Links
Exploration
Geography/Geology
Geographic and geological exploration are necessary for future resource extraction
TSUJINO ’07 (Teruhisa, Presently engaged in the survey of trends in space technology and marine technology in Monodzukuri
(Manufacturing) Technology, Infrastructure, and Frontier Research Unit, Exploration Technologies for the Utilization of Ocean Floor Resources
— Contribution to the Investigation for the Delineation of Continental Shelf —,
http://www.nistep.go.jp/achiev/ftx/eng/stfc/stt024e/qr24pdf/STTqr2405.pdf, accessed: 7/8/14 GA)
Ocean floors several thousand meters deep in the sea area far away from the seashore are thought to be a huge reservoir of resources.
However, it is difficult at present to economically extract natural resources, such as petroleum, natural gas, metal minerals, living organisms,
and microorganisms, from the seabed. Taking
into consideration the situation that onshore resources are expected
to run out in the future, the requirement is to develop technologies that enable commercial extraction
of resources from the ocean floors. In order to realize economical extraction of resources, it is necessary to investigate
the geographical and geological conditions of the ocean floors to obtain detailed information on
offshore resources. The present area of Japan’s territory, an area that ranks the 60th in the world, is about 380 thousand square
kilometers.
Explo -> Extraction
Exploration becomes unsafe development because we find valuable resources
TSUJINO ’07 (Teruhisa, Presently engaged in the survey of trends in space technology and marine technology in Monodzukuri
(Manufacturing) Technology, Infrastructure, and Frontier Research Unit, Exploration Technologies for the Utilization of Ocean Floor Resources
— Contribution to the Investigation for the Delineation of Continental Shelf —,
http://www.nistep.go.jp/achiev/ftx/eng/stfc/stt024e/qr24pdf/STTqr2405.pdf, accessed: 7/8/14 GA)
Ocean floor resources that are expected to be utilized include mineral resources, such as manganese
and copper, which exist in high concentrations in the surface layers of sediments covering the seabed and seamounts. Japan Oil, Gas and
Metals National Corporation (JOGMEC) has surveyed Japan’s mining concession of manganese nodules in the high seas to the south of Hawaii
(obtained from International Seabed Authority (ISBA))[3], and also carried out ocean floor investigation for cobalt-rich crust in the sea area
more than 200 nautical miles south of Japan, which is out of EEZ, using “Daini-Hakurei Maru,” a specialized vessel for the exploration of deep
sea mineral resources. While the major components of cobalt-rich crust are manganese and iron, the
contents of cobalt and nickel
are also high and platinum is contained in addition, which makes economical values of cobalt-rich crust
very high. In the adjacent waters within 200 nautical miles, manganese crust and hydrothermal ore deposits exist in a
large quantity, but these deposits contain less cobalt and platinum. The area where such marine resources exist sprawls beyond limits of
Japan’s EEZ
Exploitation of the ocean for resources affects every area of the ocean—more
research on the long term consequences is needed
Ramirez-Llodra 11 (Eva, Paul A. Tyler, Maria C. Baker, Odd Aksel Bergstad, Malcolm R. Clark, Elva Escobar, Lisa A. Levin, Lenaick
Menot, Ashley A. Rowden, Craig R. Smith, Cindy L. Van Dover, ” Man and the Last Great Wilderness: Human Impact on the Deep Sea”, PLoS
ONE 6(8): e22588. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0022588,
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0022588#pone.0022588-Smith8)
By the end of the 20th Century, the
deep sea was recognised as the largest environment on Earth containing
numerous sub-habitats, with unique abiotic and biological characteristics and supporting a particularly high
biodiversity [24]. However, the deep sea has remained rather remote from public consciousness and the first exploitations and
anthropogenic activities did not have any major social impact. The deep sea was (and still is) perceived as a service provider
at two levels: (1) it served as a convenient site for disposal of waste, especially where land options were not politically and
“ethically” attractive and (2) it was seen as a source of potential mineral and biological wealth over which there was no
national jurisdiction. In the last decades, decreases in the amount of land-based and coastal resources
combined with rapid technological development has driven increased interest in the exploration and
exploitation of deep-sea goods and services, to advance at a faster pace than the acquisition of scientific knowledge of the
ecosystems [25]–[27]. Evidence of this is found, for example, in the boom and bust cycle of many deep-sea fisheries in the 1970s–1980s [e.g.
28], [29], the disposal of sewage waste in deep water in the 1980s [30] and the dumping of chemical wastes and munitions [25]. Furthermore,
human activities on land have promulgated a third and perhaps more dangerous level of impact: increasing
atmospheric CO2 emissions that have resulted in climate change [31] – including the warming of the ocean,
stratification and the generation and expansion of hypoxia – and ocean acidification [32]. A study by Halpern et al.
[33] indicates that no area in the ocean is completely unaffected by anthropogenic impact and that most
areas (41%) are affected by multiple drivers. Their model shows that coastal ecosystems receive the greatest cumulative
impact, while polar regions and deep waters seem to be the least impacted [33]. Previous studies have reviewed different aspects of
anthropogenic impact in the deep sea [25], [29], [34], [35], but to date little information is available on the direct and long-term effects of
human activities in bathyal and abyssal ecosystems. The
deep-water ecosystem is poorly understood in comparison with
shallow-water and land areas, making environmental management in deep waters difficult. Deep-water ecosystem-based management and
governance urgently need extensive new data and sound interpretation of available data at the regional and global
scale as well as studies directly assessing impact on the faunal communities [27].
Commercialization
Economic incentives lead to the exploitation of the ocean without prior evaluation of
the consequences it has on marine species
Ramirez-Llodra 11 (Eva, Paul A. Tyler, Maria C. Baker, Odd Aksel Bergstad, Malcolm R. Clark, Elva Escobar, Lisa A. Levin, Lenaick
Menot, Ashley A. Rowden, Craig R. Smith, Cindy L. Van Dover, ” Man and the Last Great Wilderness: Human Impact on the Deep Sea”, PLoS
ONE 6(8): e22588. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0022588,
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0022588#pone.0022588-Smith8)
One of the main problems that continue to cause concern is that the fastest movers in the deep sea are those
who wish to use it as a service provider. Lagging behind somewhat are the scientists, managers and
legislators. Impacts can occur quickly because they often arise through economic imperatives, while
understanding by scientists follows a process governed by funding cycles and with slow and long scientific procedures, thereby introducing a
time lag to any response to a perceived threat. Finally, legislators and managers typically act upon concerns raised by evidence (i.e. scientific
understanding) and therefore usually follow after science, with the added issue of slow response governed by bureaucratic and political
practices that can take years. Human
encroachment into the deep sea creates a new conservation imperative.
Effective stewardship of deep-sea resources will simultaneously require continued exploration, basic scientific
research, monitoring and conservation measures. Each of these activities will benefit from application of
basic ecological and conservation theory[293]. As technology offers increasing access to the deep sea, we are provided with
opportunities to conduct experiments, generate time series and explore new settings. Where possible, human impacts and
protected habitats should be studied as experiments within a regulatory context. Conservation in the
deep sea offers challenges in the form of knowledge gaps, climate change uncertainties, shifting jurisdictions and
significant enforcement difficulties. With time, technological advances can help address these challenges. It remains to be seen whether new
approaches must be developed to conserve the biodiversity and ecosystem services we value in the deepest
half of the planet
Exploration for new resources always leads to the development of the ocean to
extract those resources – people want to make money
Zhang et al. 10, Zhang, Haiwen. "Myron H. Nordquist, Tommy T.B. Koh and John Norton Moore (eds.),
Freedom of Seas, Passage Rights and the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention." Ocean Yearbook Online 24.1
(2010): 133-169. ProQuest 5000. Web. 8 July 2014. CS
The ocean is the largest habitat on earth and the biodiversity of the sea is extraordinary with 34 of the 37 phyla of life
represented in the ocean. This may be contrasted with the 17 phyla that occur on land. Thus it is unsurprising that the relentless
quest for new scientific knowledge coupled with the rapid development of new deep-ocean exploration
technology has placed the spotlight on the legal regime governing the conduct of scientific research in the marine
environment. This is particularly the case in relation to scientific activities that entail the collection of
biological and geo-chemical material from the ocean and the subsequent screening of this material for
information and features that may be of value for commercial purposes. These features may include chemical
compounds, genes and their products or, in some instances, the physical properties of the material in
question. This type of research is sometimes referred to as “chemical prospecting”, “pharmaceutical prospecting”, or “genetic prospecting”
in the scientific literature.2 As will be seen below, there is now a tendency to refer to this type of research as simply “bioprospection” or
“biodiscovery”. In recent years much of the debate on this subject has focused on the legal status of marine genetic resources in sea areas
beyond national jurisdiction with particular emphasis on the regime that ought to apply to deep ocean hydrothermal vent sites, cold water
seeps, deep-water corals and seamounts.3 In contrast, there has been little discussion of the legal regime that ought to apply to similar activity
in sea areas under coastal State jurisdiction.4 This is surprising because much
of the material that has yielded valuable
genetic and biochemical information has been taken from the coastal environment. In many instances, access
to this material is unregulated and little reward is derived by the coastal State when commercial
products are developed from marine biodiversity.
Exploration leads to development – This development shows no limits when it comes
to the environment
Zhang et al. 10, Zhang, Haiwen. "Myron H. Nordquist, Tommy T.B. Koh and John Norton Moore (eds.),
Freedom of Seas, Passage Rights and the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention." Ocean Yearbook Online 24.1
(2010): 133-169. ProQuest 5000. Web. 8 July 2014.
Before delving into the legal regime that ought to apply to biodiscovery activities in sea areas under coastal State jurisdiction it may be
appropriate to provide some background information on the rapid development of biodiscovery as a distinctive field of scientific inquiry. One
of the best examples from an early research programme (albeit a terrestrial programme) was the discovery of two
anti-cancer agents (vincristine and vinblastine) in the Madagascar Rosy Periwinkle plant (Catharanthus roseus) by scientists
from the pharmaceutical firm Eli Lilly & Co in the late 1950s.5 These agents became standard medicines in the
treatment of childhood leukemia and Hodgkin’s disease. Similarly, the discovery of the antibiotic
Ertthromycin and the development of the Cyclosporin A anti-rejection drug which was isolated from a
soil fungus sample (Tolypocladium inflatum) collected in the Hardangarvidda National Park in 1969 had a major impact on organ
transplants and is now used in the treatment of AIDS.6 Significantly, at the time that the original samples of the source
material were collected in Madagascar and Norway, neither country had a benefit sharing agreements in
place and thus derived no direct commercial benefit from the discoveries. There were also some
remarkable finds in the marine environment in the 1950s and 1960s.7 An early success was the discovery of the new
compound spongothymidine in a species of marine sponge (Cryptotethia crypta) which grew in coastal waters Florida and
the subsequent development of the Ara–C (cytosine arabinoside) oncology drug from this compound in the 1950s.8 This
drug is still used to treat cancer and there is some support in the scientific that spongothymidine is one of the precursors of all nucleoside
drugs.9 Many of pioneering marine biodiscovery programmes in the United States and elsewhere focused on sea anemones. More recently,
much study has been undertaken on invertebrates, algae and marine microbes. This study is greatly facilitated by automated screening
techniques, new scientific disciplines such as bioinformatics as well as advances in genomic research. In 1982, for example, a methane
producing marine microorganism (Methanococcus jannaschii) was fully sequenced by scientists. Less than half of the organism’s genome
shared similarities to the genomes of previously studied prokaryotes (bacteria) and eukaryotes (fungi, plants and animals), which comprise the
two other major branches of life. This meant that a large proportion of the microbe’s genome was new to science. In 1996, researchers at The
Institute for Genomic Research confirmed that the Archaea represented a third major branch of life on Earth. Today much of the research
focuses on a broad range of macro and micro-organisms including bacteria, archae, fungi, yeasts and viruses. In 2007, the Report of the
Secretary–General of the United Nations on the Oceans and the Law of the Sea noted that proteins and in particular enzymes (biochemical
cataclysts) are prime candidates for biodiscovery. New
marine species are regularly being discovered under
international research programmes such as the Census of Marine Life. These include shrimp and other life forms
living in extreme environments including at hydrothermal vent sites where temperatures have been recorded at 407°C, the hottest
marine temperature ever recorded. Zooplankton have been discovered 5 km below the surface of the Sargossa Sea and a single litre of
common seawater taken from the Atlantic was found to have over 20,000 kinds of bacteria floating in it.10 Many
of these discoveries
have led to the development of new commercial products.11 The range of applications varies
enormously from fibre–optic cables to cosmetic and skin care products. Some of the most exciting developments are in the medical
domain where considerable research has been undertaken by specialist institutes in the United States.12 Much of the research has focused on
the identification of anti–cancer compounds as well as compounds to treat Alzheimer’s disease, asthma, pain, and viral infections. As
mentioned above, many
of the early research programmes were focused on shallow tropical water mainly
because of ease of access. More recently, the focus has shifted towards the exploration of the
continental shelf and the deep–ocean floor where various forms of life live in extreme environments.13
The main characteristic of deep-ocean species is their tolerance to extreme conditions and their very peculiar physiology. Levels of endemism in
the deep-ocean habitats are very high (more than 90 per cent in the case of hydrothermal vent sites). There
appears to be no
general rule regarding which marine organisms are most likely to be the focus of biodiscovery programmes.
However, there is some support for the view that: The majority of marine-derived compounds are obtained from either microorganisms or
stationary organisms such as corals, sponges, and tunicates. Because stationary organisms cannot evade predators through movement, they
rely heavily on chemical defense mechanisms to protect themselves. 14 These mechanisms generate compounds that frequently show
significant bioactivity, or effects on living cells or organisms, such as those which cause human ailments.15 It should
also be borne in
mind that microbes can be collected more quickly and more cost-effectively than larger organisms. Their
removal has little impact on the natural environment and in most instances they can be cultured in large quantities.
However, few countries (other than Japan, The Russian Federation, the USA and France) have the technical expertise to
undertake manned exploration of the deep-ocean with a view to collecting samples from extreme
environments such as hydrothermal vents. Other countries such as Ireland, will be depend on unmanned exploration (ROV) which do not
require such levels of technical expertise. Furthermore as noted by two of the leading experts, “when it comes to investigation of
the samples and then particularly the further development to a drug, there is only one country, the USA,
where the government funds materials through to clinical trials (and then only in the case of cancer and AIDS). In all
other cases, industrial involvement is necessary and, again, only a few groups can go all the way without
involving others.”16 One final point that is relevant in this context is that product development entails very high costs over an attenuated
period. In the case of new drugs this may be up to USD 1.7 billion and it may take up to 15 years to produce results.17 Furthermore, only 1
to 2 per cent of preclinical candidates actually reach the market place.18 Neither is it possible to be
definitive on how long it will take to make the initial discovery because the testing of old samples with
new technology sometimes demonstrates scientific potential that was not evident when the sample was
initially screened for activity.19 Unsurprisingly, the advent of metagenomic libraries, genome shotgun sequencing, as well as rapid
advances in deepocean exploration technology have all accelerated the discovery process. Accordingly, technical expertise, industry lead
partnerships, cost, and the long lead-in-time before commercialisation are important factors to be taken into consideration in establishing an
appropriate governance programme.
Any exploration or research done in the environment leads to commercial
development
Zhang et al. 10, Zhang, Haiwen. "Myron H. Nordquist, Tommy T.B. Koh and John Norton Moore (eds.),
Freedom of Seas, Passage Rights and the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention." Ocean Yearbook Online 24.1
(2010): 133-169. ProQuest 5000. Web. 8 July 2014.
One of the first problems for the lawyers is that there is no universal definition of the terms “biodiscovery” “or “bioprospection” in international or European law.
Neither term is mentioned in the 1982 LOS Convention or in the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity. This omission is compounded by the tendency of scientists
and lawyers to use the terms interchangeably. Accordingly, both terms merit further consideration here. The
term “biodiscovery” is a hybrid
term and is a combination of the words “biological” and “discovery”. The term is used in the domestic law on a number of
States which have specific legislation aimed at controlling the use of biodiversity for the purpose of commercial
research.20 A notable example is the Biodiscovery Act 2004 of Queensland, Australia, which defines “biodiscovery” to mean: “biodiscovery
research; or the commercialisation of native biological material or a product of biodiscovery research”.21
“Biodiscovery research” in turn is defined in the same Act to mean “the analysis of molecular, biochemical or genetic information about
native biological material for the purpose of commercialising the material”.22 One key component in this definition is that
“native biological resource” is limited in scope to “non human living organism or virus indigenous to Australia and sourced from State land or Queensland waters; or
a living or non-living sample of the organism or virus.”23 In other words, the application of the legislation is limited to resources that are only found in Australia.
The term ‘commercialisation” of native biological material is defined in the Act as using the material or property in
any way for gain”.24 The terni does not include using the material to obtain financial assistance from a State or the Commonwealth, including, for
example, a govermnent grant (for research purposes) 2S Similar to the word “biodiscovery”. the term ‘bioprospecting” is a combination of the two words biological”
and ‘prospecting”. The term appears in the domestic law of several States that have enacted legislation to implement the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity. A
good example is the law in the Philippines which defines “bioprospecting or prospecting” to mean “the research, collection and utilization of biological and genetic
resources for the purposes of applying the knowledge derived therefrom for scientific and/or conuuercial purposes”.27 Similarly, there are many references to the
terni ‘bioprospecting” in the specialist literature on genetic resources. In 2003, for example, the Subsidiary Body on ScientifIc, Technical and Technological Advice of
CBD defined “bioprospecting” to mean “the
exploration of biodiversity for commercially valuable genetic and
biochemical resources” and as “the process of gathering information from the biosphere on the molecular
composition of genetic resources for the development of new commercial products”.28 We can make a number of very general points
about these definitions: Firstly, “marine biodiscovery” refers to the examination of marine biological resources (e.g.
plants, animals, micro-organisms) for features that may be of value for commercial development.29 These features may include
chemical compounds, genes and their products or, in some cases, the physical properties of the material in question.30 Secondly, the precise range of
activities covered by biodiscovery may be wide-ranging and extend from the initial sampling of organisms in the
marine environment to its subsequent investigation in the laboratory.31 The initial phase of research is more often than not
undertaken at sea by scientists embarked on research vessels that may be deployed in sea areas under foreign state jurisdiction or in areas beyond national
jurisdiction. In other cases it may involve the initial harvesting of organisms from the marine environment and their culture in the laboratory for the purpose of
further investigation or for commercial production.32 Thirdly. the means of collection may vary and include the collection of samples by means of a submersible.33
Marine biodiscovery may be the focus of a particular research progranune which aims to obtain a particular organism for analysis or it may be more exploratory and
involve the screening of a wide range of organisms for unusual features or properties. In some instances, organisms may be sought exclusively for their genetic
information and in other cases they may be sought for a biochemical or molecular process that has a conunercial application. Fourthly, many contemporary
definitions of biodiscoveiy place emphasis on the search of biodiversity for valuable genetic and biochemical information found in wild plants, animals and micro
organisms (emphasis added).35 Accordingly it is the information that is important and not the source material per se. Fifthly. a
principal attribute of
biodiscovery is the commercialisation of the research or the intellectual property derived from the
research. This characteristic is emphasized in a number of authoritative reports on the subject of marine genetic resources.36 Essentially,
commercialization entails converting the results of research projects into marketable products or
services. In nearly all instances this takes place long after the original source material was acquired or after the material has been stored in a culture collection
or reference library. Moreover, many scientific breakthroughs are serendipitous and have not come about as a result of targeted research programmes. However
with advances in biotechnology, genomics, bioinformatics, as well as other scientific disciplines, biodiscovery
is now ensuring that the
commercialisation of marine products is happening more rapidly. Commercialisation has important legal consequences as it
clearly distinguishes biodiscovery from the more traditional forms of marine scientific research (examined below) such as taxonomy which is the systematic
identification and classification of living organisms according to their genetic and morphological characteristics. On this point, it is important to keep in mind that
there is a fundamental link between biodiscovery and taxonomy as the former is very much dependent on the reliable classification of marine living organisms in
the first instance. Indeed, one impediment to the successful implementation of biodiscovery programmes at an international level is the shortage of suitably
qualified taxonomists capable of correctly identifying and classifying marine organisms for research purposes.37 Moreover, one of the direct benefits of
biodiscovery is the enhancement of knowledge about marine biodiversity generally and about marine organisms in particular. Sixthly, it is clear from the specialist
literature that there is no consensus on the precise meaning of the terms “ biodiscovery “or “bioprospection”. On the one hand, they may
be
understood as describing the entire research and development process from sample extraction in the marine
environment through to the full scale commercialisation and marketing of a new product or process .38 One
expert, on the other hand, has made the interesting distinction that the phase of initial research and gathering of information could be referred to as
“biodiscovery”, while the term “bioprospecting” could cover the subsequent phases of collection of the resources for purposes of further investigation and eventual
commercial application.39 Irrespective of whether one accepts this distinction or not, it is clearly evident that both terms embrace a very broad range of disciplines
including ecology, biology, biochemistry, organic chemistry and pharmacology, as well as the subsequent commercial process of taking the new product or process
to the market place.
Seismic Surveys
Seismic surveys hurt whale breeding, Brazil shows loss of BioD
NRDC 10 (Natural Resources Defense Council May 2010 “Boom, Baby, Boom: The Environmental Impacts of Seismic Surveys”
http://www.nrdc.org/oceans/files/seismic.pdf NRDC is the nation's most effective environmental action group, combining the grassroots power
of 1.4 million members and online activists with the courtroom clout and expertise of more than 350 lawyers, scientists and other
professionals.)
The impacts
of seismic surveys are felt on an extraordinarily wide geographic scale. For example, a single
seismic survey can cause endangered fin and humpback whales to stop vocalizing—a behavior essential to
breeding and foraging—over an area at least 100,000 square nautical miles in size.6,7 The few animals that
persist in calling seem to abandon the entire area, which is larger than the state of New Mexico. Seismic surveys can also drown
out mating and other calls of endangered whales over enormous distances. Beyond several miles, the periodic
blasts of airguns can sound virtually continuous, making it impossible for species that use low frequency sound— like the endangered great
whales—to communicate, feed, and find mates.8,9 Alarmingly,
one of the species most vulnerable to these impacts,
according to the latest research from NOAA and Cornell, is the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale, whose
only known calving grounds occur off Florida and Georgia.10,11 Given the scales involved, surveys taking place
off the coast of Virginia could well affect endangered species off southern New England, and right
whales could be disrupted throughout their east-coast migratory range. Airguns have also been shown to affect a
broad range of other marine mammal species beyond the endangered great whales. For example, sperm whale foraging appears to decline
significantly on exposure to even moderate levels of airgun noise;12 and harbor porpoises have been seen to engage in strong avoidance
responses fifty miles from an array.13 Seismic surveys have
been implicated in the long-term loss of marine
mammal biodiversity off the coast of Brazil.14
Exploration techniques include seismic refraction
TSUJINO ’07 (Teruhisa, Presently engaged in the survey of trends in space technology and marine technology in Monodzukuri
(Manufacturing) Technology, Infrastructure, and Frontier Research Unit, Exploration Technologies for the Utilization of Ocean Floor Resources
— Contribution to the Investigation for the Delineation of Continental Shelf —,
http://www.nistep.go.jp/achiev/ftx/eng/stfc/stt024e/qr24pdf/STTqr2405.pdf, accessed: 7/8/14 GA)
Seismic refraction survey” is an exploration method to estimate the crustal structure under seabed in which receivers
such as ocean bottom seismometers are placed at appropriate intervals along the traverse line, and
seismic waves are transmitted to the ocean crust from an artificial earthquake generator, such as an air
gun towed by the survey vessel, and the crustal structures are estimated from the time intervals for the seismic waves to reach the
receivers. Sometimes in the survey of continental shelf, the traverse line exceeds 500 km, and more than 100 ocean bottom
seismometers are used for the survey. Figure 4 shows a schematic diagram of such an exploration. This method is effective for
the exploration of the base structure of thick crust. After the survey is finished, the ocean bottom seismometers are efficiently recovered by a
function such as automatic surfacing mechanism activated by sound signals from the survey vessel.
Seismic refraction harms marine life, disrupts hunting and kills smaller animals, also,
this means that there are alt causes to fish dying
Prendergast ’14 (Laura, environmentalist, Seismic Air Guns for Oil Exploration: Impact on Marine Life, Liberty Voice,
http://guardianlv.com/2014/03/seismic-air-guns-for-oil-exploration-impact-on-marine-life/, accessed: 7/8/14 GA)
On Thursday, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management released an Environmental Impact Survey, three years in preparation, assessing a
proposed project to use seismic air guns for exploring the offshore oil and gas resources beneath the U.S. Atlantic outer continental shelf range,
and proposing mitigation measures to diminish the impact on marine life. The energy industry says potentially vast reserves lie in the depths of
the Atlantic, but they claim these could be uncovered only by seismic surveys, performed by
towing seismic air guns blasting
extremely loud sounds down to the seabed to detect the size and location of hydrocarbon deposits. Environmental groups say
the use of this technology will have a devastating effect on marine wildlife, especially threatening to
populations of right whales, with humpback whales, dolphins, and loggerhead turtles being impacted as
well. Obviously an issue like this is extremely contentious, with emotions running high on both sides of the question, pitting as it does, the
vast financial reserves of the fossil fuel industry against animal rights activists and environmentalists. People who are ambivalent about this
technology may be wondering how to realistically get an answer from a whale about the damage caused by the seismic air guns. Without
knowing anything about oceanography, or cetacean behavior, the average newsreader is left to form an opinion on the basis of gut feelings.
