The oceans are heating up and humans need to act

Human tragedy, floods, landslides and more intense, frequent typhoons are still to come after recent climate change-driven natural disasters. How natural are they? Clearly, science shows they are the result of human activity, of non-stop burning of fossil fuels.

The earth has become warmer since 1890, the start of the industrial age. June 2023 was thought to be the hottest ever in recorded history but then July was even hotter across the globe and is the hottest in about 120,000 years. That triggers disasters.

We have to stop burning coal, oil and gas in power stations and build many more renewable energy sources of electricity.

Try putting your pet goldfish in a bowl of warm water. It will soon die. Millions of fish in the oceans die because of the warming of the oceans due to climate change and human-generated global warming.

In March 2016, the highest-ever recorded ocean temperature was 20.95 degrees Celsius.  That was surpassed in July 2023 when sea surface temperature was recorded at 20.96 degrees Celsius. 

If this continues, as it will, there are dire consequences for the planet and humans that live and survive on it. A major reason for this is the wasteful lifestyles of the rich, who consume energy from burning fossil fuels, coal, gas and oil.

Millions of poor don’t have electricity and cause no damage but they suffer the consequence of our luxurious lifestyles.

Our fragile and sensitive planet, the tiny blue dot in the emptiness of a vast universe, is being changed by us humans as never before in more than four billion years of its existence.

The warmer oceans threaten the livelihoods of millions of fisher families around the globe and especially in the Philippines. As many as 56 million people depend on fishing worldwide and fish and seafood are the source of half of animal protein and nutrition in poor countries.

Warmer water drives the fish deeper for food and cooler temperatures. Besides, minerals that fish feed on are diminishing.

In Science magazine, a study shows that fish populations around China and Japan are diminished by up to 35 percent. The warmer ocean temperatures have caused a four percent reduction in fish netted by legal fishing in recent years.

This is one reason China has aggressively claimed all of the South China Sea and the Western Philippine Sea as its own and is plundering the fish stocks, depriving others by force, especially Filipinos.

Recently, Chinese coast guard ships drove away one Philippine boat from delivering men and supplies to a Philippine atoll using powerful water cannons.

The warmer ocean is forcing fish to migrate north to relatively cooler waters. The poor need fish as food.

According to Our World Data, the world produces an estimated 200 million tons of fish and seafood every year including farmed fish. The ocean fish are being depleted at an unprecedented rate.

“It is sobering to see this change happening so quickly,” says Prof Mike Burrows, a marine scientist in Scotland. He is a witness to the global sea warming phenomenon threatening our survival.

The oceans are vital for the survival of planet Earth which has about 96.5 percent of all Earth’s water. They absorb 25 percent of the CO2 released into the atmosphere by industry and the oceans grab and hold 90 percent of the excess heat created by these emissions.

That’s why they are warming, how much more can they take?

They are massive “carbon absorbers.” Without them, we might all be dead because the oceans supply no less than 50 percent of the earth’s oxygen needed for life.

The warmer oceans are melting the arctic glaciers faster, too, and ocean levels are rising. In less than twenty years' time, beachfront properties will be threatened. If you have one, sell it now.

The warmer water is bleaching and destroying the corals, the home and breeding grounds of thousands of species of fish and seafood.

As much as 80 percent of the world’s fishing grounds are beyond saving, according to some environmentalists. Exploited to the last, all are moving towards total collapse because of over-fishing. The fish stocks cannot recover.

The syndicated illegal fishing fleets with drag nets are scooping up millions of tons of fish from inside protected exclusive marine boundaries, as China is doing in the Philippines.

By 2048, at this rate of depletion, according to The World Counts website, the oceans will not be able to replenish their fish stocks.

If this destruction of the oceans is not stopped by international law enforcement, the ten billion humans on earth by 2050 will not eat any fish. That loss of protein source will be catastrophic.

At present, the world population is 8 billion and is increasing by one birth every second. How will they feed themselves? It will result in massive migrations.

The hungry are now marching north from the southern impoverished countries. Exploitation under former colonial powers and present corrupt governments is forcing thousands to travel on foot, by bus, boat and dinghy to reach the lands of hope and prosperity. They are rejected mostly.

Global and ocean warming is the most dire threat to all people. It must be addressed and governments must end dependence on fossil fuel and go for renewable energy sources non-stop.

The billions in the proposed Philippine budget for confidential funds could be better spent on renewables. They are provided free by nature: wind, sun, geothermal and hydropower. We just have to harness them.

The world’s political and industrial leaders have to find a conscience and a moral compass and must overcome the greed that is causing the climate crises.

*The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official editorial position of UCA News.