration in the bill that climate change is a "reality," the Democratic-controlled House was trying to move U.S. policy-makers beyond a debate, long stimulated by the Bush administration, over whether there was scientific proof that global warming really is occurring.

A leading promoter of that debate has been Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Inhofe, who has referred to global warming as a "hoax." He chaired the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee until Republicans lost control of Congress this year.

Now, it would be easy to be snarky (like my headline suggests): As if we need Congress to tell us what science has already figured out.

But on the other hand, this clip fits in pretty closely with my post from last week. A year ago, the House would have never even brought this legislation to the floor, much less passed it. Hell, it probably wouldn't have made it out of any subcommittee.

And while we strongly believe that oceans are a bipartisan issue, there is no question that we're better off with Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Ca.), who Ocean Champions supported in 2004, as Chairman of the Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee, rather than premier whack-job and science hater Sen. James Inhofe (R-Ok.). So I'm sticking with my statement that elections make a difference.

But this also brings up a bigger question that ocean conservationists need to wrestle with politically: Is global warming the biggest ocean issue of our time, and should we drop everything else and focus all of our political efforts on stopping global warming?

You can make the argument that the oceans are feeling the greatest consequence of global warming, and that acidification, coral bleaching, sea level rise, loss of sea ice at the poles, species migrations, etc. could be more destructive to marine species than overfishing and habitat destruction.

Of course, I'm also aware of the argument that if you don't stop overfishing, there may be nothing left to save from the consequences of global warming. But Congress dealt with fisheries with the reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act last year, and so that's off the table for awhile.

The fights on fisheries reform are now at the implementation level, rather than the Congressional level, so it doesn't make sense to me to focus a lot more political energy there.

How can we not make global warming the most politically important "ocean issue" of this session of Congress?

But I'm just a political hack and lawyer, and I'd be really interested to hear what the scientists among you have to say on this question. Fire away.