Gut feelings, however, are not the most solid evidence on which to base policy. So here are some questions that one might pose, in order to
gain a better understanding. First, exactly how loud are seismic air guns really? The
air guns produce a sound measured at 190
dB. For comparison, the sound of a motorcycle shredding the air down your block comes in at 100dB. A
jet engine lets off 140dB of noise. It should be noted that loudness is measured on a logarithmic scale;
each 10 dB increase is a ten-fold increase in power. Thus, the air guns are a staggering one billion times
louder than that irritating motorcycle. Furthermore, because the sounds generated by the seismic air guns
propagate through marine water, the sound is approximately 63 dB louder than a sound with the same
intensity in air. That means six more zeros need to be appended to that billion, turning it into an
unimaginably loud quadrillion times louder than the motorcycle. Now imagine that a noise that
unpleasant is being repeated every 12 to 16 seconds, for up to 24 hours at a time, for weeks or months.
Who would be a whale? Two, how does oceanic noise pollution affect marine life, and how large an area is affected? Because a numerical
analysis cannot quite convey the subjective experience of being anywhere near something that loud, one needs to turn to available published
reports on how this technology will affect marine life. According
to the National Resource Defense Council, ongoing
research indicates that noise pollution in the ocean negatively impacts at least 55 marine species,
including several endangered whale species and 20 species of commercially valuable fish. Whales and
dolphins rely on their hearing to find food, communicate, and reproduce, thus being able to hear
critically affects their survival. The use of seismic air guns has been shown to affect animals in an area of
more than 100,000 square nautical miles. For an understanding of how huge this is, if 100,000 square nautical miles were
centered over Washington DC, it would extend from the northern edge of New Jersey to the middle of North Carolina, covering two thirds of
Pennsylvania, all of Maryland, and a large chunk of Virginia. Exactly which species are threatened and in what way? Marine life is far too diverse
and complex to make a realistic assessment of all the possible ramifications of the use of the air guns. However, research from NOAA and
Cornell, indicates that one of the most vulnerable is the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale – of which only 400-500 individuals
survive – whose calving grounds off Florida and Georgia would be directly impacted by the proposed survey. Airguns
have also been
shown to affect a broad range of other marine mammal species including sperm whales, whose foraging
appears to decline significantly on exposure to even moderate levels of airgun noise. Harbor porpoises have
been observed engaging in strong avoidance responses as far as fifty miles from a seismic array. Seismic surveys have also been found at fault
for long-term loss of marine mammal biodiversity off the coast of Brazil. Seismic air
guns kill larvae and fish eggs and cause
declines of 40 to 80 percent in the catch rates of haddock and cod areas up to thousands of miles away.
Beyond the environmental considerations and the effects on marine mammals, the decline in catch rates of commercial fish has a strongly
negative economic impact; fishermen in some parts of the world have begun to seek industry compensation for their losses. And finally, despite
all the already available information on the impact of oceanic noise pollution, not all the facts are in yet. The National Marine Fisheries Service
(NMFS), a division of NOAA, is completing a 15-year research program gathering information on how marine mammals are disturbed and
damaged by sound. Last week, a group of more than 100 scientists wrote to Obama urging him not to finalize the Environmental Impact Study
until the latest marine mammal acoustic guidance is available. So, who is on the other side of this issue? Well, the oil industry, primarily. That,
and a number of Southern governors, who say offshore drilling could bring new jobs to their states. Nine companies have applied for permits to
use the seismic air guns to determine how much fossil fuel lies beneath the water off the Atlantic coast from the mouth of Delaware Bay to just
south of Cape Canaveral, Florida. Worse yet, an estimate of the undiscovered oil and gas resources beneath the U.S. Atlantic outer continental
shelf range already exists. Government estimates put the possible stores at 1.3 to 5.58 billion barrels. But energy industry officials want to
undertake a new study using the seismic air guns, claiming that the last energy exploration of the offshore Atlantic which occurred in 1988, was
performed with equipment that is now outdated. According to Erik Milito, director of upstream and industry operations for the American
Petroleum Institute (API), drilling in the Atlantic could add “1.3 million barrels equivalent per day to domestic energy production…” BOEM
Director Tommy Beaudreau indicated a commitment to balancing the need for information on offshore energy resources with the protection of
the human and marine environment. The EIS estimated “minor to negligible” impact to most wildlife, with a “moderate” impact on marine
mammals and turtles. The review estimates approximately 138,000 marine animals could be injured, and the feeding, migratory, and other
behavioral patterns of 13.6 million other marine animals would be disrupted by the seismic surveys. In the
final analysis, these surveys are undertaken for the purpose of perpetuating dangerous and dirty offshore drilling, incurring possible habitat
destruction, oil spills and contribution to climate change and ocean acidification. Exploration of the BOEM website shows that this organization
is very committed to clean and renewable energy production, such as the “Smart from the Start” program to speed development offshore wind
energy development off the Atlantic Coast. Other programs include development of wind, wave, current, and solar energy; and alternative uses
for offshore oil and gas platforms such as research, education, recreation and offshore aquaculture. All of which, going with a gut feeling, will
probably be much cleaner, healthier, and ultimately more economically sound, than dragging out the protracted demise of the fossil fuel
industry by insisting on the use of seismic air guns to perform noisy, environmentally dangerous, and possibly unnecessary surveys.
Air Gun Surveys
Surveys are detrimental to fisheries
NRDC 10 (Natural Resources Defense Council May 2010 “Boom, Baby, Boom: The Environmental Impacts of Seismic Surveys”
http://www.nrdc.org/oceans/files/seismic.pdf NRDC is the nation's most effective environmental action group, combining the grassroots power
of 1.4 million members and online activists with the courtroom clout and expertise of more than 350 lawyers, scientists and other
professionals.)
Airgun surveys
also have serious consequences for the health of fisheries. For example, airguns have been
shown to dramatically depress catch rates of various commercial species (by 40 to 80 percent) over
thousands of square kilometers around a single array,15,16 leading fishermen in some parts of the world to seek
industry compensation for their losses. These compensations are already occurring in Norway. Other impacts on
commercially harvested fish include habitat abandonment— one possible explanation for the fallen catch rates—
reduced reproductive performance, and hearing loss;17-19 and recent data suggest that loud, lowfrequency sound also disrupts chorusing in black drum fish, a behavior essential to breeding in this
commercial species.20
Offshore Wind
Coastal Ecosystems
Off shore wind is detrimental to coastal ecosystems
Gill ’05 (Andrew B. Gill, 8 AUG 2005, Offshore renewable energy: ecological implications of generating
electricity in the coastal zone, Journal of Applied Ecology)
existing coastal ecological status Major changes to coastal ecosystems are attributable to human activities.
Pressure from fisheries has dramatically reduced biomass, changed diversity, altered local trophic and
community structure, and degraded habitat (Blaber et al. 2000; Pauly et al. 2002). Large-scale oil and gas
operations have been implicated in the perturbation of the coastal environment (Holdway 2002), and other
industrial processes have led to bioaccumulation of contaminants (Matthiessen & Law 2002), abnormal
development of invertebrates (Fichet, Radenac & Miramand 1998), endocrine disruption (Tyler, Jobling & Sumpter 1998),
nutrient enrichment, toxic algal blooms and deoxygenation (Carpenter et al. 1998). A variety of terrestrial land
uses and near-shore activities (Mason 2002; Matthiessen & Law 2002) have led to local habitat loss and
disturbance, changes to nutrient status and cycling, loss of food supplies, erosion, reduced sediment
supply, changes in the level of sea inundation and increased exposure to natural disturbances (McLusky,
Bryant & Elliott 1992; Schekkerman, Meininger & Meire 1994; Rogers & McCarty 2000). Offshore renewable energy developments (ORED) will
also impact on coastal ecosystems because single developments have ecological footprints extending over several square kilometres of nearshore waters. Larger ORED (with individual footprints approximately 20–50 km2 or greater), located adjacent to each other, are planned for the
future. Such developments will require proper consideration of any potential impact on the ecosystem at appropriate spatial and temporal
scales. However, our current understanding of the effects of human activity on the coastal environment is limited and piecemeal (Mann 2000).
It was the aim of this study to provide an integrated review of the potential ecological implications of offshore renewable energy generation in
the coastal environment at different scales.
Construction of offshore wind turbines destroys surrounding ecosystems
Gill ’05 (Andrew B. Gill, 8 AUG 2005, Offshore renewable energy: ecological implications of generating
electricity in the coastal zone, Journal of Applied Ecology)
current scientific knowledge relating to renewable energy The general growth of interest in renewable energy is well
illustrated by the significant increase in the number of published scientific articles over the last 10 years
(Fig. 1). However, only 7·6% of these articles related to environmental impacts, whether positive or
negative, and just 4·0% have specifically considered the ecological implications of harnessing any
renewable energy source. More importantly, less than 1% of the articles considered the potential
environmental risks of renewable energy exploitation and none was specifically related to coastal
ecology. Ecological factors are not being considered properly and are underrepresented in any
discussion of the costs and benefits of adopting offshore renewable energy sources. image Figure 1. The number
of peer-reviewed articles with the term renewable energy (or derivative terms) published between 1981 and 2003. Web of Science data from
the expanded Science Citation Index, Social Science Citation Index and the Arts and Humanities Citation Index. Offshore renewable energy
developments direct effects on coastal environment ORED currently encompass wind, wave, tidal and current power, with offshore wind power
being the most actively pursued (Byrne & Houlsby 2003). All ORED convert a renewable energy source into electricity via energy-generation
devices (e.g. turbines and hydrofoils). To
convert sufficient energy to be economically viable requires a large
expanse of seabed for the device foundations and related structures to fix the devices in place. Different
degrees of physical disturbance will occur during the three phases of the life of an ORED: 1,
construction; 2, routine operation; 3, decommissioning. It is generally assumed that the direct effects of
decommissioning a site will be similar to those associated with construction. Two further specific considerations
are the type and extent of seabed covered by the development, and the extent of cabling. These aspects are summarized in Fig. 2. image Figure
2. Renewable energy developments and ecologically relevant interactions (refer to text for details). During
construction and
decommissioning the seabed will be disturbed by work on the foundations for the energy conversion
devices and any associated substations and the underwater power cables between devices and the main
connection to shore. Removal of sediments will lead to direct loss of habitats and there will be an
increase in local water turbidity arising from suspended solids. Resuspended sediments will be transported by prevailing
water movement during construction, which may also mobilize any contaminants within the sediments. Mobilized sediments may smother the
neighbouring habitats of sedentary species. For ORED using current or tidal energy, the effects of suspended sediment may extend
downstream. Resuspension of sediments
high in organic matter, such as in estuaries and tidal reaches of
rivers, will probably temporarily reduce available oxygen because of an increased biochemical oxygen
demand. No published studies have assessed the ecological implications of ORED construction, so
evidence from benthic habitats that have been fished or subjected to marine dredging is used to discuss
possible consequences (Fig. 2). Species assemblages within sediments exhibit natural variation spatially and through time as a result of
biotic interactions and environmental disturbance. Nevertheless, fishing- and dredging-related disturbance have been shown to alter local
species diversity and population density (Blyth et al. 2004). The magnitude of the effects on the benthic community and the length of time that
they are apparent depend on the duration and intensity of the disturbance (Van Dalfsen et al. 2000) and the resilience of the local infauna
(Drabsch, Tanner & Connell 2001). Areas that suffer least from natural disturbance are affected by fishing activity to a greater extent (Kaiser &
Spencer 1996). After fishing or dredging has ceased, recolonization takes from months to years (Harvey, Gauthier & Munro 1998; Bradshaw et
al. 2000). Small opportunistic species, such as polychaetes and amphipods, are the quickest to colonize after physical disturbance, while
epifaunal species assemblages are likely to take longer (Harvey, Gauthier & Munro 1998; Newell et al. 2004). Change may be rapid with soft
substrata, and new habitat can be created if the conditions are suitable. On coarse and more stable substrata, change is likely to be slower
(Kaiser & Spencer 1996). A conceptual model proposed by Jennings, Kaiser & Reynolds (2001) suggests that as sedimentary habitats become
more stable, so the effects of fishing disturbance are more extreme and longer lasting. This applies both to the structure and composition of
the benthic assemblage and the topography and physical structure of the sediment. Evidence from fishing shows that the level of disturbance
can also affect composition of the community at local and regional scales (Hall 1994), and removal of ecological engineering species can have
devastating consequences for local biodiversity and ecosystem processes (Coleman & Williams 2002). Assuming fishing- and dredging-related
disturbance to be analogous to construction and decommissioning of an ORED, a local loss of sedentary infauna and reef builders would be
expected, while non-sedentary marine benthos would be displaced. Ecologically
it is important to understand the
susceptibility of species and their resilience to the effects of ORED construction/decommissioning and
the processes determining community recovery after the disturbance. Implicit in this understanding is knowledge of
the stability of the substrata on which the ORED is constructed. A major difference between ORED and other human
impacts in near-shore waters is the extensive subsurface structures present following construction.
These structures may affect local water movements, which are fundamental to some aquatic species
(Montgomery et al. 2000) and also determine the transportation and deposition of sediments. Although the effects of
decommissioning an ORED are assumed to be the same as those associated with its construction, the
one obvious difference is the removal of the existing undersea structures. Removal of long-established
ORED will immediately reduce habitat heterogeneity and take out a large component of the benthic
community. Indirect effects, such as changes to local food web interactions and habitat availability, may
also occur, similar to those associated with fishing (Kaiser & Jennings 2002). This will depend on species and community
susceptibility and resilience to the changes.
Noise
Noise vibrations from offshore wind turbines disturbs the surrounding wildlife
Gill ’05 (Andrew B. Gill, 8 AUG 2005, Offshore renewable energy: ecological implications of generating
electricity in the coastal zone, Journal of Applied Ecology)
Noise Foundation construction and cable laying have been shown to produce noise up to 260 dB re: 1
µPa and 178 dB re: 1 µPa, respectively (Nedwell, Langworthy & Howell 2004). These significant sources
of noise could cause damage to the acoustic systems of species within 100 m of the source, and are
expected to cause mobile organisms to avoid the area (Nedwell, Langworthy & Howell 2004). Any
effects of the noise will depend on the sensitivity of the species present and their ability to habituate to
the noise, and will reduce when the level of noise has decreased following completion of the
construction (or decommissioning) phase. The potential disturbances to birds and people from noise
and vibrations generated by the operation of the wind turbines are also considered important in ORED
environmental impact assessments. Current opinion is that by being located offshore the noise will be
less detectable by humans. However, any effects of ORED operational noise on birds have not yet been
investigated, although noise from human activity on land has been shown to reduce the local abundance
of birds (Forman & Deblinger 2000; Fernandez-Juricic 2001). Breeding seabirds are known to be
disturbed by human recreational activity (Dunnet et al. 1990; Beale & Monaghan 2004) and underwater
noise has been used to reduce predation pressure on molluscs by waterfowl (Ross, Lien & Furness
2001). Underwater, where a large number of species from very different taxa interact acoustically (e.g.
cetaceans, pinnipeds, teleosts and crustaceans; Bradbury & Veherencamp 1998), the potential for
disturbance from long-term ORED operation is high. Sound is used for communication (Lugli, Yan & Fine
2003), finding prey, echolocation (particularly by marine mammals; Tyack & Clark 2000), locating
recruitment sites in fish (Simpson et al. 2004), finding potential mates and avoiding predators (Popper &
Fay 1993). Fish have shown startle and alarm responses when encountering a loud noise (e.g. > 150 dB
re: 1 µPa; Blaxter, Gray & Denton 1981; Pearson, Skalski & Malme 1992). More recent studies have
demonstrated a link between underwater noise and changes to the auditory threshold of some species
of freshwater fish (0·3–2·0 kHz, 142 dB re: 1 µPa; Scholik & Yan 2002). However, this is not the case for
all species, as some freshwater fish have evolved a strategy using different parts of the sound spectrum
for communication (around 0·1 kHz, 85–110 dB re: 1 µPa), effectively adapting to local ambient noise
(Lugli, Yan & Fine 2003). Research on the effects of anthropogenic noise in the coastal environment is
limited (Popper et al. 2003) but studies suggest that marine species are exposed to noises from a variety
of sources (Harwood & Wilson 2001). Research on existing offshore wind farms along Baltic Sea coasts
(Hoffman et al. 2000; Fristedt, Moren & Soderberg 2001) has shown that the acoustic environment is
added to by the operation of the wind turbines (0·001–0·4 kHz, 80–110 dB re: 1 µPa), and the level of
acoustic disturbance is likely to be a function of the number of turbines and their operating procedure
and timing at lower frequencies. Clearly it is important to establish whether the type, frequency and
intensity of sounds associated with ORED will have any implications (such as reaction or habituation) for
the species that inhabit or migrate through the coastal environment. Analysis of the spatial and
temporal behavioural of sensitive species in concert with measurements of the acoustic environment is
required.
Specifically, bottlenose and mink dolphins experienced behavioral disturbances from
the construction of offshore wind farms—measures have to be taken to mitigate the
noise disturbances
Bailey 10 (Helen, Bridget Senior, Dave Simmons, Jan Rusin, Gordon Picken, Paul M. Thompson, “Assessing underwater noise levels during
pile-driving at an offshore windfarm and its potential effects on marine mammals”, Marine Pollution Bulletin Volume 60, Issue 6, June 2010.
Pages 888—897, http://abdn.ac.uk/lighthouse/documents/Bailey_Assessing_underwater_2010_MPB.pdf)
As the marine renewables industry develops, our understanding of the noise produced and potential
effects on marine species must be improved so that appropriate mitigation procedures can be developed.
We measured noise levels produced during pile-driving for two wind turbines and showed that it was
detectable above background underwater noise levels for a distance of 70 km. It is possible this sound could
have been audible to marine mammals over that entire range. Bottlenose dolphins and minke whales
(and other mid- and low-frequency hearing cetaceans) may exhibit behavioral disturbance up to 50 km away. This would
include parts of the Moray Firth SAC. The measurements of piling noise indicate that any zones of auditory injury (PTS) and TTS were likely to
have been within a range of 100 m of the pile-driving operation, and such impacts should have been prevented by the use of MMOs, who were
there to ensure that there were no marine mammals within 1 km of the pile-driving
Voltage
High voltage currents produced by wind turbines creates unsafe habitats
Gill ’05 (Andrew B. Gill, 8 AUG 2005, Offshore renewable energy: ecological implications of generating
electricity in the coastal zone, Journal of Applied Ecology)
Electromagnetic fields The high voltage alternating current (AC) and direct current (DC) cables that transmit
power between devices and the mainland have the potential to interact with aquatic animals that are
sensitive to electric (E) and magnetic (B) fields. This affects mainly fish, particularly the elasmobranchs,
and marine mammals that use the Earth's magnetic field to navigate. In addition, some species utilize E
fields behaviourally. Industry standard AC cables effectively shield against direct E field emissions but cannot completely shield the
magnetic component. The configuration of the cables and the leakage of B fields results in induced E fields adjacent to the cable independent of
burial, as a result of magnetic properties (CMACS 2003). The EM field emissions are tiny from a human perspective (Fristedt, Moren &
Soderberg 2001) but they come within the range of bioelectrical emissions utilized by electrosensitive species. EM fields relating to ORED with
DC cables have yet to be determined, but the focus is likely to be on the current transmitted between sea electrodes (Walker 2001). If the
induced E fields emanating from submarine cables can be detected by electrosensitive species, then at levels that approximate the bioelectric
fields of natural prey there is potential for these species to be attracted to them. Whether such species will be attracted or repelled by stronger
fields is unknown at present, but will be dependent on them passing close to the E fields (Kalmijn 1982). Elasmobranchs are attracted to DC
fields in the range 0·005–1 µV cm−1 and avoid DC fields of approximately 10 µV cm−1 or greater (Kalmijn 1982). There is little research to date
on the effects of AC E fields (Kalmijn 1988) and only physiological studies of the frequency of emission detectable by electrosensitive fish
(Bodznick & Boord 1986; Tricas & New 1998). Such studies suggest that low-frequency AC emissions in the environment are more likely to be
detected (Kalmijn 1988). Electrosensitive
species may be attracted or repelled by the E fields, potentially
resulting in congregation or dispersal depending on the extent of the electrical environment where
multiple cable arrays exist. Therefore, research into the effects of ORED-related E fields on sensitive
species, particularly benthic ones, is required, especially when assessing the ORED environmental
impact at important local feeding or breeding grounds or nursery areas. Magnetosensitive species occur in coastal
waters world-wide (e.g. migratory fish, elasmobranchs, mammals, chelonians and crustaceans) and these species are thought to be sensitive to
the Earth's magnetic fields (Wiltschko & Wiltschko 1995). Whether there is any link between these organisms and the magnetic fields
associated with an ORED is again unknown. A B field equal to that of the Earth's magnetic field (approximately 50 µT) can be detected from DC
electricity cables in the Baltic Sea at a distance of 6 m (Walker 2001). Such a field can affect a ship's compass and has the potential to interact
with the navigation and orientation of any animal relying on the Earth's magnetic field. Any
effect may be transient as the
organism moves through the area (possibly a confusion effect). Alternatively, magnetosensitive species
may be attracted to or may actively avoid the area. The only published study to date on this subject suggested that the eel
Anguilla anguilla could detect B fields emitted by DC cables but only a small proportion of these fish actively responded to them (Westerberg
1999).
Pile-Driving
The construction of offshore wind farms requires pile-driving which adversely impacts
the behavior and hearing of marine and mammal species
Bailey 10 (Helen, Bridget Senior, Dave Simmons, Jan Rusin, Gordon Picken, Paul M. Thompson, “Assessing underwater noise levels during
pile-driving at an offshore windfarm and its potential effects on marine mammals”, Marine Pollution Bulletin Volume 60, Issue 6, June 2010.
Pages 888—897, http://abdn.ac.uk/lighthouse/documents/Bailey_Assessing_underwater_2010_MPB.pdf)
Exposure to anthropogenic noise can cause detrimental effects to both humans and wildlife (Reijnen et al..
1996: öhrstrÖm et al.. 2006). Many aquatic species are capable of generating and detecting sound. for example
crustaceans, fish and marine mammals (e.g. Au et al.. 1974: Popper et al.. 2004: Henninger and Wat on. 2005).
Anthropogenic noise may consequently pose a serious threat within the marine environment (Parsons et al.,
2008) and this should be considered in environmental impact assessments (Croll et al.. 2001). These assessments
typically involve predicting source levels (sound level measured or estimated in from the noise source) and using generic models to estimate
transmission loss (reduction in sound level with distance). Received levels, and the
potential effects of these on marine species,
can then be estimated. Although such assessments are now made regularly, the actual underwater noise levels produced are rarely
measured (Southall et al., 2007). Furthermore, little is known about the accuracy of different sound propagation models, particularly at longer
ranges from source and in shallow coastal waters. In
the marine environment, seismic surveys and pile-driving produce
some of the most intense anthropogenic noises (Richardson et al., 1995: Gordon et aL, 2003). Over the last decade there
has been a growing interest in marine renewable energy production, resulting especially in the rapid
development of offshore wind power (Gaudiosi. 1999; Gill. 2005). Construction of these fixed structures generally
involves pile-driving, which has raised concerns about the resulting environmental impact of high sound
levels on species such as fish and marine mammals (Madsen et al., 2006; Wilhelmsson et aL, 2006). The area over which
anthropogenic noise may adversely impact marine species depends upon how well the sound propagates underwater, its frequency
characteristics and duration. Information on received levels and spectral content at different distances from source can be compared with
hearing thresholds of species of interest and local ambient noise levels. Together, these data can be used to determine the likelihood that
species will be impacted at different distances from the source. Sound
propagation within the deep ocean has been
reasonably well documented, but is more complicated in shallow water environments (<200m deep) (Urick. 1983).
Variability in depth, sediment type, temperature and salinity, as well as repeated reflections off the surface and bottom, make sound
transmission difficult to model (Marsh and Schulkin, 1962). Similarly, there is little information on background noise levels in shallow water
(Nedwell et al.. 2003). Since
the majority of human activities occur within the coastal zone, the limited
empirical data from these areas currently constrains efforts to predict and mitigate the impacts of
construction noise on coastal wildlife populations. Several reviews (e.g. Richardson et al.. 1995: Gordon et aL 2003; Madsen
et al., 2006) have identified the need for more comprehensive measurements of anthropogenic sound
sources that have a reasonable likelihood of causing injury, or adversely affecting marine mammals’ hearing or
behavior. We therefore made empirical measurements of pile-driving noise levels during the installation of two offshore wind turbines close
to a Special Area of Conservation (SAC) designated to protect a population of bottle- nose dolphins. We consequently aimed w determine: (1)
accurate estimates of received levels at a range of distances from the source. (2) the validity of the propagation model and predicted received
levels in the environmental assessment. (3) the potential impacts on marine mammals based on noise exposure criteria and in comparison with
local background noise measurements.
