Knowlton and Jackson appointed to Science Advisory Board
Posted June 27, 2011
Dr. Jeremy Jackson gave the MERI Ocean Environment Lecture in June “Brave New Ocean: The Future of the Ocean Past”. In this talk, Dr. Jackson pointed to human activities such as overfishing, pollution, and climate change. Not only do these practices threaten our welfare, they also devastate the delicate ecosystems of our seas. People are the problem, he emphasizes, and saving the oceans will demand changes in the ways we live, obtain food, and generate energy.
“Unwelcome changes in the ocean are happening faster and faster,” Jackson said. The problems are social, economic, and political, not scientific, and we know what to do to reverse the trends. We have to change the way we live and become citizens again. We have to stop overfishing, climate change and pollution – now”
He pointed to the increasing signs of trouble:
- Rising sea surface temperature up to 3 degrees Celsius
- Loss of most coral reefs
- Ecological extinction of most commercial fish species
- Increased ocean stratification
- Collapse of upwelling and planktonic productivity
- Anoxia in the deep ocean
- Ocean acidification and the decline of most calcified organisms
- Expanding dead zones around continents and coastal waters too toxic for aquaculture
Immediate solutions include making agriculture ecologically sustainable by taxing the use of fertilizers, pesticides, and animal wastes proportional to their harmful effects; eliminating agricultural subsidies; and banning outright use of persistent pesticides that harm ecosystems and human health. We urgently need to make energy use ecologically sustainable by drastically reducing the use of fossil fuels and fast-tracking the development of alternative energy.
But, already, the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are a planetary threat that will require “rocket science.” “The greatest scientific challenge is to develop the technology to sequester excess CO2 in the atmosphere.”
“The alternative is a hothouse world, billions of climate refugees, increasing global epidemics and war. The question is whether we can overcome our greed, corruption, stupidity and inertia to act responsibly – or wait for catastrophe to strike.”
Dr. Jackson is Director, Center or Marine Biodiversity and Conservation and William E. and Mary B. Ritter Professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, California, and a Senior Scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. In addition, he is the author of over one hundred scientific publications and five books. His research includes human impacts on the oceans and the ecology and paleoecology of tropical and subtropical marine ecosystems. Dr. Jackson is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science and recipient of numerous international prizes and awards. His work on overfishing was chosen by Discover magazine as the outstanding scientific achievement of 2001. More than just an academic researcher, Dr. Jackson has actively searched for innovative ways to reach a broad public audience, applying his skills as a communicator with his scientific knowledge to inspire action.
Dr. Nancy Knowlton, who also attended the June lecture, signed copies of her new National Geographic book "Citizens of the Sea: Wondrous Creatures From the Census of Marine Life."
Dr. Knowlton holds the Sant Chair in Marine Science at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, where her research focuses on coral reefs and the diversity and conservation of life in the ocean. Dr. Knowlton received her BA at Harvard University, her PhD at the University of California at Berkeley, and was a NATO postdoctoral fellow. Later, she was a professor at Yale University, a scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, and Professor and founding Director of the Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Past service included advisory positions with the National Geographic Society, the World Bank, the Cosmos Prize, and the Census of Marine Life. She currently serves on the editorial board of the Annual Review of Marine Science, the Pew Marine Fellows Advisory Committee, The Savannah Ocean Exchange Board of Governors, and the national boards of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Coral Reef Alliance. She is an Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellow, winner of the Peter Benchley prize for science in the service of conservation, and author of Citizens of the Sea.
**Coming Soon** Watch Dr. Knowlton’s May 2010 lecture at MERI “The Future of Coral Reefs: Ecosystems in Peril”.
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