Birds
Offshore wind farms kill over 400 birds in only a year’s time
HÜPPOP 6 (OMMO, JOCHEN DIERSCHKE, KLAUS-MICHAEL EXO, ELVIRA FREDRICH, REINHOLD HILL, “Bird migration studies and potential
collision risk with offshore wind turbines”, Ibis Special Issue Wind. Fire and Water: Renewable Energy and Birds Volume 148. Issue Supplement
s1 pages 90—109, March 2006, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1474-919X.2006.00536.x/full)
The platform FINO 1, brightly lit at night, has witnessed numerous collisions. A total of 442 birds of 21 species
were found dead at FINO 1 between October 2003 and December 2004. Nearly all were in good physical
condition, which excludes starvation as a cause of death. Only six of 322 examined birds had a fat-score of 0
(according to Bairlein 1994) and may thus have died naturally, but three of these were found also to have broken
legs. The examination showed that 245 individuals (76.1%) had outwardly apparent injuries, the most
common of which were bleeding at the bill (41.3%), contusions on the skull and broken legs (16.8%). We cannot
exclude that the remaining quarter died from exhaustion caused by flying around the platform (for such
examples see Hope Jones 1980). Over 50% of the strikes occurred in just two nights (1 October 2003 and 29 October 2004)
involving 86 and 196 birds in total, respectively. Both nights were characterized by periods of very poor
visibility with mist or drizzle and presumably increased attraction of the illuminated research platform. In the second of
these nights the thermal imaging camera revealed that many birds flew obviously disorientated around the illuminated platform (in the first
night the camera was not yet in operation).
Invasive Species
Offshore wind structures provide an artificial habitat for non-native species to live
in—this destroys local ecosystems and alters hydrodynamic patterns
Wilhelmsson and Malm 8 (Dan and Torleif, “Fouling assemblages on offshore wind power plants and adjacent substrata”,
Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science Volume 79, Issue 3, 10 September 2008, Pages 459—466,
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272771408001911)
Coastal development around the world includes the construction of different types of urban structures
in the sea, for example for the purposes of transport, fisheries, recreation, coastal protection, and
offshore energy production. Oil platforms (Helvey, 2002 and Ponti et al., 2002), breakwaters (Stephens
et al., 1994), pier pilings and pontoons (Rilov and Benayahu, 1998 and Connell and Glasby, 1999), bridge
pilings (Qvarfordt et al., 2006) and wind power plants (Wilhelmsson et al., 2006) may either replace
natural hard substrata that were lost before or during construction, or add to the amount of hard
bottom habitats in an area for algae, fish, and invertebrate assemblages. Assemblage structures of
epibiota commonly differ between artificial structures and adjacent natural hard substrata (Glasby and
Connell, 1999, Connell, 2001, Svane and Petersen, 2001, Smith and Rule, 2002,Knott et al., 2004 and
Perkol-Finkel et al., 2006). Artificial structures may favour the settlement, reproduction, growth and
biomass of certain taxa, which could influence the coastal ecology in several ways. For example, an
increase in biomass of filtrating animals, such as bivalves, may have profound effects, as they have key
functional roles in the flux of particles and nutrients between the water and the sediment, and in
affecting the biomass of phytoplankton and larvae in the water mass (Connell, 2001). As pointed out
byConnell (2001), it is not clear why urban structures function as such different habitats compared to
natural reefs, but most importantly they are different, and the ecological implications of this are yet to
be understood. Artificial structures may also provide habitats suitable for establishment of nonindigenous species. Pier piling and pontoons in Australia have been shown to harbour more non-native
species than adjacent natural rocky reefs (Glasby et al., 2007), and exotic species of significant quantities
have been recorded on oilrigs and other artificial structures in different regions (e.g. Fenner and Banks,
2004, Sammarco et al., 2004,Bulleri and Airoldi, 2005 and Page et al., 2006). Petroleum platforms have
also been attributed to the spread of poisonous algae (Ciguatera) (Villareal et al., 2007). Deployment of
clusters of artificial structures may facilitate the establishment of the new taxa in the recipient region by
providing “beach heads” and stepping-stones for spread (Glasby and Connell, 1999, Connell, 2001,
Airoldi et al., 2005, Bulleri and Airoldi, 2005 and Glasby et al., 2007). The surrounding seabed could also
be affected by urban structures in various ways. Artificial reefs alter local hydrodynamic patterns, which
can cause changes in benthic biomass and diversity as well as scouring and sediment build-up (e.g.
Guichard et al., 2001, Shyue and Yang, 2002 and Duzbastilar et al., 2006). The entrapment and
deposition of organic matter, including material that originates from fish and sessile organisms on and
around an artificial reef, can subsidize the benthic community at the reef perimeter and cause changes
in composition of macroinvertebrate assemblages as well as chemico-physical parameters adjacent to
the artificial reef (Wolfson et al., 1979, Page et al., 1999, Norkko et al., 2001, Bomkamp et al., 2004 and
Falcão et al., 2007). Predation by fish associated with the structures may also affect invertebrate and
algae compositions on the surrounding seabed (Davis et al., 1982, Kurz, 1995 and Jordan et al., 2005). A
concentric gradient of disturbance effects on the seabed around an artificial reef can be expected
(e.g.Badalamenti and D'Anna, 1996). The construction of artificial structures in marine and estuarine
environments is increasing. For example, several Western European countries are planning for a massive
development of offshore wind power along the European Atlantic Ocean coast. In total the development
plans up to year 2030 contain nearly 50,000 MW, generated from several thousands wind turbines,
erected in clusters (wind power farms) in coastal waters and on banks far off shore (Shaw et al., 2002
and Kennedy, 2005). The potential impacts of this exploitation on marine organisms include disturbance
effects from noise, shadows, electromagnetic fields, and changed hydrological conditions (e.g. Gill, 2005,
Gill and Kimber, 2005 and Petersen and Malm, 2006). Changes in benthic assemblage structures, at
community and species levels, due to the addition of these artificial habitats are of concern
(Wilhelmsson et al., 2006).
Wave Energy
Birds
Offshore wave energy displaces and kills marine birds.
Lin and Yu in 2012 (Lan, Haitao, Dept. of Bioengineering, Medical School, Southeast University, Nanjing,
China, School of Electrical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China, “Offshore wave energy generation
devices: Impacts on ocean bio-environment”, Acta Ecologica Sinica Volume 32, Issue 3, June 2012, Pages 117–122,
Date Accessed: 07 July 2014)
4. Impacts of offshore WEGs on marine birds Direct
adverse impacts of WEGs on marine birds include increased
collision risks, disturbance, displacement and migration alteration during the phases of deployment and
operation. Although wave power devices pose much less above-water collision risk than other renewable power devices such as wind
projects, the underwater threat to seabirds still exist mainly via affecting oceanographic environment and
trophic chains [23]. Seabirds are demonstrated to aggregate around oil derricks and platforms due to food availability and night
illumination, which is analogous to the condition of the WEG protrusions. On the other hand, wave-powered devices pose an
underwater collision risk to diving birds, though the magnitude of being affected is varied with the foraging range of a given bird
colony and the depth of the diving profile which is overlapped with that of installed devices (i.e. wave energy converters, anchoring assemblage
and undersea power cables). One should keep in mind that the
shoreline wave-power installations approximating to
avian breeding sites may disturb the spawning, incubation, nursing and feeding processes of birds. As
recently indicated, the susceptibility of a seabird species to be affected by WEGs is likely to be associated
with their way of foraging, behavior of flying and capability of buffering against environmental
fluctuations [24]. Conversely, marine birds may benefit from wave-power devices to some extent because the latter can provide more
spacious grounds for avian resting and feeding [23]. Wave-powered installations would have negative effects on the
migration of fish populations, which was shown for tidal turbines, another category of oceanic energy
converters, in the Bay of Fundy decades ago [25]. Accordingly, the reorientation of fish migratory routes
bypassing the areas installed with a series of wave-powered devices would have detrimental effects on
bird species that are piscivorous (feeding on fish) in a long run.
EMF’s
The electromagnetic technology of offshore wave energy directly and indirectly harms
marine animals, including their reproduction and biodiversity.
Lin and Yu in 2012 (Lan, Haitao, Dept. of Bioengineering, Medical School, Southeast University, Nanjing,
China, School of Electrical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China, “Offshore wave energy generation
devices: Impacts on ocean bio-environment”, Acta Ecologica Sinica Volume 32, Issue 3, June 2012, Pages 117–122,
Date Accessed: 07 July 2014)
5. Impacts of underwater electromagnetic fields (EMFs) on marine animals The potential environmental impacts of electromagnetic fields
(EMFs) on aquatic resources are of particular interest to the ecologists, biologists and the public as well. The preliminary assessment of EMF
effects on the bioenvironment has revealed that, regardless
of offshore WEGs location, the associated EMFs would be
present and pose direct or indirect effects on marine organisms. Direct effects may involve the
decreases in fertility of marine animals. Indirect effects may include interference with migration and
navigation, detection of prey or escape from predator, chronic negative impacts that influence organism
growth and/or reproduction. In a long run, these direct and indirect effects would result in the cumulative
outcome that alters the crucial environmental factors, which could be reflected by the changes of
marine organism at individual, community, or population levels, such as species abundance and
diversity, population density and natural structure and function of marine ecosystem [5].
The electromagnetic technology of offshore wave energy interferes with marine
animal navigation, orientation, and prey detection.
Lin and Yu in 2012 (Lan, Haitao, Dept. of Bioengineering, Medical School, Southeast University, Nanjing,
China, School of Electrical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China, “Offshore wave energy generation
devices: Impacts on ocean bio-environment”, Acta Ecologica Sinica Volume 32, Issue 3, June 2012, Pages 117–122,
Date Accessed: 07 July 2014)
5.1. Interference with navigation/orientation and prey detection A
number of marine elasmobranchs, such as sharks, rays, eels,
tuna, salmonids and skates, are believed to contain small amounts of magnetic material for orientation
and navigation, as well as some marine animals, i.e. sea turtles, lobster, and mollusks. It is assumed that
if the earth’s static magnetic fields are interfered with wave-powered devices, some influences may be
exerted on the sensitive marine species [26]. It is noteworthy elucidating how these organisms depend on the earth magnetic
fields and how sensitive they respond to the altered magnetic fields surrounding them. Firstly, the power cables are necessary for
transmitting the electricity from offshore wave energy converters to the mainland as well as
transmitting between devices. High voltage alternating current (AC) cables of industry standard can shield electric field emissions
but the screening of magnetic field emissions is incomplete [5]. The magnetic field emissions would bring about the induced electric fields
adjoining to the cable regardless of burial [27]. Under the
circumstance that the induced electric fields arising from
magnetic leakage are detected by electro-sensitive marine species, their hunting behavior would probably
change because many predatory marine animals utilize the bioelectrical stimuli for prey detection, as
exemplified by sharks. Studies with sharks have shown that this kind of predators use electric impulses emanated by prey as a way of
detecting prey, followed by attacking prey [28]. Secondly, EMFs associated with offshore WEGs can affect the
orientation and navigation of sensitive species living in the ocean. After the sensitive organism moves through the
implicated zone (disturbed by artificial EMFs) the effect would be transient. Presumably, magnetosensitive organisms can be
attracted to or repelled by the implicated zone. Research into fish has demonstrated that they would be attracted to
relatively strong electric fields and the induced magnetic fields that were introduced into their tanks, with the preference
of swimming in parallel to the lines of current. Given that the natural geomagnetic value is 50 micro-Tesla (μT) [26], studies have shown that
exposure to the artificial magnetic field strength of 0.6 milli-Tesla (mT), 12 times greater than the earth’s magnetic field, may not notably affect
salmon’s movements horizontally or vertically, but may affect its swimming speed [29]. A comprehensive study with sea turtles has
demonstrated that upon exposure to the same magnetic fields as those offshore of their natal place, the hatchling turtles from the east coast of
the US would turn left. In contrast, the similar populations of turtles would divert to right upon exposure to the similar magnetic fields to those
offshore of the European east coast [30]. Previous studies have shown that the newly hatched turtles may distinguish among different magnetic
inclination degrees. Subsequently, the work by Lohmann’s group reported that turtles can also distinguish between different field intensities
along their migratory path, suggesting that they have the sensory abilities to approach the correct position by using a dually-coordinated
“global magnetic atlas” [30]. Their sensory capability may orient and navigate them across long distance of aquatic route to find food sources or
return to nest (for laying eggs and breeding offsprings), which is of great importance for the survival of this species. It should be kept in mind
that the sensitivity to magnetic and electric fields of marine organisms varies with species. For example, the sensitivity levels of elasmobranches
to electric fields were shown to be approximately 14,000 times those of teleost fish [28].
Accumulating evidence revealed that
fish and turtles can navigate themselves and respond to earth’s geomagnetic field via vast ocean basins,
and thus an artificially induced EMF arising from wave-powered devices would exert effects on the
orientation and navigation of these marine animals.
Wave energy electromagnetic fields (EMF) hurt species reproduction and cause noise
disturbances.
Lin and Yu in 2012 (Lan, Haitao, Dept. of Bioengineering, Medical School, Southeast University, Nanjing,
China, School of Electrical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China, “Offshore wave energy generation
devices: Impacts on ocean bio-environment”, Acta Ecologica Sinica Volume 32, Issue 3, June 2012, Pages 117–122,
Date Accessed: 07 July 2014)
5.2. Reproduction affected by EMF overexposure
EMF may affect the reproduction of some marine animals. Studies
with zebrafish and guppies, respectively, have illustrated that magnetic fields ranging from 1 to 50 milli-Tesla (mT) may influence the
growth and reproduction of these animals, including spawning, impregnation and hatching [31] and [32].
Preliminary work indicated that in tank-based experiments almost no marine animals would attempt to leave/escape
from an area of magnetic strength of 2.8 mT, which is the strength of induced EMF present within the distance of 30 cm from
a characteristic submarine power cable [33]. It has been proposed that long-term exposure of some marine animals to
artificially induced EMF may be detrimental to their reproductive organs and thus result in the decreases
in reproductive rates. The study with sea urchins to evaluate the effects of exposure to the induced EMF on the animal development
has shown that their early embryonic development may be changed [34]. 6. Underwater WEGs: “artificial reefs” effects and others Marine
energy source utilization, either wave
power, tidal power, or marine thermal power, regardless of technologies, will have conflicts
with majority of commercial fishing that deal with nets and trawl boats. Under the circumstance that most sea areas
are over-exploited, the prohibition of commercial fishing may be beneficial for sustainable fishery management. Marine no-take zones, where
fishing is completely banned, are emerging to help rejuvenate commercial species faster than previously expected. As reported by British
Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), England’s only no-take zone, which was established 5 years ago by the organization Natural England and the
Devon Sea Fisheries Committee, has shown a significant increase in lobsters above the minimum catch-size: 6–7 times more than neighboring
areas [35]. Likewise, based on National Geographic News, in a no-take zone in the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, the world’s largest no-take
zone, coral trout have increased by 68% in 2 years [35]. Accordingly, the deployment and establishment of offshore WEGs, which will forbid
fishing in these sea areas, may be beneficial for marine organism population, species abundance, and size of juvenile individuals. Conversely,
the acoustic disturbance associated with the construction phase may pose a big problem to some
marine organisms, esp. those acoustic species, which threats them at both individual and population scales.
Studies demonstrated that the significant sources of noise arising from the infrastructure construction
and cable pavement would damage the acoustic systems of sensitive species within 100 m of the source, and
also cause mobile animals avoidance from the area [5].
Marine Species
Extracting renewable energy from waves alters ocean ecosystems and has an adverse
impact on marine species
Shields 11 (Mark A., David K. Woolf, Eric P.M. Grist, Sandy A. Kerr, A.C. Jackson, Robert E. Harris, Michael C. Bell, Robert Beharie, Andrew
Want, Emmanuel Osalusi, Stuart W. Gibb, Jonathan Side,“Marine renewable energy: The ecological implications of altering the hydrodynamics
of the marine environment”, Ocean & Coastal Management Volume 54. Issue 1. January 2011, Pages 2—9,
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0964569110001924#)
Waves and tides maintain shelf sea, coastal, estuarine and shoreline environments through associated
advection, stirring and other processes. It is reasonable to suppose that removal of a small fraction of this energy at various
locations need not have major ecological implications, but quantitative estimates of vulnerability and “safe limits” are not easily calculated. We
are not yet able to say whether technically achievable levels of exploitation - variously estimated, but in the UK typically a few GigaWatts for
each of wave, tidal impoundment and tidal stream – represent a threat to specific localities and ecological assemblages.
Extraction of
energy from waves will reduce the energy and height of waves. In principle, this reduction in energy could
be detrimental to intertidal species adapted to wave exposed conditions, but further study of both biological and
physical processes is needed to determine whether ecological responses would in practice be detectable against a background of natural
variability. Reduction
of waves from the direction of a WED array may alter sediment suspension and long shore
transport near the coast, resulting in alteration of habitat. However, strong variation in wave exposure, shallow water
bathymetry, substratum/habitat and beach morphology all occur naturally, so it is less likely that wave energy development will introduce a
significant new threat. Extraction of
energy from tides can affect currents far from any construction, thus the
regional effect (10s of km) may be greater than at the TED. Application of a rational approach to extraction of
energy by tidal stream technology should avoid ‘greatly’ altering current speeds or tidal heights in general,
but there may be more significant local effects. Also, overexploitation of some tidal stream sites is
possible and may result in more dramatic alteration in tidal flow. The limits of safe extraction have been conceptualized
for tidal stream in terms of a “flux-SIF approach” (Bryden & Couch, 2007). However, significant further effort is required to assess
fully the resource potential in order to determine an acceptable level of resource extraction and to
understand resulting ecological effects. For the purposes of protecting the marine environment, it is also
important that research be directed specifically towards understanding how the energetic properties of
the environment determine the nature and functioning of marine ecosystems. Identification of sentinel species
susceptible to change in hydrodynamic conditions can help determine the influence of a MREI on both near- and far-field flow conditions.
Such understanding is vital for effective marine spatial planning and impact assessment. Furthermore, natural variation
in hydrodynamic conditions and the ecology of highly energetic environments, in addition to increasing pressures from climatic change, should
not be misinterpreted as impacts from a MREI. Finally, care
needs to be taken when considering potential regional
ecological effects of a MREI and this should be considered against the global and greater ecological threat of climate change
Changes in the hydrodynamics of the ocean due to energy extraction reduces the
habitat for marine species to live in and change the life-cycle of organisms
Shields 11 (Mark A., David K. Woolf, Eric P.M. Grist, Sandy A. Kerr, A.C. Jackson, Robert E. Harris, Michael C. Bell, Robert Beharie, Andrew
Want, Emmanuel Osalusi, Stuart W. Gibb, Jonathan Side,“Marine renewable energy: The ecological implications of altering the hydrodynamics
of the marine environment”, Ocean & Coastal Management Volume 54. Issue 1. January 2011, Pages 2—9,
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0964569110001924#)
Potential ecological
implications can be estimated based on existing knowledge of how hydrodynamics
influences marine organisms and their environment. For example, a reduction in wave energy acting on the
shoreline will reduce the overall height of the effective wetting level of the sea, thus reducing the area
of habitat available for intertidal marine organisms (Lewis, 1964). Furthermore, tidal energy extraction may modify
tidal dynamics on a regional scale. Tidal processes contribute significantly to horizontal dispersion of propagules (Zimmerman,
1986), directly through sheared and non-linear tidal transport and also through eddy generation. Therefore alteration of tidal flow
and wave energy could have implications for dispersion of propagules, a key part of the life-cycle of many
marine organisms, which in turn, could affect recruitment to and distribution of a variety of marine populations.
Anthropogenic modifications of tidal currents could also alter sediment resuspension patterns, with concomitant effects on primary production
or life-cycle couplings likely to be significant in seasonally varying photoperiodic environments of phytoplankton (Grist, 2000). The spatial and
temporal scales at which these changes prevail will be dependent on both the hydrodynamics and bathymetry of the regional systems in
question.
Hydrocarbons
Water Contamination
Produced formation water from hydrocarbon extraction is detrimental to organismstoxic material causing reproductive harm and susceptibility to disease
Holdway 2002
(Douglas A, Department of Biotechnology and Environmental Biology, Royal Melbourne Institute of
Technology University, “The acute and chronic effects of wastes associated with offshore oil and gas
production on temperate and tropical marine ecological processes”, Marine Pollution Bulletin, Volume
44, Issue 3, March 2002, Pages 185–203, UMKC Database, Science Direct)
2. Produced formation water Produced formation water, the oily water usually discharged from a platform after
separation from the oil, is made up from formation water (water associated with the oil in the reservoir) and potentially
includes water which was injected into the reservoir to maintain pressure and oil production. The volumes
of PFW produced are enormous it is estimated that 234 million tonnes of PFW were discharged into the UK sector of the North Sea
alone in 1997 (Henderson et al., 1999). It is estimated that 7500–11,500 tonnes of petroleum hydrocarbons enter the
environment each year from PFW discharges globally (Black et al., 1994a and Black et al., 1994b). As oil fields age, the
volume of PFW can increase to several times the volume of oil produced (Henderson et al., 1999). The hydrocarbon
content of formation water, which generally makes up the bulk of produced water, is only a small part of the total organic composition and is
generally restricted to a maximum oil content of 40 mg/l or less (Brendehaug et al., 1992). Most of the hydrocarbon material is made up of
naturally produced low molecular weight organic compounds along with a variable amount of chemicals used in the production process (Davies
and Kingston, 1992). These hydrocarbons include residual volatile compounds, as well as non-volatile hydrocarbons not removed by the
separation regime utilized on the platform. Environmental effects of PFWs are thus related to their specific chemical compositions, which vary
greatly between platforms. There are a variety of fates that the discharged materials can have within the marine environment including
volatilization to the atmosphere, adsorption and settling out onto the bottom sediments, dispersal by water currents, and uptake and
metabolism by both pelagic and benthic marine organisms. 2.1. Acute toxicity of produced formation waters Given the variety of chemicals and
range of concentrations possible, it is difficult to generalize about the potential toxicity of any particular PFW other than by describing the
toxicity of the various individual components and then attempting to predict the mixture-toxicity based on the single toxicant toxicity's. Since
this approach is very susceptible to error, the
best way of assessing potential environmental impact is to assess
“whole PFW” toxicity using a variety of living organisms, preferably indigenous marine ones. This has been the approach
adopted by most regions of the world and acute toxicity data from various production areas indicated a relatively low acute toxicity to various
marine organisms with acute LC/EC50's ranging from roughly 5% to 50% whole PFW (Table 1). Table 1. Acute toxicity of various produced
formation waters (PFWs) Organism tested PFW Test conditions EC/LC50 (% PFW) Reference Microtox (Vibrio fischeri) Bass Strait Platforms
(average of 10 platforms) 15 min static 7.09 Black et al. (1994b) Brine shrimp (Artemia salina) Bass Strait Platforms (average of 10 platforms) 24
h static 58.8 Black et al. (1994b) Marine amphipod (Allorchestes compressa) Halibut Platform, Bass Strait 96 h static replacement 34.5 Terrens
and Tait (1994) Mysid shrimp (Mysidopsis bahia) Western Outer Continental Shelf, Gulf of Mexico 96 h daily renewal 7.08 (n=24, S.D.=3.73);
10.05 (n∼400, S.D.=10.36) Moffitt et al. (1992) Mysid shrimp (Mysidopsis bahia) Western Outer Continental Shelf, Gulf of Mexico 7 days daily
renewal 5.77 (n=24, S.D.=2.48) Moffitt et al. (1992) Mysid shrimp (Mysidopsis bahia) Krisna and Widuri Platforms, West Java Sea, Indonesia 96 h
daily renewal using 96 h biodegraded produced water 25 (n=3) – Krisna; 55 (n=3) – Widuri Smith et al. (1998) Silverside fish (Menidia beryllina)
Krisna and Widuri Platforms, West Java Sea, Indonesia 96 h daily renewal using 96 h biodegraded produced water 45 (n=3) – Krisna; 25 (n=3) –
Widuri Smith et al. (1998) Sheepshead minnow (Cyprinodon variegatus) Western Outer Continental Shelf, Gulf of Mexico 96 h daily renewal
21.55 (n=23, S.D.=6.99); 19.21 (n∼400, S.D.=14.82) Moffitt et al. (1992) Sheepshead minnow (Cyprinodon variegatus) Western Outer
Continental Shelf, Gulf of Mexico 7 days daily renewal 19.72 (n=23, S.D.=7.71) Moffitt et al. (1992) Algae (Skeletonema costatum) Gullfaks,
North Sea 24 h growth inhibition 27.6 (n=8) Brendehaug et al. (1992) Algae (Skeletonema costatum) Statfjord, North Sea 24 h growth inhibition
34.8 (n=5) Brendehaug et al. (1992) Microtox (Vibrio fischeri) Gullfaks, North Sea 15 min static 7.18 (n=8) Brendehaug et al. (1992) Microtox
(Vibrio fischeri) Statfjord, North Sea 15 min static 4.66 (n=5) Brendehaug et al. (1992) Table options In addition to the
complex mixture
of aliphatic, aromatic and polar compounds in PFW which contribute to the relatively modest acute toxicity of
produced water, there are a number of production chemicals which are added for different purposes
through the process or separation line including corrosion inhibitors, scale inhibitors, demulsifiers,
flocculents, anti-foaming agents and biocides (Brendehaug et al., 1992). The acute toxicity of such chemicals
contributes to the overall toxicity of PFW water and the differences in toxicity between such chemicals can be up to 4 orders
of magnitude (Table 2). Thus, the varying concentrations of such chemicals in different PFWs along with the large differences in their acute
toxicity explains the reported 10-fold difference in toxicity between different PFWs depending on the level of such chemicals in each (Black et
al., 1994a; Brendehaug et al., 1992; Burns et al., 1999; Davies and Kingston, 1992; Henderson et al., 1999; Holdway and Heggie, 1998; Neff et
al., 1992; Rabalais et al., 1992; Terrens and Tait, 1994 and Terrens and Tait, 1997; Tollefsen et al., 1998). Table 2. Acute toxicity of chemicals
added in the process/separation line Chemical type Acute toxicity EC50 (mg/l) Algae (Skeletonema costatum) Brine shrimp (Artemia salina)
Microtox (Vibrio fischeri) (minutes exposed) Reference Corrosion inhibitor 0.2–2 >20–25 15–50 (15); 7.1–21.9 (5–30) Brendehaug et al. (1992),
Henderson et al. (1999) Scale inhibitor 60 1000 >1000 (15) Brendehaug et al. (1992) Demulsifier 20 30 20 (15); 2.1–112 (5–15) Brendehaug et al.
(1992), Henderson et al. (1999) Flocculent >1000 >15,000 >15,000 (15) Brendehaug et al. (1992) Anti-foam 120 150 9 (15); 5.4 (5) Brendehaug
et al. (1992), Henderson et al. (1999) Biocide – – l5.2–33.7 (15–45) Henderson et al. (1999) Table options It is interesting that water-soluble
production chemicals do not always increase the toxicity of the aqueous phase of PFWs compared to oil soluble production chemicals, though
there is evidence that some production chemicals may increase the solubility of oil components of PFWs (Henderson et al., 1999). Overall,
however, the acute toxicity of PFWs to marine organisms is low and would likely only have acute effects within the immediate mixing zone
around a production platform. Acute
effects of PFWs reported to occur in the mixing zone include: altered
benthic communities dominated by short-lived opportunistic polychaetes up to 100 m from offshore
platforms (Neff et al., 1992); decreased abundance of barnacles on platform structures; and mortality of oysters
within 23 m of an outfall (Black et al., 1994a and Black et al., 1994b). Most distribution models predict that acute toxicity due to exposure to
PFW will be negligible outside the mixing zone (Brendehaug et al., 1992). In a study of produced waters from two platforms located in the West
Java Sea, Indonesia, Smith et al. (1998) found that acute toxicity was only likely to occur at low levels not exceeding 5% based on predicted
body residues and a time-varying integrated physicochemical transport model. Use of such models to estimate the risk of acute toxicity is a
useful method to predict toxicity in areas exposed to plumes in which the actual exposure concentrations will vary with time and space.
However, it must be remembered that models are defined as “non-working copies of the original” and that they are only as good as the quality
of the data used to create them. 2.2. Chronic toxicity of produced formation waters There are far less data available regarding the chronic
effects of PFWs. Some of the potential effects include impacts on the surface microlayer surrounding
hydrocarbon production platforms, altered benthic community species composition, altered behavior
and physiology, reduced growth, and decreased fecundity of laboratory exposed organisms using short-term chronic
toxicity tests (Black et al., 1994b; Brendehaug et al., 1992; Din and Abu, 1992; Hinkle-Conn et al., 1998; Krause, 1995; Krause et al., 1992;
Moffitt et al., 1992; Neff et al., 1992; Osenberg et al., 1992; Rabalais et al., 1992; Raimondi and Schmitt, 1992; Reed et al., 1994). Chronic
effects have been reported in filter-feeding organisms exposed to crude oil terminal PFW
concentrations as low as 0.08 ppm
while other studies have found no effects at PFW concentrations ranging from 1.6% to 11.7% (Table 3). Sublethal effects such as
altered liver enzyme activities in reef fish living in close vicinity to oil producing platforms indicate chronic exposure
to low levels of hydrocarbons but, as with most biomarkers of exposure, such effects are difficult to interpret relative to potential
deleterious population effects (Holdway et al., 1995). Table 3. Chronic toxicity of various produced formation waters (PFWs) Organism tested
PFW Test conditions Endpoint (units of PFW) Reference Asian clam (Donax faba) Bintulu crude oil terminal (COT), Bintulu, Sarawak, Malaysia 12
days of static exposure in 150 l tank Clearance rate: LOEC=8.6 ppm (n=4) Din and Abu (1992) Respiration rate: LOEC=8.6 ppm (n=4) Scope for
growth: LOEC=8.6 ppm (n=4) 96 h of static exposure in 15 l LC10=8.6 ppm LC20=11.1 ppm LC40=14.7 ppm Asian clam (Donax faba) Lutong COT,
Miri, Sarawak, Malaysia 12 days of static exposure in 150 l tank Clearance rate: LOEC=0.75 ppm (n=4) Din and Abu (1992) Respiration rate:
LOEC=0.75 ppm (n=4) Scope for growth: LOEC=0.75 ppm (n=4) 96 h static exposure in 15 l LC10=0.75 ppm LC20=1.10 ppm LC40=1.65 ppm Asian
clam (Donax faba) Labuan COT, Labuan, Malaysia 12 days of static exposure in 150 l tank Clearance rate: LOEC=0.08 ppm (n=4) Din and Abu
(1992) Respiration rate: LOEC=0.08 ppm (n=4) Scope for growth: LOEC=0.08 ppm (n=4) 96th static exposure in 15 l LC10=0.08 ppm LC20=0.11
ppm LC40=0.14 ppm Mysid shrimp (Mysidopsis bahia) Western Outer Continental Shelf, Gulf of Mexico 7 days of daily renewal Survival:
NOEC=3.14% (n=24, S.D.=1.92) Moffitt et al. (1992) Growth: NOEC=1.60% (n=24, S.D.=1.41) Fecundity: NOEC=2.20% (n=24, S.D.=1.38)
Sheepshead minnow (Cyprinodon variegatus) Western Outer Continental Shelf, Gulf of Mexico 7 days of daily renewal Survival: NOEC=11.7%
(n=23, S.D.=6.66) Moffitt et al. (1992) Growth: NOEC=2.75% (n=23, S.D.=2.17) Table options In marine systems, many
planktonic larval
organisms and early developmental stages could potentially be exposed to plumes of PFWs and there is
some evidence that exposure of early life stages to low concentrations of PFWs can cause a developmental
response at a later stage in sea urchins (Krause et al., 1992). Given that planktonic larvae must generally undergo
a sensitive transition phase during which they settle and undergo metamorphosis into adult forms,
exposure to toxicants contained in PFWs during this important life history event could have pronounced
effects. Exposure of laboratory-reared red abalone (Haliotis rufescens) larvae which were transplanted into cages at varying distances from a
PFW diffuser near Carpinteria, CA, USA, resulted in significant effects on mortality, settlement, metamorphosis,
viability, and swimming behavior at distances up to 500 m from the diffuser and concentrations as low as 0.01% (100
ppm) PFW ( Raimondi and Schmitt, 1992). The authors demonstrated for the first time that planktonic larvae can be adversely
affected by PFW plumes discharging into high energy, open coast environments and that the prevailing
assumptions regarding lack of risk of PFWs to planktonic species in open coast environments were
incorrect. They concluded that there was a need for more complete assessments of both the ecotoxicological risk to meroplankton and the
population consequences of PFW discharges. In a second study of the same PFW source, giant kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera) recruitment was
found to be affected only in regions very close to the outfall (<50 m) and that the lack of sporophyte production was probably due to factors
affecting gametophyte survival ( Reed et al., 1994). Although concentrations of 10% PFW were required to show field effects, laboratory
exposures to PFW concentrations as low as 0.01% caused a 2-fold reduction in the proportion of females extruding eggs and producing
sporophytes. Exposure to 1% PFW in the laboratory also affected the chemical recognition between male and female gametes and caused a
reduction in the amount of sperm available for fertilization ( Reed et al., 1994). Thus, the authors are unable to conclude that M. pyrifera are
less sensitive to PFW since lower apparent field effects were contrasted with higher laboratory sensitivity than other organisms previously
studied. A third study of marine organisms exposed to PFW from a diffuser near Carpinteria, CA, USA, looked at two species of mussels (Mytilus
californianus and Mytilus edulis) transplanted to the field. This study
found distance-from-source-dependent sublethal
effects occurred in both species of mussels exposed to PFW as measured by shell growth and condition ( Osenberg et al., 1992).
The difficulties in interpreting spatial effects in marine invertebrates were discussed and it was noted that marine organisms with a planktonic
dispersal stage tend to decouple local production of propagules from subsequent recruitment into the local adult population. Osenberg et al.
(1992) also found differences in benthic infaunal distributions with distance from the PFW diffuser, with nematodes being more abundant
a
study of sea urchin fertilization success using the same PFW from Carpinteria, Krause et al. (1992) showed that even at the
lowest PFW concentration tested (0.0001% or 1 ppm), fertilization success was significantly reduced by
as much as 10–20% from controls though a substantial fraction (>50%) were successfully fertilized at the highest concentration tested of
closer to the diffuser, but reduced abundance of most carnivorous groups including nemerteans, and several families of polychaetes. In
1%. Such effects were later shown to exhibit significant temporal variability though spatial variability was low and the general spatial pattern of
toxicity along a transect was relatively constant (Krause, 1995). Use of an embryo developmental test in the laboratory showed that effects
arising from sperm exposure were far greater than those arising from egg exposure to PFW (Krause et al., 1992). This was as a result of delayed
expression of effects of sperm exposure until later on in the embryonic development. The authors suggest that the toxicological mechanism
most likely involves microtubule function in sperm, which could cause early retardation of development by delaying nuclear fusion through
impaired centriole function. Other studies potentially also involving microtubule-mediated effects include swimming and chemoreception of
abalone larvae (Raimondi and Schmitt, 1992), swimming of kelp spores (Reed et al., 1994) and growth of mussels (Osenberg et al., 1992). The
possibility that all of these PFW effects could be mediated through a unifying toxicological mechanism as suggested by Krause et al. (1992) is an
important area for future research to predict PFW impacts in marine environments. Benthic
community effects have been
noted in areas of coastal Louisiana, Gulf of Mexico, USA, receiving PFW discharges up to 800 m from the point of release (Rabalais
et al., 1992). These effects were found for both species numbers and individual species abundance's though impact distances
varied greatly and ranged from no effects to 800 m. Bioaccumulation studies using oysters (Crassostrea virginica) showed that PFW
contaminants were taken up and accumulated by oysters both in close proximity to discharges and also at distances up to
1000 m from discharges. Contaminants included polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), trace metals and
total radium which have been shown in other studies to be found in PFWs from the Gulf of Mexico region ( Neff et
al., 1992). In another study of PFW contaminated sediment, juvenile spot (Leiostomus xanthurus) did not actively
avoid sediment contaminated with 22 mg PAH/kg dry sediment ( Hinkle-Conn et al., 1998). In fact, feeding strikes increased
dramatically in the high-density meiofauna treatment with a 239% increase compared to controls, possibly as a result of
burrowing avoidance by the prey organisms (majority were harpacticoids in this experiment). It was concluded that
due to lack of avoidance or reduction in feeding intensity by spot, there was an increased likelihood that
the fish would thus experience detrimental biological effects as a consequence of increase ingestion and
exposure to the PAH contaminants. Such effects can include elevated hepatic P-450E, aryl hydrocarbon hydroxylase (AHH) activity,
superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity, and ethoxyresorufin O-deethylase (EROD) activity, all substrate inducible enzymes involved in PAH
metabolism ( Hinkle-Conn et al., 1998). Gill hyperplasia, pancreatic necrosis, reduced phagocytic activity of macrophages has also been
reported in spot collected from PAH-contaminated sites. The authors conclude that continued feeding in areas with sediment PAH
contamination at or about 22 ppm will likely lead to chronic
exposure to PAH which could cause increased susceptibility to
disease from suppressed immune function, reduced growth, and delayed sexual maturity in fish.
Oil and gas production hurt the enviroment- metal contamination and prospecting
Holdway 2002
(Douglas A, Department of Biotechnology and Environmental Biology, Royal Melbourne Institute of
Technology University, “The acute and chronic effects of wastes associated with offshore oil and gas
production on temperate and tropical marine ecological processes”, Marine Pollution Bulletin, Volume
44, Issue 3, March 2002, Pages 185–203, UMKC Database, Science Direct)
5. Other effects There are a variety of other effects that have been reported in relation to offshore oil and gas
production on both temperate and tropical marine ecological processes. One major area of potential impact is from the
metals, which are associated with the drilling muds (see Section 3). There is a whole literature associated with the impact of
metals on marine organisms and the reader is directed to this as this exceeds the scope of this review. Recent studies have confirmed that
metals can be an important issue of environmental concern owing their presence in crude oil (Dekkers and
Daane, 1999) and in marine sediments around oil and gas production facilities (Kennicutt et al., 1996a and Kennicutt et
al., 1996b). Their ability to bioaccumulate in tissues and in some cases, biomagnify up food webs makes
them potential contaminants of significance (Al-Muzaini and Jacob, 1996; Anderson et al., 1997; Daffa, 1996; Gulec, 1994;
Plasman, 1998). Sediment contamination
levels appear to correlate well with reduced diversity and increased
toxicity to aquatic organisms (Gulec, 1994; Hartwell et al., 1998). One metal that appears to often be elevated around drilling
platforms is barium (Ba), where residual excess Ba has been reported up to an order of magnitude above background within 500 m of offshore
oil and gas platforms in the Santa Marie Basin, CA, USA (Phillips et al., 1998). Sediment increases in Ba represented 6–11% of the total Ba
discharged during the two drilling periods included in the analysis and the elevated levels were likely associated with cutting particles (rock
chippings) deposited near the base of the platforms (Phillips et al., 1998). Barite (BaSO4) is a naturally occurring dense mineral and is a major
component of almost all drilling muds (see Section 3). Barium concentrations in the sediment have thus been frequently used as a tracer to
monitor offshore oil and gas discharges (Hartley, 1996; Phillips et al., 1998). Recent work has shown that caution needs to be used in this
application owing to the large variations (2–3 orders of magnitude) in measured Ba concentrations possible depending on the extraction
method used (Hartley, 1996). Another
aspect associated with offshore oil and gas production is the initial offshore seismic
exploration that precedes development and the potential impacts of such activities on marine
ecosystems. Although this area of research is outside of the scope of this review, there is a significant literature in the area, and recent
studies have focussed on biochemical responses to stress induced by such seismic prospecting using air gun
acoustic waves (Santulli et al., 1999). With respect to European sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax L.), the effects were transitory in nature
and there was a rapid (<72 h) recovery of homeostasis after acoustic stress with no observed mortality ( Santulli et al., 1999).
Drilling
Drilling muds are harmful to the environment
Holdway 2002
(Douglas A, Department of Biotechnology and Environmental Biology, Royal Melbourne Institute of
Technology University, “The acute and chronic effects of wastes associated with offshore oil and gas
production on temperate and tropical marine ecological processes”, Marine Pollution Bulletin, Volume
44, Issue 3, March 2002, Pages 185–203, UMKC Database, Science Direct)
3.1. Acute toxicity of drilling fluids There is paucity of data on acute toxicity of drilling fluids of any kind, likely because of their relatively low acute toxicity. Older
oil-based drilling muds (OBMs) containing Number 2 diesel has greater toxicity than the lower-toxicity mineral and animal oils developed as
base fluids. Such oil-based drilling muds are used in high-temperature formations; formations containing watersensitive minerals, clays or reactive gases; and in wells where a high level of lubrication is needed (Reis,
1992). Use of oil-based muds today generally requires a reuse/recycling system since their cost is higher and many areas of the world forbid their discharge (e.g.,
Gulf of Mexico). Other areas distinguish between diesel-based muds and mineral oil-based muds (e.g., North Sea), permitting the discharge of less toxic mineral oilbased muds on an individually approved basis (Bleier et al., 1993). Recently, fish oil esters have been successfully used as replacements for mineral oils in oil-based
drilling fluids and they have been found to have even lower acute toxicity to marine organisms, with LC50s for the algae Isochrysis sp. and the post larvae prawn
(Panaeus monodon) greater than 100,000 ppm (10%) for both Biogreen whole fluid and the BG5500 base fluid ( Papp and West, 1999). Acute effects on the
copepod Gladioferens imparipes were almost as non-toxic with a 48 h LC50 for the Biogreen whole fluid >100,000 ppm and the 48 h LC50 for the BG5500 base fluid
determined to be 67,100 ppm or 6.71% ( Papp and West, 1999). Synthetic-based
muds are water in oil emulsions proposed to
replace OBMs owing to their technical and environmental advantages over OBMs and WBMs (Burke and Veil, 1995). A study to evaluate SBM characteristics
found that they had low to moderate acute toxicity to brine shrimp (Artemia salina) and to water fleas (Daphnia magna) when tested in the
laboratory ( Xiao and Piatti, 1995). These tests were not sufficient to ensure compliance with current legislation and approval of their use was uncertain at the time
of publication. The
variety of chemical components in drilling muds and their variation in both percentage
composition and inherent acute toxicity means that there is the potential for large variations in toxicity
between different muds. Using the major Italian drilling fluid components to illustrate this, it can quickly be seen that any drilling
mud containing larger amounts of defoamer and wetting agents (both blends of surfactants) would have
significantly higher toxicity (Table 4). Table 4. Acute toxicity of major Italian drilling fluid products (modified from Terzaghi et al., 1998) Product type
Acute toxicity EC50 Algae/LC50 (95% CL) brine shrimp (mg/l) Algae (Phaeodacylum tricornutum) Brine shrimp (Artemia salina) Maximum concentration in drilling
fluids Lignosulphonate 356 3953 (3972–4055) 23,000 Modified starch Not determined 10,000 17,000 Soltex asphalt 216 >10,000 17,000 XC-polymer >400 291 (250–
335) 6000 Mor-rex maltodextrin Not determined >10,000 15,000 Carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) LV >10,000 >10,000 9000 Polyanionic cellulose (PAC) LV >10,000
>10,000 14,000 Wetting agent/detergent 65.4 341 (302–410) 800 Defoamer alcohol 9.15 5.41 (4.03–7.28) 1500 Table options The
much higher
toxicity of such compounds makes their discharge into the sea “very concerning” according to the authors of this
study (Terzaghi et al., 1998). The authors, however, recognize that it is important to assess any long-term effects of drilling muds and that simulation of actual
drilling fluid dispersion is necessary to understand actual exposure concentrations and areas, and the dilution effects of the sea. According to Bleier et al. (1993),
such “specialty additives” are now being developed to minimize toxicity problems and that modern drilling fluids use lower toxicity solutions to problems that
require such additives to ensure that they are far less toxic than older formulations. 3.2. Chronic toxicity of drilling fluids There is even less information regarding
the chronic or long-term toxicity of drilling fluids to marine organisms. Some studies have addressed this aspect of biological impact from a biodegradation
perspective and looked at the percentage ultimate biodegradation using closed-bottle anaerobic biodegradation testing. It
has been estimated that
oil discharged on drilling cuttings was the greatest source of oil pollution in the North Sea from drilling
operations, having peaked in 1985 at 25,880 tonnes (Kingston, 1992). The response of benthic organisms has been either a
reduced number of individuals with few species close to drilling installations (smothering or toxic effect) or an increased abundance of
few species close to source of contamination (organic enrichment effect). Diversity shows a similar pattern to species richness with low diversity near installations
and background levels being achieved by 2 km (Kingston, 1992; Olsgard and Gray, 1995). A number of carrier fluids for invert emulsion drilling fluids were assessed
for their anaerobic biodegradability using the standard European Centre for Ecotoxicology and Toxicology of Chemicals (ECETOC) screening test (Steber and Herold,
1995). The extent of ultimate degradation of fatty acid esters I and II averaged (95% CL) 82.5% (13.9) and 83.7% (13.1) over 35 days while oleyl alcohol and 2-ethyl
hexanol averaged 88.6% (14.8) and 78.8% (21.4) degradation over 84 days. This contrasted with degradation rates of only 3.9% (11.0) for mineral oil A over 35 days
and 0.6% (16.2) for polyalphaolefin II over 50 days (Steber and Herold, 1995). The authors stated that anaerobic biodegradability was an essential prerequisite for
the prevention of long-term presence and effects of drilling fluids in the marine environment. They found that fatty acid and alcohol-derived ester oils had excellent
biodegradability while mineral oils, dialkyl ethers, alpha-olefins, polyalphaolefins, linear alkylbenzenes and an acetal derivative were only slowly
biodegraded if at all. Overall the authors concluded that ester oils presently represented the only group of carrier fluids easily accessible to anaerobic
biodegradation. In another biodegradation study of drilling fluids, the percentage ultimate biodegradation varied from 11% to 85% for six drilling fluid mixtures
assessed (Papp and West, 1999). An internal olefin whole fluid (11%) and a paraffin whole fluid (18%) were the
least biodegradable drilling
fluids and Biogreen BG5500 whole fluid (an oxygen-based fluid consisting of a fish oil ester) was the most biodegradable (85%). Integrated laboratory, mesocosm
and field-scale tests for assessing environmental impact of non-water-based fluid (NWBF) discharges to the marine environment are “being developed with industry
and scientific bodies” for this program in Western Australia. The
sublethal effects of drilling fluids on 35 species of marine
organisms were reported in the earlier literature (NRC, 1983 cited in Hinwood et al., 1994), all fluids tested being chromium or ferrochromium
lignosulphonate fluids. Gulec (1994) investigated the effect of an ester-based and a low salt PHPA mud on the burying behavior of the marine sand snail Polinices
conicus. He found that the EC50 following 24 h of exposure varied from 21% to 27% for the suspended particulate phase (SPP) and from 23% to 38% for the liquid
phase of ester drilling mud; and from 26% to 33% for the SPP of the low-salt PHPA mud. These relatively low toxicity's for a sensitive behavioral test indicate that
short-term sublethal effects of such drilling muds are of only moderate concern in the immediate vicinity of a drilling platform. The potential impact of the
SPP of drilling fluid on seagrass was investigated using Thalassia testudinum and its epiphytes in concurrent 12-week laboratory and field studies ( Macauley et al.,
1990). Test systems (both laboratory and field) were treated once per week to nominal concentrations of 100 mg/l (ppm) SPP. Drilling fluid exposure had no
significant effect on chlorophyll a or b content of Thalassia leaves. Epiphyte biomass on the leaves of Thalassia was temporarily reduced after six weeks of SPP
exposure but had recovered to control values by 12 weeks of exposure. These results would indicate that chronic effects to marine sea grasses and their epiphytes
from long-term exposure to drilling fluids do not appear to be likely to occur. Drilling
fluid waste had modest inhibitory effects on the
growth rate of Staphylococcus and Pseudomonas species of soil bacterial isolates collected from a mangrove swamp location, but enhanced the growth rate of
Alcaligenes and Micrococcus species taken from the same site ( Benka-Coker and Olumagin, 1996). The authors speculated that the inhibitory effects
of the drilling fluid might result in an accumulation of the waste in the environment though they also acknowledged
that the stimulatory effects on other soil bacteria could offset such impacts. Drilling fluids have also been shown to affect the
substrate specificity of marine bacteria with controls having lower overall variation in the percentages of
heterotrophic bacterial subgroups (lipolytic, starch-hydrolyzing, proteolytic and cellulolytic bacteria) over the experimental period (28 days) than
the drilling fluid exposed bacteria ( Okpokwasili and Nnubia, 1995). Similar results were obtained for oil-spill dispersant-exposure. The authors conclude
that the heterotrophic microbial processes were negatively affected by exposure to drilling fluids with a
general trend of mild geomicrobiological process inhibition in the marine environment. Use of marine benthic
community species diversity and species dominance measurements combined with multivariate analyses and ordination techniques permitted Gray et al. (1990) to
distinguish site groupings related to oil activities and in particular, to barium, hydrocarbon and percentage of mud, at distances of up to 2–3 km from one source in
the North Sea (Ekofisk) and up to 1.5 km from another North Sea source (Eldfisk). The
first indications of changes in benthic communities were
patterns of presence and absence of rare species (Gray et al., 1990).
This indicates that drilling fluids can have subtle and less easily identified impacts much further away
from platforms than previously believed, but that high powered statistical techniques combined with well-designed sampling programs are
required to elucidate these effects. Even fewer studies have looked at the effects of drilling fluids in the region within the first few meters of the
seabed known as the benthic boundary layer (BBL). This region has specific characteristics which differ from
the overlying water column and may result in particles settling from the overlying water column
remaining suspended and concentrated within the BBL (Gordan et al., 1992; Muschenheim et al., 1995; Muschenheim and Milligan,
1996). In the recent laboratory studies of sea scallops Placopecten magellanicus from Georges Bank in the North Atlantic Ocean, simulation of the physical
conditions which exist in the BBL in the presence of various components of drilling muds showed that
adult scallops had very low tolerance to suspended clay. Concentrations as low as 0.5 mg/l (ppm) of barite,
a major component on drilling fluids, caused significant detrimental effects on adult scallop growth ( Gordan et al.,
increased abundance patterns of some species and altered
1992). The authors conclude that on the basis of information obtained thus far, a water quality standard for the protection of scallop stocks will probably be less
than 5 mg/l (ppm) for fine drilling wastes in the BBL. Recent studies of fine drilling waste particulates on the Scotian Shelf in Canada have
shown that
transient retention of drilling wastes in the BBL can develop over periods that are ecologically significant
and that they may remain suspended in the BBL and be detectable several kilometers from the discharge
point ( Muschenheim et al., 1995; Muschenheim and Milligan, 1996). In another study, Georges Bank sea scallops (Placopecten magellanicus) were exposed for
two months to undiluted mineral oil-based drilling mud (OBM) cuttings from two drilling platform sources Alma F-67 well on the Scotian shelf off Nova Scotia and
Terra Nova E-79 well on the Grand Banks off Newfoundland ( Cranford and Gordon, 1991). Chronic mortality increased from 12.5% in controls to 32% in scallops
exposed to Alma-cuttings scallops, and 37.5% in scallops exposed to Terra Nova-cuttings. In
surviving animals, cessation of reproductive
and somatic tissue growth was observed along with decreased body component condition indices and
failure of lipid reserve accumulation. This research thus raised concerns regarding chronic impacts of “low
toxicity” mineral OBM in the immediate vicinity of drilling platforms including mortality, growth and reproductive effects (
Cranford and Gordon, 1991). The authors recognized the limitations of their laboratory exposures in representing actual field exposure conditions, and noted that
development of a high-energy exposure protocol to provide more ecologically relevant sedimentary and current conditions was under way. In an important series of
major field studies of macrozoobenthic species exposed to discharges of oil-based cutting muds (OBM), water-based cutting muds (WBM) and ester-based cutting
muds (EBM) in the North Sea, significant effects of both OBM and EBM on macrobenthos species abundance were observed up to 500 m or even 1000 m away from
the drilling platform sources (Daan et al., 1990, Daan et al., 1994, Daan et al., 1995 and Daan et al., 1996; Daan and Mulder, 1994). Of particular interest was the
lack of significant WBM effects on the 15 species of macrobenthos that showed reduced abundance near OBM discharge sites (Daan et al., 1994). A similar
reduction in species abundance was found for EBM exposed macrobenthos with some 12 species showing altered abundance. Of these, one species, the
opportunist polychaete Capitella capitata, showed increased abundance near both OBM ( Daan et al., 1994) and EBM sites ( Daan et al., 1996) while all other
indicator species were reduced near OBM and EBM sources. The authors noted the striking qualitative similarity between initial effects related to exposure to OBM
cutting discharges and those resulting from exposure to EBM discharges. In particular, the
abundances of the large individuals of the
reduced at the greatest distances
from both OBM and EBM cutting sources. Stress is thought to relate to organic enrichment with a reduction in the available oxygen
in the sediment due to changes in both the physical and chemical properties of the sediment. Increased oxygen
echinoderm Echinocardium cordatum and its symbiont, the bivalve mollusc Montacuta ferruginosa were
consumption as a result of degradation is hypothesized as the most plausible explanation for EBM cutting discharges ( Daan et al., 1996). The estimated decay rate
of the drilling mud esters indicated a mean half-life of 133 days with a lower confidence limit of 68 days. Losses of low toxicity OBMs were recently estimated to be
1297, 44 and 160 tonnes for the North Rankin A platform, Wanaea-6 well and Lynx-1A well on Australia's NorthWest shelf, respectively (Oliver and Fisher, 1999).
Analysis of species richness and abundance data indicated that in the case of the North Rankin A platform, major acute effects occurred up to 400 m from discharge
and that background was attained from 3000 to 5000 m though the natural variability and poor sampling design made lower level effect determination somewhat
uncertain. Analysis of the sediments and biota at the Wanaea-3 well three years after completion of drilling
with water-based mud (WBM)
effects of drilling could still be detected. Elevated levels of barium could be measured up
to 200 m from the well head in all directions while lead was elevated up to 100 m in the direction of the prevailing
demonstrated that the
current. Species richness was lowest at the 5 m site from the well head relative to all other stations sampled three years after completion of drilling at Wanaea-6,
biological effects appear to be limited to within 100 m of the cuttings discharge point with background levels
of total petroleum hydrocarbons
(TPH) and trace metals occurring near 1200 m in the direction of the prevailing current (Oliver and Fisher, 1999). The toxicity of waterbased drilling muds (WBM) collected from an active platform off southern California to red abalone (H. rufescens) and brown cup corals (Paracyathus stearnsii) was
assessed in the laboratory ( Raimondi et al., 1997). This research indicated that even
low-toxicity water-based drilling muds might
contribute to significant impacts on important processes such as larval settlement in the case of abalone. They
also found that WBMs may have direct effects on sessile adult organisms typical of hard-bottom communities as indicated by the
adult mortality, proportion of individuals showing tissue loss, and reduced relative viability observed in brown
cup corals ( Raimondi et al., 1997). Their use of environmentally realistic test concentrations (range 0.002–200 mg/l) indicated that the effects found in the
laboratory were of the same magnitude as those likely to occur in the field. An excellent chronic concentration-response study using winter flounder (Pleuronectes
americanus) exposed for 80 days to sediments enriched in aliphatic hydrocarbons from oil-base drill cuttings investigated physiological (condition indices and
energy reserves), biochemical (mixed-function oxygenases (MFO)) and cellular (blood disorders and histopathology) biomarkers of effect ( Payne et al., 1995). With
the exception of a slight MFO inhibition at the highest tested concentration (1500 ppm TPH), there was no evidence of a concentration-response and most indices
remained unaffected. These results thus failed to reject the null hypothesis that there were no effects of the aliphatic components of complex hydrocarbon
mixtures such as OBMs on winter flounder, a surrogate for bottom-dwelling fish. It should be noted, however, that winter flounder do not feed in the winter and
thus were not fed during this experiment. Thus, these results pertain only to water-borne contaminants and not to potential uptake through food. In a flawed and
limited study of growth rate of the mud minnow Fundulus grandis exposed to mineral oil-based and synthetic liquid-based drilling muds, growth rates over 30 days
were not significantly different between treatments ( Jones et al., 1991). There
was some confounding mortality due to water quality
problems as well as poor growth rates in the controls, however, the results are of limited value.
Spills
Exposure to crude oil is damaging to organisms- physiological harm and reproductive
impairment
Holdway 2002
(Douglas A, Department of Biotechnology and Environmental Biology, Royal Melbourne Institute of
Technology University, “The acute and chronic effects of wastes associated with offshore oil and gas
production on temperate and tropical marine ecological processes”, Marine Pollution Bulletin, Volume
44, Issue 3, March 2002, Pages 185–203, UMKC Database, Science Direct)
4.1. Acute toxicity of crude oils There are a number of recent studies which have investigated the acute toxicity of crude
oil to aquatic organisms (Table 5). While many of these acute toxicity studies use the static-replacement bioassay approach (Gulec et al., 1997/1998;
Gulec and Holdway, 1999 and Gulec and Holdway, 2000; Mitchell and Holdway, 2000; Fucik et al., 1995), the study by Moles (1998) provides acute toxicity
information based on flow-through test conditions. TPH concentrations varied somewhat for each water accommodated fraction (WAF) or water-soluble fraction
(WSF). However, the overall acute toxicity between aquatic organisms generally only varied by about a factor of 5 from around 0.5 to 5 ppm TPH (Table 5). In terms
of percentage WAF, this relates to somewhere between 20% and 100%. Table 5. Acute toxicity of crude oil to aquatic organisms Organism tested Crude oil Test
conditions EC/LC50 (SE unless indicated otherwise) Reference Marine amphipod (Allorchestes compressa) Bass Strait crude oil WAF (∼9 ppm TPH) 96 h 60% static
replacement 31.1% (0.576) Gulec et al. (1997/1998) Marine amphipod (Allorchestes compressa) Dispersed Bass Strait crude oil (100 ppm dispersed oil contains ∼7
ppm TPH) 96 h 60% static replacement Corexit 9527: 16.2 ppm (2.8) Gulec et al. (1997/1998) Corexit 9500: 14.8 ppm (0.8) Marine amphipod (Allorchestes
compressa) Burned Bass Strait crude oil (burned oil WAF contained ∼1.5 ppm TPH) 96 h 60% static replacement Burned oil WAF: 80% (4.1) Gulec and Holdway
(1999) Burned oil residue: >100% (–) Marine snail (Polinices conicus) Bass Strait crude oil WAF (∼9 ppm TPH) 30 min burying behavior 19.0% (0.560) Gulec et al.
(1997/1998) Marine snail (Polinices conicus) Dispersed Bass Strait crude oil (100 ppm dispersed oil contains ∼7 ppm TPH) 30 min burying behavior Corexit 9527:
65.4 ppm (2.0) Gulec et al. (1997/1998) Corexit 9500: 56.3 ppm (1.9) Marine snail (Polinices conicus) Burned Bass Strait crude oil (burned oil WAF contained ∼1.5
ppm TPH) 30 min burying behavior Burned oil WAF: no effects Gulec and Holdway (1999) Burned oil residue: no effects Ghost shrimp (Palaemon serenus) Bass Strait
crude oil WAF (∼9 ppm TPH) 96 h 50% static replacement 25.8% (1.30) Gulec and Holdway (2000) Ghost shrimp (Palaemon serenus) Dispersed Bass Strait crude oil
(100 ppm dispersed oil contains ∼7 ppm TPH) 96 h 50% static replacement Corexit 9527: 8.1 ppm (0.3) Gulec and Holdway (2000) Corexit 9500: 3.6 ppm (0.3) Larval
Australian bass (Macquaria novemaculeata) Bass Strait crude oil WAF (∼9 ppm TPH) 96 h 50% static replacement 46.5% (1.60) Gulec and Holdway (2000) Larval
Australian bass (Macquaria novemaculeata) Dispersed Bass Strait crude oil (100 ppm dispersed oil contains ∼7 ppm TPH) 96 h 50% static replacement Corexit 9527:
28.5 ppm (1.4) Gulec and Holdway (2000) Corexit 9500: 14.1 ppm (2.6) Green hydra (Hydra viridissima) Bass Strait crude oil WAF (∼1 ppm TPH stock solution) 96 h
100% static replacement (freshwater) 0.7 ppm (0.1) Mitchell and Holdway (2000) Green hydra (Hydra viridissima) Dispersed Bass Strait crude oil (20 ppm TPD
Corexit 9527, 100 ppm TPH Corexit 9500) 96 h 100% static replacement (freshwater) Corexit 9527: 9.0 ppm (0.5) Mitchell and Holdway (2000) Corexit 9500: 7.2 ppm
(0.1) Pink salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha) Cook Inlet Alaska crude oil WSF 96 h flow-through 1.2 ppm (0.2 CL) total aromatic hydrocarbons Moles (1998) Starry
flounder (Platichthys stellatus) Cook Inlet Alaska crude oil WSF 96 h flow-through 1.8 ppm (0.2 CL) total aromatic hydrocarbons Moles (1998) Amphipod
(Boeckosimus hypsinotus) Cook Inlet Alaska crude oil WSF 96 h flow-through >1.9 ppm total aromatic hydrocarbons Moles (1998) Coonstripe shrimp (Pandalus
hypsinotus) Cook Inlet Alaska crude oil WSF 96 h flow-through 1.4 ppm (0.2 CL) total aromatic hydrocarbons Moles (1998) King crab (Paralithodes camtschaticus)
Cook Inlet Alaska crude oil WSF 96 h flow-through 1.5 ppm (0.3 CL) total aromatic hydrocarbons Moles (1998) Shore crab (Hemigrapsus nudus) Cook Inlet Alaska
crude oil WSF 96 h flow-through >3.0 ppm total aromatic hydrocarbons Moles (1998) Ocher starfish (Evasterias troschelii) Cook Inlet Alaska crude oil WSF 96 h flowthrough >1.3 ppm total aromatic hydrocarbons Moles (1998) Pink scallop (Chlamys hericus) Cook Inlet Alaska crude oil WSF 96 h flow-through 2.0 ppm (0.3 CL) total
aromatic hydrocarbons Moles (1998) File periwinkle (Nucella lima) Cook Inlet Alaska crude oil WSF 96 h flow-through >3.0 ppm total aromatic hydrocarbons Moles
(1998) Blue mussel (Mytilus trossulus) Cook Inlet Alaska crude oil WSF 96 h flow-through >3.0 ppm total aromatic hydrocarbons Moles (1998) Blue crab (Callinectes
sapidus) Western Gulf of Mexico Oil WAF 96 h flow-through >100% (36% mortality in 100% WAF concentration) Fucik et al. (1995) White shrimp (Penaeus setiferus)
Western Gulf of Mexico Oil WAF 96 h flow-through >100% Fucik et al. (1995) Brown shrimp (Penaeus aztecus) Western Gulf of Mexico Oil WAF 96 h flow-through
59.9% Fucik et al. (1995) Blue crab (Callinectes sapidus) Central Gulf of Mexico Oil WAF 96 h flow-through 70.7% Fucik et al. (1995) White shrimp (Penaeus setiferus)
Central Gulf of Mexico Oil WAF 96 h flow-through 30.2% Fucik et al. (1995) Eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica) Dispersed Western Gulf of Mexico Oil WAF 96 h
static Corexit 9527 11.2 ppm (7.9–13.9 CL) Fucik et al. (1995) Eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica) Dispersed Central Gulf of Mexico Oil WAF 96 h static Corexit 9527
1.8 ppm (3.3–15.8 CL) Fucik et al. (1995) Inland silverside (Menidia beryllina) Western Gulf of Mexico Oil WAF 96 h flow-through 66.4% Fucik et al. (1995) Atlantic
menhaden (Brevoortia tyrannus) Western Gulf of Mexico Oil WAF 48 h static 64.1% Fucik et al. (1995) Red drum (Sciaenops ocellatus) Western Gulf of Mexico Oil
WAF 48 h static >100% Fucik et al. (1995) Spot (Leiostomus xanthurus) Western Gulf of Mexico Oil WAF 48 h static >100% Fucik et al. (1995) Inland silverside
(Menidia beryllina) Central Gulf of Mexico Oil WAF 96 h flow-through 59.1% Fucik et al. (1995) Atlantic menhaden (Brevoortia tyrannus) Central Gulf of Mexico Oil
WAF 48 h static 42.1% Fucik et al. (1995) Red drum (Sciaenops ocellatus) Central Gulf of Mexico Oil WAF 48 h static 74.0% Fucik et al. (1995) Spot (Leiostomus
xanthurus) Central Gulf of Mexico Oil WAF 48 h static 70.7% Fucik et al. (1995) Blue crab (Callinectes sapidus) Dispersed Western Gulf of Mexico Oil WAF 96 h flowthrough Corexit 9527 90.8 ppm Fucik et al. (1995) White shrimp (Penaeus setiferus) Dispersed Western Gulf of Mexico Oil WAF 96 h flow-through Corexit 9527 18.6
ppm Fucik et al. (1995) Brown shrimp (Penaeus aztecus) Dispersed Western Gulf of Mexico Oil WAF 96 h flow-through Corexit 9527 52.7 ppm Fucik et al. (1995) Blue
crab (Callinectes sapidus) Dispersed Central Gulf of Mexico Oil WAF 96 h flow-through Corexit 9527 19.8 ppm Fucik et al. (1995) White shrimp (Penaeus setiferus)
Dispersed Central Gulf of Mexico Oil WAF 96 h flow-through Corexit 9527 13.8 ppm Fucik et al. (1995) Pink salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbusca) Alaskan North Slope
crude oil WSF 96 h flow-through 1.0, 2.2 and 2.8 ppm for 1992, 1990 and 1991 juveniles, respectively Birtwell et al. (1999) Table options It must be borne in mind
that the method of producing WAF or WSF will influence the actual TPH and PAH concentrations of the stock test solutions. This can make direct comparisons of the
literature values somewhat problematic, especially when combined with the different specific chemical composition of each crude oil. Freshwater invertebrates
were only slightly more sensitive than marine invertebrates (Mitchell and Holdway, 2000). Fish
tend to be similar or slightly less sensitive
to crude oil than invertebrates (Gulec and Holdway, 2000; Moles, 1998; Fucik et al., 1995). It is hard to generalize about the toxicity of dispersed oil
since the type of dispersant can also affect the acute toxicity of the resultant WAF. The main aspect is that greater amounts of TPH are
put into the water column thus causing greater acute toxicity to marine organisms. The relative toxicity in terms of
actual TPH and PAH concentrations appears to be only slightly to moderately more toxic, depending on the dispersant type used (Mitchell and Holdway, 2000; Gulec
et al., 1997/1998; Gulec and Holdway, 1999 and Gulec and Holdway, 2000). The acute toxicity of burned oil WAF was found to be significantly lower than for WAF or
dispersed oil to both marine snails (P. conicus) and amphipods (Allorchestes compressa) compared to crude oil WAF and dispersed crude oil ( Gulec and Holdway,
1999). Burned oil residue mixture was not acutely toxic to the same species of amphipod and was only of very low toxicity to marine snail behavior following acute
exposure. 4.2. Chronic toxicity of crude oils There
is an increasing number of studies of the sub-lethal and chronic
effects of crude oil on aquatic organisms. This is because it is still uncertain whether long-term impacts of oil spills are a
serious environmental hazard. Following the Exxon Valdez spill of 1989 and other recent large-scale and high profile spills, and the subsequent
political and social concern, a great deal of research has been directed towards understanding the long-term impacts on marine environments of exposure to crude
oil ( Botello et al., 1997; Burns et al., 1993; Lavering, 1994; Lee and Page, 1997; Lissner et al., 1991; Moore et al., 1997; Price, 1998; SEEEC, 1997; Silva et al., 1997;
Suchanek, 1993). Potential long-term
effects on specific ecosystems such as the Great Barrier Reef (Craik, 1991, Flood, 1992), the North Sea
(Ferm, 1996; Gray et al., 1999; McIntyre and Turnbull, 1992) or the Gulf of Mexico (Kennicutt et al., 1996a and Kennicutt et al., 1996b) are of concern and
exploration, drilling and transport activities in these areas are being monitored and managed. Much of this research has been directed
towards investigating the sub-lethal reproductive effects of crude oil exposure to commercial species of fish including
herring and salmon. This section will review some of the most recent studies of chronic toxicity of crude oil and its constituents to aquatic organisms. A number of
studies have found contaminated sediments, fish and invertebrates following an oil spill or long-term
chronic exposure to: • crude oil ( Alvarez Pineiro et al., 1996; Awad, 1995; Boehm et al., 1995; Burns and Knap, 1989; Boeer, 1996; CSIRO, 1996;
Fayad et al., 1996; Gajbhiye et al., 1995; Gold-Bouchot et al., 1997; Sen Gupta et al., 1995; Irvine et al., 1999; Khan et al., 1995; Law et al., 1997; Massoud et al.,
1998; Mille et al., 1998; Mohan and Prakash, 1998; Neff and Stubblefield, 1995; Nicodem et al., 1997; O'Clair et al., 1996; Sauer et al., 1998; Shang et al., 1997; Short
and Harris, 1996a and Short and Harris, 1996b; Shriadah, 1998; Venkateswaran and Tanaka, 1995) or • PAHs (Anon., 1997; Hellou and Warren, 1997; Kanga et al.,
1997; Kayal and Connell, 1995; Pereira et al., 1996). A
variety of effects have been reported as a consequence of chronic oil
exposure including: • behavioral ( Gulec and Holdway, 1999; Gulec et al., 1997/1998; Mackey and Hodgkinson, 1996; Moles et al., 1994; Temara et
al., 1999; Wertheimer and Celewycz, 1996), • suppressed growth ( Al-Yakoob et al., 1996; Gundersen et al., 1996; Mitchell and Holdway, 2000; Moles and
Norcross, 1998), • induced or inhibited enzyme systems and other molecular effects ( Anderson et al., 1999; Diaz-Mendez et al., 1998; Gagnon and
Holdway, 1999a and Gagnon and Holdway, 1999b; Gagnon and Holdway, 2000; George et al., 1994 and George et al., 1995; Marty et al., 1997b; Readman et al.,
1996; Stagg et al., 1995; Wheelock et al., 1999; Woodin et al., 1997), • physiological
responses ( Alkindi et al., 1996; Antrim et al., 1995; Middaugh et
immunity to disease and parasites ( Moles, 1999; Moles and Norcross,
1998), • histopathological lesions and other cellular effects ( Khan, 1995 and Khan, 1998; Kocan et al., 1996; Marty et al., 1997a and Marty et al.,
1999; Mortensen and Carls, 1994), • tainted flesh ( Goodlad, 1996), • chronic mortality ( Birtwell et al., 1999; Crump and Emson, 1998; Ewa-Oboho
al., 1998), • reproductive ( Beckman et al., 1995), • reduced
and Abby-Kalio, 1994; Fucik et al., 1995; Garrity et al., 1994; Moles, 1998), and • reptile, bird and mammal impacts including the effects of physical cleaning of oil (
Attias et al., 1995; Conroy et al., 1997; Custer et al., 1994; CSIRO, 1999; Duffy et al., 1994; Feuston et al., 1997; Fowler et al., 1995; Hartung, 1995; Jenssen, 1996;
Khan et al., 1996; Lipscomb et al., 1996; Mitchell, 1999; Schmidt, 1997; Stubblefield et al., 1995; Vasquez et al., 1997; Wiens, 1996). Middaugh et al. (1996)
conducted a series of toxicity/teratogenicity tests on neutral fraction hydrocarbons recovered from sterile and biodegraded systems treated with weathered Alaska
North Slope crude oil (ANS 521). Embryonic inland silversides (Menidia beryllina) exposed to hydrocarbons from the sterile systems did not have significant
teratogenic responses at concentrations of 1%, 10%, and 100% (w/v) of WSFs. Silverside heartbeat was significantly lowered in days 5 and 6 of embryogenesis at the
100% sterile system WAF. The WSF recovered from the 2- and 14-day stirred sterile systems was 0.65 and 0.69 mg/l, respectively. In contrast, 14 days of
biodegradation resulted in 7.5 mg/l of neutral fraction hydrocarbons in 100% WAF and teratogenic responses were found in embryonic inland silversides exposed to
1%, 10% and 100% WSF from the biodegraded system. Heart contraction rates were reduced on days 2–6 of embyogenesis at the 100% WSF concentration
compared to controls (Middaugh et al., 1996). The 1% biodegraded WSF thus corresponded to a concentration of only 0.075 mg/l of neutral fraction hydrocarbons
which caused significant teratogenic effects in inland silverside. The authors conclude from their results and those of earlier studies that several mechanisms may be
involved in the toxicity of crude oil to embryonic, larval and adult fishes. The proposed mechanisms (Middaugh et al., 1996) are: • ovarian
toxicity from
direct uptake and sequestering in ovary of low molecular weight WSF; • embryonic toxicity or teratogenic effects from direct contact with oil; • increases
in WSF from use of dispersants; • increases in the WSF of higher molecular weight neutral oil fractions through biodegradation and bioemulsification of weathered
crude oil; • bioaccumulation
in larval fishes of WSF through predation on contaminated invertebrate
zooplankters; • bioaccumulation of oil in larval and juvenile fish through direct dermal contact, uptake of WSF
from water or by direct ingestion.
Deep water spills are particularly damaging and irreparable
Craig 2011
(Robin Kundis, William H. Leary Professor of Law, College Of Law, University of Utah, Affiliated Faculty,
Wallace Stegner Center for Land, Resources, and Environment, College Of Law, University of Utah,
Affiliated Faculty, Global Change & Sustainability Center, University of Utah, Professor, College Of Law,
University of Utah, “Legal Remedies for Deep Marine Oil Spills and Long-Term Ecological Resilience: A
Match Made in Hell”, Brigham Young University Law Review, UMKC database/online library)
Uncertainties regarding the environmental impacts of the Gulf oil spill are many. As the Deepwater Horizon Commission noted, "Scientists
simply do not yet know how to predict the ecological consequences and effects on key species that
might result from oil exposure in the water column, both far below and near the surface."32 The timing of
the oil spill disrupted the reproductive cycles of many species, including the oysters that the Gulf is famous for.
Oysters are a keystone species in the Gulf - that is, "an organism that exerts a shaping, disproportionate
influence on its habitat and community."33 The spill probably impacted bluefin tuna as well. The Gulf is
considered part of the bluefin's "essential fish habitat,"34 and "the Ocean Foundation estimated that the spill could have affected 20% of the
2010 season's population of bluefin tuna larvae, further
placing at risk an already severely overfished species."35
Endangered species of whales and sea turtles were also impacted by the oil spill: wildlife responders
collected 1144 sea turtles and 109 marine mammals that had been injured by the spill, and many more
undiscovered injuries of the same types are suspected to have occurred.36 However, what makes the Deepwater
Horizon oil spill "special" in terms of how we think about environmental risk and environmental damage in the United
States - and, more broadly, in terms of how we think about offshore oil drilling - is the great depth at which the spill occurred. Unlike
previous oil spills in the Gulf, "this one spewed from the depths of the ocean, the bathypelagic zone (3300-13,000 feet
deep)."37 Importantly, this area, although deep and dark, is not a Gulf "dead zone"; instead, the Gulfs bathypelagic zone has
"abundant and diverse marine life," including cold-water corals, light-producing fish, sperm whales, and
giant squid.38 However, the additional risks to the Gulfs species and ecosystems from such deepwater drilling were not - as
many commentators have made clear - properly considered or regulated.39 Moreover, it is not clear that ecological
remedies available under existing law will ever fully capture the damage done in the BP Gulf oil spill, let alone
be able to restore the affected areas of the Gulf to prc-Deepwater Horizon status.40 The primary remedies available for this damage
are natural resource damages under the federal Clean Water Act ("CWA")41 and the federal Oil Pollution Act of 1990 ("OPA").42 The federal
government and the Gulf states (Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida) are currently pursuing natural resource damages for the
BP oil spill,43 but much remains uncertain about what damages they can claim. In particular, proper
assessment of natural
resource damages requires the ability to compare a baseline condition for a species, habitat, or
ecosystem to the postdisaster state.44 With respect to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, however, baseline conditions
for the deepwater areas that the spill affected are largely unknown.45 In addition, the primary goal of natural resource damages
is to restore the affected areas to their pre disaster state.46 This goal may be unattainable in the aftermath of the
Deepwater Horizon spill because of the many other stresses afflicting the Gulf,47 particularly given that the Gulfs resilience to
such disasters is itself deeply contested. As the Deepwater Horizon Commission noted, restoration in the Gulf must have a
different and "broader" meaning than "restoration" under the CWA and OPA, a meaning that "encompass[es] reversing the progressive erosion
of coastal land and habitats that buffer human communities from storms and sustain the area's biological productivity."48
Oil spills in deep water are more likely and more damaging than surface spills
Craig 2011
(Robin Kundis, William H. Leary Professor of Law, College Of Law, University of Utah, Affiliated Faculty,
Wallace Stegner Center for Land, Resources, and Environment, College Of Law, University of Utah,
Affiliated Faculty, Global Change & Sustainability Center, University of Utah, Professor, College Of Law,
University of Utah, “Legal Remedies for Deep Marine Oil Spills and Long-Term Ecological Resilience: A
Match Made in Hell”, Brigham Young University Law Review, UMKC database/online library)
The oil gushing from the Macondo wellhead was thus beyond the direct reach of any human being. Moreover, as the Deepwater Horizon
disaster made clear, "[t]he
deep ocean presents lots of problems, including the corrosive effect of salt water
on metal rigs and drilling equipment," problems with the effects of "extreme pressure" on equipment,
and "the fact that gases may become solid crystals .... "60 Even the oil itself does not behave the same at
greater depths as it does on the surface. Oil discharging from the Macondo wellhead was subjected to pressures of over 125
atmospheres61 - that is, pressures 125 times the pressure at sea level - and very low temperatures. Released oil subjected
to such pressures and low temperatures does not necessarily float to the surface. Studies reported in July 2011
confirmed that released oil behaves very differently at depth: Unlike a surface spill, from which these volatile
compounds evaporate into the atmosphere, in the deep water under pressure, light hydrocarbon components
predominantly dissolve or form hydrates, compounds containing water molecules. And depending on its properties,
the resulting complex mixture can rise, sink, or even remain suspended in the water, and possibly go on
to cause damage to seafloor life far from the original spill.62 Moreover, these studies noted that, in particular, the
behavior of "light-weight, water-soluble hydrocarbons such as methane, benzene and naphthalene
released from the base of the rig" might be critical to discovering and assessing the extent of deepwater
environmental damage.63
The effects of oil spills are longer lasting at great depths and microbes don’t solve
Craig 2011
(Robin Kundis, William H. Leary Professor of Law, College Of Law, University of Utah, Affiliated Faculty,
Wallace Stegner Center for Land, Resources, and Environment, College Of Law, University of Utah,
Affiliated Faculty, Global Change & Sustainability Center, University of Utah, Professor, College Of Law,
University of Utah, “Legal Remedies for Deep Marine Oil Spills and Long-Term Ecological Resilience: A
Match Made in Hell”, Brigham Young University Law Review, UMKC database/online library)
In addition, given the behavioral differences between oil released at great depths and oil released in
surface spills, oil from the Deepwater Horizon disaster may still be collecting on and spreading across the
seafloor.69 Researchers have found a lumpy, cauliflowerlike layer of brown material on the Gulf floor,
which may be the congealed heavier components of oil released from the Macondo well - components that oildigesting microbes have a harder time breaking down.70 Moreover, "near to the well head, the layer shows
little microbial activity, suggesting it will not break down quickly."71 Lack of knowledge regarding the oil spill's effect on
the deepwater ecosystems of the Gulf is a recurring theme, even more than a year after the spill. For example, in an April 2011 interview with
the Orlando Sentinel, NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco noted that "we still don't have a good handle on what the potential damage that
was done by that subsurface oil and whether [deepwater plumes] were natural or caused by dispersants that were used."72 Nevertheless,
NOAA has "video images that indicate there are spots on the [deep Gulf] seafloor where there is clear
evidence of oil residue. But we don't have good information how extensive that is."73 Part of the problem, Lubchenco emphasized, is
the sheer size of the Gulf and the potentially affected area. Indeed, "[t]he challenge here is how to sample a huge, huge area, which is what the
Gulf is."74 Another problem is that there are numerous natural oil seeps and other oil spills in the Gulf, making it difficult to tie particular
environmental damage at depth - such as videotaped damage to deep-sea coral reefs - to the BP oil spill.75
Habitats damaged by deep water spills are critical
Craig 2011
(Robin Kundis, William H. Leary Professor of Law, College Of Law, University of Utah, Affiliated Faculty,
Wallace Stegner Center for Land, Resources, and Environment, College Of Law, University of Utah,
Affiliated Faculty, Global Change & Sustainability Center, University of Utah, Professor, College Of Law,
University of Utah, “Legal Remedies for Deep Marine Oil Spills and Long-Term Ecological Resilience: A
Match Made in Hell”, Brigham Young University Law Review, UMKC database/online library)
Nevertheless, there is no question that these deep marine ecosystems are "critical environmental habitat[s]."
In Lubchenco's words, the deep Gulf ecosystem is "important to the functioning of the whole system. The coral
and sponge communities that are down there are important ones. We know relatively little about them to begin
with."76 Other researchers emphasize that the Macondo well blowout and oil spill occurred in an area of particular species richness in the Gulfs
depths - "some 1,728 species inhabit the region surrounding Deepwater Horizon at depths of between 1,000 and 3,000 metres, where the well
is located."77 As the Nature report summarized, one year after the oil spill, "[o]n the water's surface,
there are no lasting
impressions of the crisis, but not so below. The wreckage of one of the world's most advanced drilling rigs lies hidden
on the sea floor, as do the ecological damages that are proving so challenging to assess."78
The gulf of Mexico is extremely vulnerable to oil spills
Craig 2011
(Robin Kundis, William H. Leary Professor of Law, College Of Law, University of Utah, Affiliated Faculty,
Wallace Stegner Center for Land, Resources, and Environment, College Of Law, University of Utah,
Affiliated Faculty, Global Change & Sustainability Center, University of Utah, Professor, College Of Law,
University of Utah, “Legal Remedies for Deep Marine Oil Spills and Long-Term Ecological Resilience: A
Match Made in Hell”, Brigham Young University Law Review, UMKC database/online library)
These results suggest that we should be very concerned for the Gulf ecosystems affected by the Macondo well blowout.
First, and as this Article has emphasized throughout, unlike the Exxon Valdez spill, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill occurred at great depth, and
the oil behaved unusually compared to oil released on the surface. Second, considerably more toxic dispersants were used in connection with
the Gulf oil spill than the Alaska oil spill.164 Third, humans could intervene almost immediately to begin cleaning the rocky substrate in Prince
William Sound, but human intervention for many of the important affected Gulf ecosystems, especially the deepwater ones (but even for
shallower coral reefs), remains impossible. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the Prince William Sound was and remains a far less stressed
ecosystem than the Gulf of Mexico. In 2008, for example, NOAA stated that "[d]espite the remaining impacts of the [still then] largest oil spill in
U.S. history, Prince William Sound remains a relatively pristine, productive and biologically rich ecosystem."165 To be sure, the Sound was not
completely unstressed, and "[w]hen the Exxon Valdez spill occurred in March 1989, the Prince William Sound ecosystem was also responding to
at least three notable events in its past: an unusually cold winter in 1988-89; growing populations of reintroduced sea otters; and a 1964
earthquake."166 Nevertheless, the
Gulf of Mexico is besieged by environmental stressors at another order of
magnitude (or two), reducing its resilience to disasters like the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. As the Deepwater Horizon
Commission detailed at length, the Gulf faces an array of long-term threats, from the loss of protective and
productive wetlands along the coast to hurricanes to a growing "dead zone" (hypoxic zone) to sediment
starvation to sealevel rise to damaging channeling to continual (if smaller) oil releases from the thousands
of drilling operations.167 In the face of this plethora of stressors, even the Commission championed a kind of resilience thinking,
recognizing that responding to the oil spill alone was not enough. It equated restoration of the Gulf to "restored resilience,"
arguing that it "represents an effort to sustain these diverse, interdependent activities [fisheries, energy, and tourism] and the environment on
which they depend for future generations."168
General
The production of hydrocarbons is environmentally damaging and there are still many
unstudied adverse effects
Holdway 2002
(Douglas A, Department of Biotechnology and Environmental Biology, Royal Melbourne Institute of
Technology University, “The acute and chronic effects of wastes associated with offshore oil and gas
production on temperate and tropical marine ecological processes”, Marine Pollution Bulletin, Volume
44, Issue 3, March 2002, Pages 185–203, UMKC Database, Science Direct)
6. Suspected but unconfirmed impacts on tropical and temperate marine systems and further studies required to clarify those impacts One area
where further research is required involves the
potential impacts of PFW on early development stages of marine
invertebrates including the critical processes of metamorphosis and settling behavior. One of the most
intriguing possibilities raised by this review is the hypothesis of Krause et al. (1992) that all of the observed PFW effects could be mediated
through a single unifying toxicological mechanism involving microtubule-mediated effects. It is rare in applied science such as ecotoxicology for
such unifying theories to be proposed although some progress has been made in the study of quantitative structure activity relationships
(QSAR) of chemicals involving like modes of action. Designing experiments to critically test this proposed unifying hypothesis would appear to
be a very useful and specific area of future research to pursue. Other
areas requiring further research include the study of the
ecological significance of PFW effects on zooplankton in the surface microlayer, particularly effects on embryo
and larval fish survival. Equally of interest, but in the completely opposite physical direction, are the effects of suspended
drilling fluid particles in the BBL, a region of dynamic energy in many parts of the world. This review indicated that long-term
impacts might be occurring in both of these zones but that studies to date were limited in their scale and their conclusions were uncertain
relative to their environmental significance. Other areas of potential impacts of offshore oil and gas production wastes include long-term
impacts on marine populations as a consequence of low-level but chronic exposure to petroleum
hydrocarbons, drilling fluids, metals and other chemicals associated with the industrial activity. Generally,
the temporal and spatial scales of these studies, along with the large levels of inherent variation in natural environments, have precluded our
ability to predict the potential long-term environmental impacts of the offshore oil and gas production industry. A series of critical questions
regarding the environmental effects of the offshore oil and gas production industry still remain unanswered and are listed below: • What
impact do the relatively short-term activities of the offshore oil and gas production industry have on the
long-term sustainability of the marine environment? • Are the impacts on the structure and density of benthic
communities observed in the immediate vicinity of many oil and gas platforms of any significance to the long-term
productivity and community diversity of the marine ecosystems involved? • What are the impacts 10, 20
and 30 years following the commencement of oil and gas production? • What are the impacts 10, 20 and 30 years following the
cessation of oil and gas production? • What is the potential of oil and gas production wastes to be causing
unknown effects as a consequence of delayed toxicity mechanisms such as endocrine disruption or the
slow increase in background toxic metals? • Can biomarkers of exposure and effects be used to monitor for significant shortterm and long-term impacts of oil and gas production wastes? • What are the relative risks of environmental impact from the oil and gas
threats would include introduced alien
species, altered marine habitat (e.g., loss of sea grass beds, dredging, coastal development), and the overall increase in
the loading of various urban wastes from non-discrete sources as a consequence of rapidly increasing population?
production industry compared to other important threats to marine ecosystems? Such
Warming Take-out
Rising global temperature make waste disposal and extraction of hydrocarbons harder
Burkett 11
(Virginia, U.S. Geological Survey, USGS Chief Scientist for Climate and Land Use Change, “Global climate
change implications for coastal and offshore oil and gas development”, Energy Policy, Volume 39, Issue
12, December 2011, Pages 7719–7725, UMKC database/online library)
Warming atmospheric temperatures can have strong effects on OCS and resource development in the
Arctic. The decline in sea ice and the thawing of permafrost in the coastal zone are likely to result in a
number of effects, including: • Longer ice-free season for OCS exploration and production activities,
particularly if the shelf off the coasts of Alaska and Canada become permanently ice free. • Opening up
of navigation routes through the Northwest and Northeast Passages, even if ice simply thins to the point
that shipping lanes can be mechanically maintained by icebreakers (Valsson Trausti and Ulfarsson,
2011). • Decline in the availability of ice-based transportation (ice roads, offshore loading facilities). •
Frost heave and settlement of pipelines set on pilings or buried in permafrost, increasing construction
and maintenance costs and the potential for leakage and spills. • Settlement of buildings set on piles or
foundations laid directly upon permafrost, or a decrease in load bearing capacity of such structures. •
Rapid, widespread environmental impacts (on sea ice-dependent mammals, for example) could have
substantial effects on the regulatory environment for OCS energy development (Ahmad et al., 2009). •
Damage to onshore support facilities, waste disposal sites, and roads as coastal erosion and land loss
accelerates (due to the combination of declining sea ice that protects the coast from erosion, sea level
rise, the thawing of ice in coastal sediments and, possibly, an increase in the intensity of Arctic storms)
(Mars and Houseknecht, 2007) (also see Fig. 1). Full-size image (40 K) Fig. 1. Photographs of the
shoreline at the J.W. Dalton wellsite on the Beaufort Sea coast of the National Petroleum Reserve Alaska
taken in September 2004 and 2005. Figure options • Hazards associated with the formation of
thermokarst lakes in the coastal zone (Fig. 2) and the stability of shelf and slope sediments due to
thawing ice in sediments and the release of gas from clathrates. Full-size image (79 K) Fig. 2. Increase in
the rate of coastal erosion and thermokarst lake development along the North Coast of Alaska between
1955–1985 and 1985–2005.Source: Lyle Mars and David Houseknect, U.S. Geological Survey. Figure
options Prowse et al. (2009) conclude that the greatest impact of changing temperatures on Arctic oil
and gas exploration may relate to the disposal of drilling wastes in onshore, in-ground sumps. Disposal
of waste in these sites relies on the presence of permafrost to prevent subsurface movement of drilling
wastes into the surrounding environment (Dyke, 2001). Alternate waste disposal practices, including
down-hole injection or transportation of waste to more stable environments, are among the
adaptations that could offset impacts and allow continued development. Several other adaptation
strategies to the impacts of temperature change on Arctic exploration have been proposed. Recent
exploratory drilling in the Beaufort Sea, for example, suggests that decreasing sea ice cover may require
design changes to counter effects of increased wave action and storm surges. The design of new
facilities along Arctic river channels and coasts is likely to consider trends and projections in river-ice
breakup and ice-jam flooding, coastal erosion, and sea-level rise. One recently proposed method to
avoid some potential impacts involved using a barge for production facilities rather than a land-based
facility on the Canadian coast (Prowse et al., 2009).
Increase precipitation from climate change will damage hydrocarbon infrastructure
and make extraction more challenging
Burkett 11
(Virginia, U.S. Geological Survey, USGS Chief Scientist for Climate and Land Use Change, “Global climate
change implications for coastal and offshore oil and gas development”, Energy Policy, Volume 39, Issue
12, December 2011, Pages 7719–7725, UMKC database/online library)
Average annual precipitation is projected to increase in most land areas of North America, with the southwestern United
States being the most notable exception. The projected increase in total precipitation is particularly significant in Alaska and Canada, while
much of the north and eastern contiguous United States are also likely to get much wetter during this century but the increase is projected to
occur mainly during the winter months (USGCRP, 2009). Changes
in the influx of freshwater to the coast appear likely
as climate change intensifies, but the uncertainties are large. Coupled climate and streamflow models developed by Milly et al.
(2005) suggest increased discharges to coastal waters in the Arctic during the next few decades, while reduced discharges to coastal waters are
suggested in the western Gulf of Mexico. Drought events can have important effects on estuaries and coastal marshes (Nicholls et al., 2007).
The “Brown Marsh Event” that resulted in the loss of 40,500 ha of coastal Louisiana salt marsh in 2000 (Schrift et al., 2008) was attributed
primarily to drought. Changes in the timing of freshwater runoff to estuaries could also affect the productivity of many estuarine and marine
fishery species. Freshwater inflows into estuaries influence water residence time, vertical stratification, salinity, control of phytoplankton
growth rates, and the flushing of contaminants (Burkett et al., 2009). Potential
effects of changes in precipitation patterns
and runoff on energy development in the coastal zone and OCS development include: • Increased restrictions on oil
and gas activities in stressed or deteriorating coastal ecosystems, such as coastal Louisiana and parts of coastal Alaska
and Canada. • Damage to onshore support facilities due to extreme rainfall events that flood low-lying coastal
areas. • Damage to roads, bridges, and ports in the coastal floodplain due to higher peak streamflow. • Difficulty in obtaining permits for new
onshore facilities that have direct or indirect effects on coastal wetlands, freshwater flows, and sedimentary processes that maintain low-lying
coastal systems. • Changes
in precipitation patterns and runoff to estuaries could potentially increase the cost
of stormwater handling infrastructure (e.g., Alabama State requirements for rainwater retention on oil and gas platforms in
Mobile Bay).
Sea level rise will destroy offshore oil and gas facilities
Burkett 11
(Virginia, U.S. Geological Survey, USGS Chief Scientist for Climate and Land Use Change, “Global climate
change implications for coastal and offshore oil and gas development”, Energy Policy, Volume 39, Issue
12, December 2011, Pages 7719–7725, UMKC database/online library)
2.3. Sea level rise The IPCC's most recent global-mean sea level rise scenarios for the 21st century are based on thermal expansion and ice melt
with range of 18–59 cm by the end of the 21st century (Meehl et al., 2007). Superficially, these projections are smaller than Church et al.
(2001), but this largely reflects differences in methodology and the IPCC (2007a) emphasizes that the upper 95 percent range of the model
predictions is not an absolute upper bound on global-mean sea level rise during the 21st Century, with the contributions from the major ice
sheets (Antarctica and Greenland) being a major uncertainty. Several recent papers
support the view that a 100 cm or
greater rise in sea level over the next century cannot be entirely discounted at present (Rahmstorf, 2007, Rahmstorf et al.,
2007, Rohling et al., 2008 and Royal Society of New Zealand, 2010). Offshore and inshore oil and gas facilities are vulnerable to
relative sea level rise, in part because the 4000+ platforms that have been installed on the OCS in the Gulf of Mexico and off the western
coast of the United States were not designed to accommodate a permanent increase in mean sea level. They were
designed, however, to function safely in the event of storm surge. Relative sea level rise poses the greatest danger to the dense
network of OCS marine and coastal facilities in the central Gulf Coast region between Mobile Bay, Al and Galveston, TX. These
facilities include ports, marinas, and OCS industry-support facilities such as tank batteries and gas processing
plants. An increase in relative sea level of 61 cm has the potential to affect 64 percent of the region's port
facilities, while a 122 cm rise in relative sea level would affect nearly three-quarters of port facilities (CCSP,
2008).
Increasing numbers of hurricanes will damage oil and gas platforms and infrastructure
Burkett 11
(Virginia, U.S. Geological Survey, USGS Chief Scientist for Climate and Land Use Change, “Global climate
change implications for coastal and offshore oil and gas development”, Energy Policy, Volume 39, Issue
12, December 2011, Pages 7719–7725, UMKC database/online library)
2.4. More intense storms Increased tropical storm activity is likely to accompany global warming as a function of
higher sea surface temperatures, which have been observed globally (Webster et al., 2005 and IPCC
(Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), 2007a). Sea surface temperature increased significantly in the main hurricane development
region of the North Atlantic during the past century (USGCRP, 2009). Hurricanes
have been shown to have substantial and
costly impacts on offshore platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. Storm surge effects include flooding and structural
damages to drilling and production platforms as well as onshore support facilities. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita made
landfall in the central Gulf Coast in 2005, shutting down hundreds of oil-drilling and production platforms, eight
refineries, and many other onshore oil and gas facilities. The storms also caused a record number of
mobile offshore drilling units set adrift in the history of Gulf of Mexico operations. In the months following the
2005 hurricane season, changes were proposed in regulatory operating and emergency procedures, maintenance requirements, and design
practices including mooring techniques for mobile offshore drilling units (Cruz and Krausmann, 2008). The oil and gas industry is investigating
new design of offshore platforms to reduce the potential impacts of changing storm patterns and hurricanes. Technologies such as
computational fluid dynamics (CFD) are being used to evaluate the performance of offshore platforms under extreme operating conditions. CFD
is used to simulate storm surge, aerodynamic effect of winds, and hydrodynamic effect of waves on platforms using super-computer
technology (Ferguson, 2007). Storm surge and high winds historically have not had much impact on pipelines – either onshore transmission
lines or offshore pipelines – because they are buried underground (CCSP, 2008). Offshore
pipelines, however, were damaged in
relatively large numbers during Hurricanes Andrew, Ivan, and Katrina. Hurricane Andrew damaged more than 480
pipelines and flow lines with most of the pipeline failures in depths less than 30 m of water. Hurricane Ivan resulted in approximately 168
pipeline damage reports, although the vast majority of Gulf of Mexico offshore pipelines performed well during its passage. U.S.
Minerals
Management Service records indicate that 457 offshore oil and gas pipelines were damaged as a result
of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita (CCSP, 2008). As in the case of sea level rise, ports, highway, and rail are the transportation facilities
that would be most directly affected by storm surge are located in the central Gulf of Mexico coastal zone. Ports have the most
exposure, because 98 percent of port facilities in this region are vulnerable to a storm surge of 5.5 m. Fiftyone percent of arterials and 56 percent of interstate highways are located in areas that are vulnerable to a surge of 5.5 m, and the proportions
rise to 57 and 64 percent, respectively, for a surge of 7 m (CCSP, 2008) (Fig. 3).
Increase wave height will destroy hydrocarbon infrastructure and platforms
Burkett 11
(Virginia, U.S. Geological Survey, USGS Chief Scientist for Climate and Land Use Change, “Global climate
change implications for coastal and offshore oil and gas development”, Energy Policy, Volume 39, Issue
12, December 2011, Pages 7719–7725, UMKC database/online library)
2.5. Changes in wave regime Few studies have examined potential changes in prevailing ocean wave heights as a consequence of
climate change. In the Northern hemisphere, a multidecadal trend of increased wave height has been observed, but the cause is poorly
understood (Gulev and Hasse, 1999, McLean et al., 2001 and IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), 2007b). Peak and
average wave heights have increased significantly during the winter months along the Pacific coast in the vicinity of
Washington (Allan and Komar, 2006). The increasing North Atlantic wave height in recent decades has been attributed to the positive phase of
the North Atlantic Oscillation, which appears to have intensified commensurate with the slow warming of the tropical ocean (Wolf, 2003).
Increasing average summer wave heights along the Mid-Atlantic coastline of North America appear to be associated with a progressive increase
in hurricane activity between 1975 and 2005 (Komar and Allan, 2007). The
IPCC (2007a) concludes that an increase in peak
winds associated with hurricanes will accompany an increase in tropical storm intensity. An increase in
wave heights in coastal bays and lagoons may also be a secondary effect of the erosion and
submergence of coastal lowlands and barrier islands, as already evidenced in subsiding coastal Louisiana (Stone et al.,
2003). Examples of the potential effects of increasing wave heights on energy-related operations in the OCS and coastal zone
include: • Damage to offshore and coastal drilling and production platforms, as well as onshore support
facilities, due to higher winds and waves. • Wave energy impacts on transportation infrastructure, such as bridge
decks and supports. • Pipeline exposure and damage. In locations where significant subsidence occurs, pipelines are
generally more vulnerable to exposure and the effects of wave action. High-energy waves may subject
an exposed pipeline to stress levels it was not designed to withstand, causing a fracture. An exposed offshore
pipeline is also more vulnerable to lateral and vertical displacement, exposure to vessel traffic and fishing trawls, or rupture by currents (CCSP,
2008).
Global warming causes ocean acidification which destroy ecosystems- decreased
photosynthesis and calcification
Burkett 11
(Virginia, U.S. Geological Survey, USGS Chief Scientist for Climate and Land Use Change, “Global climate
change implications for coastal and offshore oil and gas development”, Energy Policy, Volume 39, Issue
12, December 2011, Pages 7719–7725, UMKC database/online library)
2.6. Increased carbon dioxide levels and ocean acidity Carbon dioxide is the most important long-lived greenhouse gas in terms of its influence
on radiative forcing. The concentration of CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere has increased by approximately 35 percent since the Industrial Era
(from about 270 ppm in the mid-1800s to 379 ppm in 2005, IPCC, 2007a). An
increase in CO2 of this magnitude has important
important effects on ocean chemistry and coral
reefs. As CO2 is absorbed at the surface of oceans and estuaries, the pH of the receiving waters is lowered by a
reaction that releases hydrogen ions and lowers the carbonate saturation state. Mackenzie et al. (2001) have
effects on atmospheric temperature and the hydrologic cycle, but it also has
shown, based on emission scenarios from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2000), that the saturation state of both the
global ocean and coastal waters will decrease significantly through this century. The
lowering of the saturation state has at
least two important consequences: the potential of reducing the ability of carbonate flora and fauna to
calcify and the potential for enhanced dissolution of metastable carbonate minerals in sediments and, in
some cases, the water column (Andersson et al., 2003). Increased ocean CO2 can have significant positive effects on
photosynthesis rates in submerged estuarine vegetation and seagrasses. Increased dissolved CO2 also enhances conditions that
favor harmful algal blooms, which decrease light available to seagrasses and the dissolved oxygen
needed by fish and shellfish (Short and Neckles, 1999 and Nicholls et al., 2007). While CO2 enrichment and the related increase in
ocean acidity is not likely to have significant direct effects on oil and gas development activities, potentially more constraints could be placed on
OCS activities (and onshore support facilities) that could
adversely affect coral reefs and other “live bottoms” that are
dominated by calcifying organisms.
Oil, and fossil fuel development can cause catastrophes, offshore wind is a better
alternative
Johnson, Kerr, Side ’12 (Kate, Sandy, Jonathan, Marine renewables and coastal communities—Experiences from the offshore oil
industry in the 1970s and their relevance to marine renewables in the 2010s, Marine Policy Volume 38, March 2013, Pages 491–499,
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308597X12001716, accessed: 7/8/14 GA)
Oil has never been less than highly marketable although prices are frequently manipulated by producing countries for political and commercial
reasons. Supplies are depressed to punish opponents or raise prices. Supplies are increased to support allies or boost cash flow. The
Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is one such organisation which has been active in influencing the market [22]. However,
the general trend of demand has always been up which has pushed the average price relentlessly higher. Higher prices have funded production
from sources once regarded as uneconomic, such as the Canadian tar sands. These and new recovery technologies
such as
‘fracking’ (hydraulic fracturing) promise access to fossil fuel resources far into the 21st century subject
only to the political will to reduce carbon emissions and to address concerns about environmental safety.
From the very first, the main concern about offshore oil operations has been safety and the high risks attached to
the recovery, transport, processing and use of oil. In both crude and processed forms it is a volatile, polluting substance full of
dangerous and unstable compounds. When all goes as planned the spatial, ecosystem and activity impacts of oil
operations are not great when compared to the footprint of offshore wind farms for example. However,
the effects of even small accidents are potentially catastrophic. The routine burning and use of oil
products is polluting but it is the risk of fire, explosion and the unplanned pollution effects of spills which
cause most fear and concern. The recent BP experience with the ‘Deepwater Horizon’ rig in the Gulf of Mexico and the TOTAL
experience with the Elgin gas field demonstrate how close operations can be to unstoppable disasters of huge magnitude. The most
skilled people and the most sophisticated procedures have been shown to fail.
Marine Life
Oil and gas extraction interacts negatively with the environment and has been shown
to hurt fisheries
Johnson, Kerr, Side ’12 (Kate, Sandy, Jonathan, Marine renewables and coastal communities—Experiences from the offshore oil
industry in the 1970s and their relevance to marine renewables in the 2010s, Marine Policy Volume 38, March 2013, Pages 491–499,
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308597X12001716, accessed: 7/8/14 GA)
Offshore operations for the recovery of oil and gas interact with the natural, built and social
environments in several ways: Routine marine operations—most North Sea oil fields are located over 100 km from shore
and out of site of land. Spatial and visual impact issues are relatively small. Interactions with other activities may also be relatively small except
disruption to fisheries in some areas. There may be local pollution effects such as contaminated drill cuttings on
the sea floor. Strict procedures apply. Routine support and shore based operations—include the supply of goods and services to the rigs
for
and receiving production from the rigs. They involve the employment of large numbers of people involved in fabrication; air and sea transport;
receipt and delivery of machinery, spare parts and provisions; industrial processes; and logistic, technical and administrative management and
support. The requirements for land use, coastal waters use, housing, public services and disturbance to other activities can be great. Accidental
events including fire, explosion and spillage at sea—minor accidents are quite frequent and may have
serious cumulative effects on the environment. Deliberate breaches of regulations such as
contaminated ballast water dumping have also occurred. Major accidents are rare but may be
catastrophic in nature and have the capacity to spread effects widely. Accidental events including fire,
explosion and spillage on land may be more contained in area than those at sea but with potentially
more concentrated and toxic effects on habitats and species including humans.
Offshore installation exploits marine resources—environmental impacts threaten
coastal and deep sea ecosystems
Terlizzi 8 (Antonio, Stanislao Bevilacqua, Danilo Scuderib, Dario Fiorentino, Giuseppe Guarnieri, Adriana Giangrande, Margherita Licciano,
Serena Felline, Simonetta Fraschetti, “Effects of offshore platforms on soft-bottom macro-benthic assemblages: A case study in a
Mediterranean gas field”, Marine Pollution Bulletin Volume 56, Issue 7. July 2008, Pages 1303—1309, PDF)
The extraction of fossil fuels from offshore fields largely increased in the last five decades, becoming the
leading activity in the exploitation of marine mineral resources (Ghisel, 1997). As a result, thousands of offshore
platforms proliferated over the world’s oceans and much more will likely be implemented in the future
(DeLuca, 1999; Pulsipher and Daniel, 2000), representing a threat for coastal and deep-sea systems. Offshore
platform s and associated production activities could cause strong environmental impacts related to drilling mud
discharges, hydrocarbon associated waters or involved artificial structures (Raimondi et al., 1997; Grant and Briggs,
2002; Holdway, 2002; Schroeder and Love, 2004). As a consequence, the seafloor around platforms could show increased
levels of pollutants (e.g., hydrocarbons, heavy metals, organic enrichment), and/or changes in its physical features (e.g., sediment
granulometry, sedimentation rates, water movements) (Olsgard and Gray, 1995; Kennicutt et al., 1996; Barros et al., 2001). The magnitude of
such perturbations, and the associated effects on benthic assemblages, could vary depending on the complex interactions among local
environmental factors and specific features of platform s (e.g., Bakke et al., 1990; Ellis et al., 1996; Wilson-Ormond et al., 2000)
Oil spills devastate ocean environments and the species around them
Hong and Yin ’09 (MEI Hong and YIN Yanjie, Studies on Marine Oil Spills and Their Ecological Damage
J. Ocean Univ. China (Oceanic and Coastal Sea Research) February 27, 2009
http://download.springer.com/static/pdf/273/art%253A10.1007%252Fs11802-009-03125.pdf?auth66=1404956652_702c6f236b5b30df583e39215946fb93&ext=.pdf)
1 Introduction On May 11, 2006, Solar I, an oil tanker chartered by Petron Corp., the largest oil refiner in the
Philippines, sank near Guimaras Island, the Philippines (OCHA-Geneva, 2006). There was about 200 000 liters (53 000
gallons) of bunker oil in the initial spill. The tanker was sunk in deep water, making recovery unlikely with an additional 1.8 million liters (475
000 gallons) of bunker fuel on board. Roughly 320 km (200 miles) of coast line was covered in thick sludge. Miles
of coral reef were
destroyed and 1 000 hectares (2 470 acres) of marine re- serve badly damaged. Many mangrove trees
and coral reef died, and about 25 000 people were already affected or displaced during the first few
days. This oil spill was, undoubtedly, a disaster to the marine ecosystem. However, we must be aware that it was just one case. Let us look
back on some serious marine oil spills in his- tory: the oil tanker Torrey Canyon spilled oil; the oil tanker Amoco Cadiz caused leakage (Blacktides, 2008) ; the drilling platform Well Ixtoc I Well exploded after catching fire and caused the oil well’s blowout; (Office of Response and
Restoration, 2007) Exxon Valdez grounded and spilled oil; the oil tanker Prestige wrecked and caused leakage; the oil tanker Tasman Sea spilled
oil; BP shut down the Prudhoe Bay oil field due to a spill from an oil * Corresponding author. Tel: 0086-532-66781336 E-mail:
maritime007@163.com transit line (Blanca et al., 2006). It is necessary for us to find out the reasons of oil spills that have frequently occurred
for half a century. Actually accidents of marine oil tankers or freighters, marine oil-drilling platforms, marine oil pipelines, marine oilfields, fuel
leakages, vessels sinking, marine oil exploration and exploitation, operations at ports or quays, and operations
of offshore and
coastal installations can all cause serious damage to the marine ecosystem and have become the main
reasons for threatening marine ecological safety (Baker et al., 1993). It is essential to identify the sources of marine oil spills,
make a profound analysis of the basic reasons, and illustrate the marine ecological damage caused by oil spills (Si, 2002). 2 Sources of Marine
Oil Spills The new industrial era beginning after World War II began to change the world into an oil-centered energy structure. The
great
demand for economic development heated up the tide of oil exploration and exploitation, while
inevitably the oil exploitation and transportation were accompanied by oil spills. In particular marine oil
spills have become a category of man-made disasters that seriously affect humans’ ecological safety,
economic benefits and public safety and destroy the marine ecosystem. The main sources of marine oil spills are as
follows: Firstly, oil leakage of vessels is one of the main sources of marine oil spills, which includes oil leakage in normal shipping and vessel
accidents. The imbalance in global oil MEI et al./ J. Ocean Univ. China (Oceanic and Coastal Sea Research) 2009 8: 312-316 313 storage leads to
the classification of oil importing and exporting countries. With
the development of the global economy, in order to guarantee
oil via marine transport
has increased significantly. The oil tankers have become big- ger and have greater tonnage. In reality the
shipping industry can not evade various risks at sea. Besides, there exist various reasons for oil spill such as aging ships, bad
the safety of oil supply, most countries have begun to develop marine oil trans- portation. Therefore, crude
technology, centralized shipping routes, the lack of advanced traffic management system in the ports; In addi- tion, oil tankers and other ships
frequently encounter accidents such as collisions, groundings, strikes on rocks and marine disasters. Oil
spills pollute the marine
environment and destroy the marine ecosystem seriously. In reality the amount of oil leakage in vessel accidents is far
less than that in normal shipping. The oil cargo, fuel oil or other oil substances as waste oil and oil mixture, which are emitted into the sea
intentionally, may make the maximum proportion in the oil emitted into the sea by ships (Si, 2002). However, only one oil leakage in vessel
accident can lead to a large amount of oil spilled into the sea, which is more serious and centralized than the pollution damage in normal
shipping activities. Oil tankers are not the only shipping oil pollution source. Actually, from the year 1991 to 2001, in all oil leakages worldwide,
53.7% were caused by accidents of freighters or other non-oil transport vessels. The difference between oil tankers’ oil spills and accidents of
other vessels is that the spilled oil is difficult to recover and can even stretch for hundreds or thousands of nautical miles. Not only will it pollute
the sea surface and beaches, but it will cause various damage to marine lives. It suggests that oil spills from oil tankers can do greater damage
to the marine ecosystem compared with other freighters’ accidents. Secondly, using
mobile drilling platforms to explore oil at
sea is a high-risk activity, and various accidents have a high potential of reoccurrence. Once oil spills (especially
well blowouts, explosions) occur, they can not only lead to serious personal injuries and deaths and loss of money, but also cause marine
ecological damage that is difficult to recover and compensate. Thirdly, oil
spills also come from terrestrial pollution, oilbearing atmosphere, natural source, and pollution of offshore production equipments. Of all the oil flowing
into the sea, the amount of chronic and long-term oil in- put is far larger than the total amount of oil coming from emergent accidents in
marine oil exploitations and oil tanker leakages. Nevertheless, the probability of large- scale terrestrial oil spills is far less than that of the
vessels’ oil spills, and the sources of terrestrial pollution from oil spills can not be identified clearly. Therefore, terrestrial oil spills have not
easily caught attention of the media and the public. 3 Causes of Marine Oil Spills There
are many causes of oil spills, such as
of knowledge, faults in technologies, facilities and
equipment, misjudgments or improper operations, management oversight and other faults. All the factors
managers and operators’ insufficient emphasis (Lu, 2006), lack
may appear in oil spills more or less. In our opinion, the reasons for frequent oil spills accidents can be divided into the following two
categories: 3.1 Oil Owners and Oil Shipping Businessmen’s Motive for Huge Benefits Far Surpasses Their Sense of Ecological Risk Prevention
Since half a century ago in the new industrial era, the great demand for economic development has
brought about a global upsurge in marine oil exploration and exploitation. In order to gain enormous
profits, the main oil manufacturers from all over the world actively participated in the marine oil
operations with high risks, high inputs and high outputs. To meet the need for the fast in- crease of crude oil in
international market, most oil owners began to carry on oil drilling operations and surveys, develop new oil storage, and increase oil
exploitation. However, they did not pay enough attention to how to completely prevent the intrinsic ecological risk in marine oil operations.
The result was that the aging oil pipeline, oil refineries and oil wells shouldered too heavy a burden, which may cause oil spills at any time. The
fast increase of oil shipping in the world makes oil tankers’ construction towards large scales, and the aver- age tonnage increases continually.
However, because of centralized international shipping routes, many ports lack advanced transportation systems, which leads to frequent oil
spills. Due to the insufficient international oil transport capacity, many oil tankers with inferior techniques and difficulty in real ship owner
identifications get ship registries in countries under the open-register system, take advantage of the shortcoming where the market of international ships under flags of convenience lacks effective jurisdiction and regulation, take aged service even ex- tended service, take risks to
operate but threaten the marine environment all the time. 3.2 Marine Ecological Safety has not yet been the Main Concern of National
Securities During the environmental movement from the 1970s to the 1980s, oil was charged with the Environmental Crime (Wu, 2003).
Wanted! Seas and Oceans − Dead or Alive, the slogan has now become a common sense in international society.
In terms of national
economic development, most countries have laid great emphasis on the proper exploitation and usage
of marine resources, and the protection and improvement of marine ecosystem. Nevertheless, many countries
with management responsibilities in oil operations and transportation at sea have not fulfilled their effective supervision, under which
practitioners can make timely and overall precaution and remedy. The rea- son is that the marine ecosystem has not received the main concern
as national security from international society. When there is contradiction between ecological bene- MEI et al./ J. Ocean Univ. China (Oceanic
and Coastal Sea Research) 2009 8: 312-316 314 fits and political and economic benefits in a country, the result of the benefit game is always the
sacrifice of eco- logical benefits. Undoubtedly, at the present time most countries consider economic security to be the main con- tent of
national security. For economic security they especially emphasize the speed and stability of economic development. With the development of
economy, the demand for resources has increased significantly, and the energy supply has become a focus.
Ocean Mining
Bio-D Loss
Ocean mining typically has extreme impacts on ecosystems
Nature Geoscience 13 (“Expanding boundaries of exploration” Nature Geoscience 6, 891 (2013) doi:10.1038/ngeo2006 Published
online 30 October 2013. Accessed 7/7/14 at http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v6/n11/full/ngeo2006.html Nature Geoscience is a monthly
multi-disciplinary journal aimed at bringing together top-quality research across the entire spectrum of the Earth Sciences along with relevant
work in related areas.)
Mining is a dirty business. Yet, the demand for metals is greater than ever — a theme discussed in this focus issue on economic
geology (http://www.nature.com/ngeo/focus/economic-geology/index.html). Close attention to an optimum use of resources with minimum
waste and state-of-the art technology, as well as the recycling of used metal-rich devices and industrial large-scale infrastructure, can help meet
this demand. But, to guarantee supply, the boundaries of exploration will have to be pushed. In the light of technological advances and growing
opposition to large-scale mining projects in inhabited regions, deep-sea exploration and potentially even extra-terrestrial mining seem less
utopic than just a decade or two ago. September 2013 was a month of success for anti-mining protestors across the globe. At least partly in
response to fierce local opposition, several large mining projects have been halted. For example, Anglo American has withdrawn from the
Pebble mine project, which planned to exploit gold and copper reserves in Alaska's wilderness, and a bill to allow the company Gabriel
Resources to mine gold and silver near the town of Roşia Montană, Romania, was initially rejected and remains under intense debate in the
Romanian government. And rightly so, as assessments raised environmental concerns with each project. However, tight restrictions on projects
in one location can lead to the expansion of mining processes elsewhere — typically in less-developed countries, where health and safety
standards are more lax and the livelihoods of locals depend on foreign investment. As with oil and gas exploration some time ago, potential
sites for large-scale mining projects are now creeping towards the deep ocean. The ocean's floors contain vast reserves of minerals, including
manganese, iron, copper, nickel, gold and rare earth elements. The metals are stored in the sea floor, in nodules or around hydrothermal vents,
some several thousand metres beneath the sea surface. Exploitation of these reserves is by no means a new idea, but it is only now becoming
feasible, with higher metal prices and emerging technologies. Metal extraction from the deep sea floor, it seems, is right around the corner. For
example, in 2011, the government of Papua New Guinea granted the company Nautilus Minerals Inc. the first lease to develop such a project in
the Bismarck Sea. The company now aims to begin exploration and, if successful, hopes to expand into waters near Fiji, Tonga and New
Zealand. Such projects plan to dig up rocks from the sea floor and transport them to ships at the surface using hydraulic pumps1. But deep-
sea mining doesn't remove all environmental concerns from the inhabited land; once ground into slurry, the
crushed mixture would be transported onshore for processing. Extracting the metals often requires large amounts of
toxic chemicals, such as cyanide and mercury — a process with a poor track record on land. For example, in
2000, a cyanide spill from the Baia Mare gold mine in Romania contaminated the drinking water of 2.5 million
people and was dubbed Europe's worst environmental disaster since Chernobyl. And small-scale, artisanal gold
mining — a common and unregulated practice in cities such as La Rinconada, Peru — is now thought to be the leading source of mercury
pollution globally2. As yet, it is unclear where the onshore processing of deep-sea minerals will take place, but it is likely that developing
nations with lower safety restrictions will bear the brunt. The deep oceans, and particularly the hydrothermal vents, are also home to a host of
unique organisms, many of which we know little about3. Nautilus Minerals Inc. has worked with scientists to establish environmental
guidelines4. The
proposal is to set aside a conservation area that could be used to repopulate the mine site,
if needed, once metal extraction is complete. However, whether that will be sufficient to protect
diversity, and how large the far-field pollution would be, is still quite unclear. The appetite for mining beyond the
confines of the land does not end with the deep ocean: celestial bodies, too, have stirred commercial interest. For example, in 2012, the private
company Planetary Resources based in Washington State, USA, announced plans to mine asteroids5. The company is only in the initial stages of
development, but aims to build robotic spacecraft that can intercept, track and orbit asteroids, and transmit data on asteroid shape and
composition back to Earth6. It is unclear how any minerals might be collected and returned to Earth, and these exploits currently seem to be
economically unfeasible pipe dreams. But, at one time, exploration of the deep sea, too, seemed only science fiction. The
prospect of
mining the ocean floors and bodies beyond Earth raises many ethical questions, not least those of ownership. And
with no shortage of examples of mining gone horribly wrong, even on firm ground, it is hard to see how
the infinitely higher risks of offshore and extra-terrestrial mining could possibly be controlled. As suggested in two
Commentary pieces on pages 892 and 894 of this issue, we must explore all avenues — including those closer to home. Only then should we
venture into more difficult and unprotected terrains.
Deep Sea Mining cause biodiversity loss and extinction of keystone species
Levitt, 2010 <The ecologist, leading blog on the environment, Tom Levitt,
http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/653840/how_deepsea_mining_could_destroy_the_c
radle_of_life_on_earth.html>
Ecologists say the PNG government is allowing Nautilus to go ahead with the first ever commercial deepsea mining project without properly considering the environmental impacts or local opposition. Nautilus
investors include the mining giant Anglo-American which is ignoring indigenous opposition to a gold and
copper mine in Alaska. ‘Cradle of life on earth’
As well as being metal-rich, the volcanogenic
hydrothermal deposits which Nautilus plans to mine are home to a unique ecosystem that is still largely
unknown to scientists since being discovered in the late 1970s. Initially, the deep sea was thought to be
full of soft sediment and little else but the discovery of hydrothermal vents on the seabed, which
produce the deposits, revealed a completely novel ecosystem, unreliant on photosynthesis. ‘It’s the
cradle of life on earth,’ explains Dr Rod Fujita from the Environmental Defense Fund and author of
studies looking into deep-sea mining, ‘and the only one that does not depend on sunlight. There are
species there that are found nowhere else on earth. It’s not like any land habitats we are used to; in fact
you have to have your perspective altered to appreciate this deep-sea world,’ he says. The mining
process in PNG will take the top 20-30m off the seabed at a depth of 1,500m and lift it up to the surface
before transferring it by barge to processing sites on land. ‘You will destroy fauna just by lifting the land,’
says deep-sea ecologist Professor Paul Tyler, from the National Oceanography Centre at Southampton
University. ‘It is possible you might mine at a distance [from the hydrothermal vents] but by mining close
by you will affect the flow and the vents might switch off and then all the animals die – you lose a huge
biomass.’ 'Flimsy' environmental report Nautilus has attempted to fend off these criticisms by publishing
an environment assessment, co-produced by a respected deep-sea biologist Dr Cindy Van Dover. In it
they admit the impact to vents and seafloor habitats will ‘inevitably be severe at the site scale’ and that
they will take ‘many years’ to recover. However, other ecologists say the assessment is ‘flimsy’ and fails
to give a full account of the potential damage mining will cause.
Professor Richard Steiner, from the
University of Alaska cites the incompleteness of classification of species found at the sites and an
inadequate assessment of the risks associated with sediment and waste rock disposal. He also cites the
effects of increased light and noise in the deep ocean environment and the toxicity of the dewatering
plume [the process of removing water from the mined deposits] to deep-sea organisms, which will not
be able to differentiate between food and junk sediment. Of particular concern are the hundreds of
thousands of tonnes of waste that will be produced by the mining process, which Steiner compares to
that of a ‘giant underwater tractor’ and which will be pumped onto deeper seabeds nearby. Dr Fujita
said the physics of water as well as weather and currents made it difficult to predict or contain any spill
and that deep-sea mining had the capacity to produce pollution that could travel across into
international waters.
Mineral Extraction has the potential to ruin ecosystems, there are many unknown
risks
NPG 2013 (Nature Publishing Group, an organization focused on writing credible peer-reviewed
literature, “Expanding Boundaries of Exploration”, October 30, 2013,
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v6/n11/full/ngeo2006.html?message-global=remove)
Mining is a dirty business. Yet, the demand for metals is greater than ever — a theme discussed in this focus issue
on economic geology Close attention to an optimum use of resources with minimum waste and state-of-the art technology, as well as the
recycling of used metal-rich devices and industrial large-scale infrastructure, can help meet this demand. But, to guarantee supply, the
boundaries of exploration will have to be pushed. In the light of technological advances and growing opposition to large-scale mining projects in
inhabited regions, deep-sea exploration and potentially even extra-terrestrial mining seem less utopic than just a decade or two ago.¶
September 2013 was a month of success for anti-mining protestors across the globe. At least partly in
response to fierce local opposition, several large mining projects have been halted. For example, Anglo
American has withdrawn from the Pebble mine project, which planned to exploit gold and copper reserves in Alaska's wilderness, and a bill to
allow the company Gabriel Resources to mine gold and silver near the town of Roşia Montană, Romania, was initially rejected and remains
under intense debate in the Romanian government. And rightly so, as assessments raised environmental concerns with each project. However,
tight restrictions on projects in one location can lead to the expansion of mining processes elsewhere — typically in less-developed countries,
where health and safety standards are more lax and the livelihoods of locals depend on foreign investment. As with oil and gas exploration
some time ago, potential sites for large-scale mining projects are now creeping towards the deep ocean.¶ The ocean's floors contain vast
reserves of minerals, including manganese, iron, copper, nickel, gold and rare earth elements. The metals are stored in the sea floor, in nodules
or around hydrothermal vents, some several thousand metres beneath the sea surface.
Exploitation of these reserves is by no
means a new idea, but it is only now becoming feasible, with higher metal prices and emerging
technologies. Metal extraction from the deep sea floor, it seems, is right around the corner. For
example, in 2011, the government of Papua New Guinea granted the company Nautilus Minerals Inc.
the first lease to develop such a project in the Bismarck Sea. The company now aims to begin
exploration and, if successful, hopes to expand into waters near Fiji, Tonga and New Zealand.¶ Such projects
plan to dig up rocks from the sea floor and transport them to ships at the surface using hydraulic pumps1. But deep-sea mining
doesn't remove all environmental concerns from the inhabited land; once ground into slurry, the
crushed mixture would be transported onshore for processing. Extracting the metals often requires
large amounts of toxic chemicals, such as cyanide and mercury — a process with a poor track record on
land. For example, in 2000, a cyanide spill from the Baia Mare gold mine in Romania contaminated the
drinking water of 2.5 million people and was dubbed Europe's worst environmental disaster since
Chernobyl. And small-scale, artisanal gold mining — a common and unregulated practice in cities such as La Rinconada, Peru — is now
thought to be the leading source of mercury pollution globally2. As yet, it is unclear where the onshore processing of
deep-sea minerals will take place, but it is likely that developing nations with lower safety restrictions
will bear the brunt.¶ The deep oceans, and particularly the hydrothermal vents, are also home to a host of unique organisms, many of
which we know little about3. Nautilus Minerals Inc. has worked with scientists to establish environmental guidelines4. The proposal is to set
aside a conservation area that could be used to repopulate the mine site, if needed, once metal extraction is complete. However, whether that
will be sufficient to protect diversity, and how large the far-field pollution would be, is still quite unclear.¶ The appetite for mining beyond the
confines of the land does not end with the deep ocean: celestial bodies, too, have stirred commercial interest. For example, in 2012, the private
company Planetary Resources based in Washington State, USA, announced plans to mine asteroids5. The company is only in the initial stages of
development, but aims to build robotic spacecraft that can intercept, track and orbit asteroids, and transmit data on asteroid shape and
composition back to Earth6. It is unclear how any minerals might be collected and returned to Earth, and these exploits currently seem to be
economically unfeasible pipe dreams. But, at one time, exploration of the deep sea, too, seemed only science fiction.¶ The
prospect of
mining the ocean floors and bodies beyond Earth raises many ethical questions, not least those of
ownership. And with no shortage of examples of mining gone horribly wrong, even on firm ground, it is
hard to see how the infinitely higher risks of offshore and extra-terrestrial mining could possibly be
controlled. As suggested in two Commentary pieces on pages 892 and 894 of this issue, we must explore all avenues — including those
closer to home. Only then should we venture into more difficult and unprotected terrains.
Mining harms the deep sea floor—less than 1 centimeter of sediment redisposition
can cause damage to the ecosystems that takes centuries to repair
Ramirez-Llodra 11 (Eva, Paul A. Tyler, Maria C. Baker, Odd Aksel Bergstad, Malcolm R. Clark, Elva Escobar, Lisa A. Levin, Lenaick
Menot, Ashley A. Rowden, Craig R. Smith, Cindy L. Van Dover, ” Man and the Last Great Wilderness: Human Impact on the Deep Sea”, PLoS
ONE 6(8): e22588. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0022588,
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0022588#pone.0022588-Smith8)
Nodule mining will have a variety of impacts at the deep-sea floor. The most obvious direct impact will be
removal of the nodules themselves, which will require millions of years to re-grow[176], [177]. Manganese
nodules provide the only hard substratum over much of the abyssal seafloor, so mining will remove
permanently a major habitat type, causing local extinction of the nodule fauna, which is substantially different from the
sediment-dwelling benthos [178]–[181]. Nodule-mining activities will also remove roughly the top 5 cm of sediment, potentially re-suspending
The nodule-mining head will immediately kill most of the fauna directly
in its path and communities in the general mining vicinity will be buried under varying depths of
sediment [182]–[186]. Abyssal nodule habitats are among the most stable on Earth and are dominated by very small, fragile deposit feeders
exploiting a thin veneer of organic matter near the sediment-water interface. Thus, the mechanical and burial disturbances
resulting from commercial-scale nodule mining are likely to be devastating [35], [184]. A limited number of in situ
this material into the water column [182], [183].
experiments have been conducted to evaluate the sensitivity and recovery times of abyssal benthic communities to simulated mining
disturbance. Although the experimental disturbances created were substantially smaller in intensity and many orders of magnitude smaller in
spatial scale than is expected from commercial mining, they provide important insights into the sensitivity and minimum recovery times of
abyssal nodule communities following mining [reviewed in 25], [35], [186]. It is clear from these experiments, that abyssal
communities
will be dramatically disturbed by less than 1 cm of sediment redeposition resulting from mining, and
that full community recovery from major mining disturbance will take more than seven years and
possibly even centuries. Unfortunately, these experiments do not allow prediction of the likelihood of
species extinctions from nodule mining because the typical geographical ranges of species living within the
nodule regions are unknown. Species turnover does occur across the nodule region, especially with latitudinal changes in
overlying productivity [175], so large-scale mining activities have real potential to yield species extinction.
Nonetheless, it is clear that effective management of the environmental impacts of commercial scale
mining requires substantially more information concerning species ranges, sensitivity to sediment burial and the scale
dependence of recolonisation processes in abyssal seafloor communities. A workshop at Manoa, Hawaii, in October 2007 [187] produced a
rationale and recommendations for the establishment of “preservation reference areas” in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, where nodule mining
would be prohibited in order to leave the natural environment intact. Cobalt-rich ferromanganese crusts occur on seamounts, ridges and
plateaus where crust minerals precipitate out onto rocky surfaces that currents sweep clean of sediments over long periods [188]. These crusts
occur universally on exposed rocks throughout the oceans, but form thick pavements (up to 250 mm thick) primarily on large seamounts and
guyots in the western and central Pacific Ocean [188]–[191]. The chemical composition of the crusts can be high in manganese and iron, and
the exploitable minerals include cobalt, copper and platinum. Such crusts could provide up to 20% of the global cobalt demand [192]. However,
exploitation has not yet proven cost-effective [66], [173]. Little research has been conducted on the influence of the chemical
composition of a hard substratum on seabed communities. The biological communities associated with the particular chemical environment at,
and surrounding, active hydrothermal vents have been extensively studied in recent decades [e.g. 193], but much less is known about the fauna
of cobalt-rich crusts on seamounts [194]. Recent work conducted for the International Seabed Authority (ISA) compared the fauna observed in
submersible dives on cobalt-rich and non-cobalt-rich crust seamounts off Hawaii [195]. The study found fauna were similar on both types of
seamount, although more detailed studies are currently underway.
Waste
Pharmceuticals
Careless disposal of pharmaceuticals threatens the marine environment
Ramirez-Llodra 11 (Eva, Paul A. Tyler, Maria C. Baker, Odd Aksel Bergstad, Malcolm R. Clark, Elva Escobar, Lisa A. Levin, Lenaick
Menot, Ashley A. Rowden, Craig R. Smith, Cindy L. Van Dover, ” Man and the Last Great Wilderness: Human Impact on the Deep Sea”, PLoS
ONE 6(8): e22588. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0022588,
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0022588#pone.0022588-Smith8)
There has been some intentional disposal of pharmaceuticals in the deep sea. One of the main disposal
sites was the Puerto Rico Trench. Prior to the 1980s, Puerto Rico gave tax advantages to pharmaceutical
companies and their waste material was dumped in the trench at about 6000 m depth approximately 40
miles to the north of the island [89] (Table S1). Between 1973 and 1978, more than 387,000 tonnes of
wastes were dumped in the trench (equivalent to 880 Boeing 747s)
(http://deepseanews.com/2008/04/dumping-pharmaceutical-waste-in-the-deep-sea/). However, this
dumping ceased in the early 1980s (Tables S2 and S3). Studies of the region used for waste disposal
found demonstrable changes in the marine microbial community [90], [91]. Grimes et al. [92] found that
Pseudomonas spp., reportedly common a decade earlier, were virtually absent from all samples taken
from the dump site during a three year study, and an increase in Staphylococcus was evident. Nicol et al.
[93] showed that pharmaceutical wastes disposed of in the Puerto Rico Trench were acutely toxic to
many marine invertebrates. Laboratory studies demonstrated that tolerance between animals was
variable, affecting survival rates, fecundity, adult size and normal growth. The amphipodAmphithoe
valida suffered chronic toxicity in response to the dumped waste [94]. Antibiotics can have a negative
impact on marine microorganisms, although the available evidence suggests that the impact for the
slope and the pelagic fauna is low (Table S2). At present there is no direct disposal of pharmaceutical
products in the deep ocean. However, certain pharmaceuticals used by humans and livestock such as
antibiotics, anti-depressants, birth control pills, cancer treatments and pain killers have been detected in
various water sources and may pose a threat to the marine environment. Careless disposal of unused
medicines can pass into waterways, as can human excreta containing incompletely metabolized
medicines. Some of these drugs are non-biodegradable and are mutagenic, carcinogenic and
teratogenic. Pharmaceutical wastes are an important issue for environmental management as they are
so widely used, although their impact in the deep sea is uncertain. To date, there are limited studies of
the impacts of pharmaceuticals on marine organisms and the few that exist have been conducted in
shallow-water environments [e.g. 95 and references therein].
Deep Sea Mining cause biodiversity loss and extinction of keystone species
Levitt, 2010 <The ecologist, leading blog on the environment, Tom Levitt,
http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/653840/how_deepsea_mining_could_destroy_the_c
radle_of_life_on_earth.html>
Ecologists say the PNG government is allowing Nautilus to go ahead with the first ever commercial deepsea mining project without properly considering the environmental impacts or local opposition. Nautilus
investors include the mining giant Anglo-American which is ignoring indigenous opposition to a gold and
copper mine in Alaska. ‘Cradle of life on earth’
As well as being metal-rich, the volcanogenic
hydrothermal deposits which Nautilus plans to mine are home to a unique ecosystem that is still largely
unknown to scientists since being discovered in the late 1970s. Initially, the deep sea was thought to be
full of soft sediment and little else but the discovery of hydrothermal vents on the seabed, which
produce the deposits, revealed a completely novel ecosystem, unreliant on photosynthesis. ‘It’s the
cradle of life on earth,’ explains Dr Rod Fujita from the Environmental Defense Fund and author of
studies looking into deep-sea mining, ‘and the only one that does not depend on sunlight. There are
species there that are found nowhere else on earth. It’s not like any land habitats we are used to; in fact
you have to have your perspective altered to appreciate this deep-sea world,’ he says. The mining
process in PNG will take the top 20-30m off the seabed at a depth of 1,500m and lift it up to the surface
before transferring it by barge to processing sites on land. ‘You will destroy fauna just by lifting the land,’
says deep-sea ecologist Professor Paul Tyler, from the National Oceanography Centre at Southampton
University. ‘It is possible you might mine at a distance [from the hydrothermal vents] but by mining close
by you will affect the flow and the vents might switch off and then all the animals die – you lose a huge
biomass.’ 'Flimsy' environmental report Nautilus has attempted to fend off these criticisms by publishing
an environment assessment, co-produced by a respected deep-sea biologist Dr Cindy Van Dover. In it
they admit the impact to vents and seafloor habitats will ‘inevitably be severe at the site scale’ and that
they will take ‘many years’ to recover. However, other ecologists say the assessment is ‘flimsy’ and fails
to give a full account of the potential damage mining will cause.
Professor Richard Steiner, from the
University of Alaska cites the incompleteness of classification of species found at the sites and an
inadequate assessment of the risks associated with sediment and waste rock disposal. He also cites the
effects of increased light and noise in the deep ocean environment and the toxicity of the dewatering
plume [the process of removing water from the mined deposits] to deep-sea organisms, which will not
be able to differentiate between food and junk sediment. Of particular concern are the hundreds of
thousands of tonnes of waste that will be produced by the mining process, which Steiner compares to
that of a ‘giant underwater tractor’ and which will be pumped onto deeper seabeds nearby. Dr Fujita
said the physics of water as well as weather and currents made it difficult to predict or contain any spill
and that deep-sea mining had the capacity to produce pollution that could travel across into
international waters.
Ocean Vehicles
Litter in the ocean has an adverse impact on marine species—releases toxic chemicals
and can lead to various physical harm
Ramirez-Llodra 11 (Eva, Paul A. Tyler, Maria C. Baker, Odd Aksel Bergstad, Malcolm R. Clark, Elva Escobar, Lisa A. Levin, Lenaick
Menot, Ashley A. Rowden, Craig R. Smith, Cindy L. Van Dover, ” Man and the Last Great Wilderness: Human Impact on the Deep Sea”, PLoS
ONE 6(8): e22588. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0022588,
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0022588#pone.0022588-Smith8)
Most data available on marine litter are the by-product result of other projects targeting fauna[54], [65] and
there are no standardized quantification methods. Impacts of litter on deep-sea habitats and fauna may
include suffocation of animals from plastics, release of toxic chemicals, propagation of invasive species,
physical damage to sessile fauna such as cold-water corals from discarded fishing gear, and ghost fishing from
lost/discarded nets [59], [66], but these impacts are poorly quantified on a large geographical scale. The
increasing evidence of continuous accumulation of litter has been recognised by the UNEP-Regional Seas
initiative, which identified the need for further research on the impacts of marine litter in coastal
areas[41] and with an increasing interest in deep-sea habitats (Gjerde, pers. com.). Current international multidisciplinary research
programmes, such as the EU funded HERMIONE (Hotspot Ecosystem Research and Man's Impact on European Seas) project that investigates
deep-sea ecosystem function and its contribution to production of goods and services, are incorporating studies of litter accumulation and
impact. The Deep Gulf of Mexico Benthos Program recorded and classified refuse in the abyss [64] as well as chemical contamination in
sediments [67] and fauna [68].
Conservation
Marine Protected Areas
MPA’s make the environment worse by making it more difficult to establish them
later.
Pressey, 2013<Bob Pressey, Professor and Program Leader, Conservation Planning at James Cook
University,
“Australia’s new marine protected areas: why they won’t work”, The conversation,
http://theconversation.com/australias-new-marine-protected-areas-why-they-wont-work-11469>
On land and in the sea, we’re losing sight of what nature conservation is about. We’ve become dangerously
focused on protected areas, but rarely consider what they’re supposed to achieve. One result is that
biodiversity is declining almost everywhere while protected areas expand. Why the apparent paradox? An important reason is that
protected areas tend to be in the wrong places. On land, it’s a safe generalisation that protected areas are biased to
“residual” places - those with least promise for commercial uses. In some regions, this is because only residual landscapes survive in anything
like their natural state. But another important factor is political pragmatism. Electorates in many countries like the idea of nature conservation
but are undiscerning about exactly what this means. Governments can therefore present residual protected areas - and the more extensive the
better - as real progress for conservation. The incentive for residual conservation is to minimise financial and political cost. As systems of
marine protected areas expand, their residual nature is becoming obvious too. One of the world’s best examples of a residual system of marine
protected areas was announced in November 2012 by the Australian Government. Why would residual
protected areas be a problem?
contribute little to the real goals of nature conservation: to avert threats and avoid loss of biodiversity.
They tend toward parts of jurisdictions that were de facto protected by remoteness and unsuitability for
commercial uses. Meanwhile, the processes that threaten biodiversity continue largely unabated and
declines in biodiversity continue. Second, by giving a false impression of conservation progress, residual
protected areas use up societies’ tolerances of protection, progressively making future protected areas,
especially those that might be effective in averting threats, more difficult to establish. Third, residual
Most importantly, they
protected areas place the onus of real conservation on off-reserve measures. These vary greatly in effectiveness and many can be diluted,
ignored, or removed at political or administrative whim. These problems mean that measuring conservation progress in terms of the extent of
protected areas is usually meaningless. Another implication is that residual protected areas can produce outcomes that are worse than neutral.
By failing to avert present or impending threats while pre-empting later protected areas that could be more effective, their contribution can be
irretrievably negative. With those points in mind, here is a brief review of the recently established marine protected areas in Australian
Commonwealth waters, covering more than 2.3 million square kilometres. The government considers these areas have confirmed Australia as a
world leader in environmental protection. But how much difference did the new marine reserves make to the future of Australia’s marine
biodiversity?
Internal Link
Spill Over
Marine Life Key
Marine life is key to preventing global warming, reducing ocean pollution, slowing
coastal erosion, and balancing global biodiversity.
Snelgrove 1999 (Paul V. R., An associate chair of Fisheries Conservation in the Fisheries and Marine Institute,
Memorial University of Newfoundland, “Getting to the Bottom of Marine Biodiversity: Sedimentary Habitats:
Ocean bottoms are the most widespread habitat on Earth and support high biodiversity and key ecosystem
services”, BioScience Journal, Volume 49 Issue 2, Pp. 129-138, Date Accessed: 08 July 2014)
Why worry about marine sedimentary diversity? Even though marine
sedimentary ecosystems are not well understood, there are
loss could affect the planet and human populations directly. For example, marine
organisms provide a tremendous reservoir of natural products that could prove invaluable and
irreplaceable by synthetic equivalents. Perhaps more important, a recent study suggested that the oceans provide
approximately two-thirds of the $33 trillion worth of ecosystem services that the earth provides (Costanza
et al. 1997). Ultimately, however, the arguments for preserving marine sedimentary biodiversity that will
carry the greatest weight are those of most immediate concern to human populations. In other words, what
good reasons to assume that their
have marine sedimentary fauna done for you lately? Although I will focus on marine sedimentary environments, there are considerable
parallels with freshwater sediments and terrestrial soils (e.g., Groffman and Bohlen 1999).Global carbon and geochemical cycling. As a result of
the global dominance of marine sedimentary habitats and the importance of sedimentary fauna in local carbon metabolism and burial through
their feeding and mixing activities (e.g., Kristensen et al. 1992), sedimentary
fauna influence global carbon dioxide
dynamics and thus global warming. Other important geochemical cycles, such as those of sulfur and nitrogen, can
also be affected by the organisms that reside in marine sediments. Marine sedimentary organisms of all sizes play a
role in these processes. Bacteria, protozoa, and fungi are important decomposers and are thus important trophic links to
larger organisms and nutrient cycling (see references in Snelgrove et al. 1997). Bacteria are also an important constituent of
the diet of deposit feeders, along with the detritus that microbes help to decompose (e.g. Lopez and Levinton 1987). Macro- and
megafauna, because of their large size, are particularly important in redistributing sediments and organic matter associated with sediments
(see Gallagher and Keay 1998), thus affecting nutrient availability to different bacterial groups. Thus, the linkages between different
sedimentary organisms are complex and their impacts on global cycling processes may be determined via direct and indirect routes. There are
also multiple linkages between marine, terrestrial (Wall and Moore 1999), and freshwater (Covich et al. 1999) systems through these cycles.
Secondary production (food). Some sedimentary macrofaunal organisms
are commercially fished (e.g., lobster, clams, and
scallops) and therefore provide an important source of nutrition and employment for human populations.
Macrofauna and meiofauna can also be major dietary components for commercial species, such as cod, shrimp, and flounder, that feed on
benthos either as juveniles or as adults (e.g., Carlson et al. 1997). Thus, benthic organisms are an important part of the food chain and also
transfer organic carbon back to the pelagic realm. Pollutant metabolism and burial. Just as pollutants have a tremendous impact on softsediment benthos, these fauna also affect pollutant concentration and distribution. By pelletizing sediment as feces or stabilizing them through
mucous excretion,
organisms within the sediment can increase or decrease the likelihood of sediment-bound
pollutants being re-suspended and transported elsewhere. Vertical mixing by sedimentary macrofauna can also increase
or decrease the likelihood of burial, depending on whether animals feed at the surface or at depth (Gallagher and Keay 1998). If pollutants
are bound to organic particles, then feeding activity may lead to their removal through incorporation into tissue;
as a result, concentrations in the water column are reduced but the likelihood of transfer to higher trophic levels is increased if predators such
as fish consume contaminated benthos. Microbes
play a key role in the metabolic breakdown of pollutants and are
consequently used in many waste treatment facilities. Because meiofauna play an important role in lower food webs, they
also influence the fate of pollutants. Filtration. Marine sedimentary habitats contribute to water clarity and health in
several ways. Transition zones, such as marshes, seagrass beds, and mangroves act as sediment traps and stabilizers and buffer nutrient loading
Suspension feeders can have a major effect on water clarity through their filtering
activity; the reduction of oysters in Chesapeake Bay through over-fishing, disease, and sedimentation
has lowered filtering capacity and reduced water clarity (Newell 1988). The reverse problem has occurred in San Francisco
into the open ocean.
Bay, where the introduced suspension-feeding Chinese clam, Potamocorbula amurensis, has attained sufficient densities to effectively strip the
water of phytoplank-ton and eliminate natural seasonal blooms (Alpine and Cloern 1992). Thus, sedimentary communities contribute to
ecosystem health not only within sediments but also in the water column above. Sediment stability and transport. Sediment
erosion
and cohesion depend strongly on resident animals and microbes. Reworking by deposit feeders can substantially
increase water content and erodibility (Rhoads 1974), and diatom films and mucus excretion can bind sediments and reduce erodibility.
Physical structures, such as seagrasses, salt marshes, and mangroves also reduce erosion by trapping sediments. Thus,
coastal zone
communities can directly affect human environments by influencing coastal erosion (implications for
land use) and deposition (implications for dredging of waterways). An obvious question is whether marine sedimentary
ecosystems can sustain loss of biological and genetic diversity and still provide the same sorts of ecosystem services that they have provided
historically. The answer is yes and no. There are probably species that can be lost from some ecosystems without substantial alteration of
system function. Two species often overlap in the way in which they feed, mix sediments, and decompose material (e.g., Whitlatch 1980).
However, they probably do not carry out these activities in exactly the same way, and the functional significance of these differences probably
there are some species whose loss will undoubtedly have
serious direct or indirect consequences. The problem is that it is rarely known whether a given species
or group of species is “critical,” making reduction of biodiversity a dangerous practice with potentially
dire consequences.
depends on the species and ecosystem in question. In addition,
Coral Reefs Key
Coral reefs are vitally important to housing aquatic life, contributing to developments
in medicine, providing food, and sustaining the economy
NOAA No Date (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, “Importance of Coral Reefs”,
http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/kits/corals/coral07_importance.html)
Coral reefs are some of the most diverse and valuable ecosystems on Earth. Coral reefs support more
species per unit area than any other marine environment, including about 4,000 species of fish, 800
species of hard corals and hundreds of other species. Scientists estimate that there may be another 1 to 8
million undiscovered species of organisms living in and around reefs (Reaka-Kudla, 1997). This biodiversity is
considered key to finding new medicines for the 21st century. Many drugs are now being developed from
coral reef animals and plants as possible cures for cancer, arthritis, human bacterial infections, viruses,
and other diseases. Storehouses of immense biological wealth, reefs also provide economic and environmental
services to millions of people. Coral reefs may provide goods and services worth $375 billion each year.
This is an amazing figure for an environment that covers less than 1 percent of the Earth’s surface (Costanza et al., 1997). Healthy reefs
contribute to local economies through tourism. Diving tours, fishing trips, hotels, restaurants, and other businesses based
near reef systems provide millions of jobs and contribute billions of dollars all over the world. Recent studies show
that millions of people visit coral reefs in the Florida Keys every year. These reefs alone are estimated to have an asset value of $7.6 billion
(Johns et al., 2001). The commercial
value of U.S. fisheries from coral reefs is over $100 million (NMFS/NOAA,
2001). In addition, the annual value of reef-dependent recreational fisheries probably exceeds $100 million per year. In developing
countries, coral reefs contribute about one-quarter of the total fish catch, providing critical food
resources for tens of millions of people (Jameson et al., 1995). Coral reefs buffer adjacent shorelines from
wave action and prevent erosion, property damage and loss of life. Reefs also protect the highly
productive wetlands along the coast, as well as ports and harbors and the economies they support.
Globally, half a billion people are estimated to live within 100 kilometers of a coral reef and benefit from
its production and protection.
Coral reefs are crucial for biodiversity—if we destroy the coral reefs we destroy
everything that depends on them
Shah 13 (Anup, “Coral Reefs: Ecosystems Of Environmental And Human Value”, http://www.globalissues.org/article/173/coral-reefs)
Coral reefs cover an area of over 280,000 km2 and support thousands of species in what many describe
as the “rainforests of the seas”. Coral reefs benefit the environment and people in numerous ways. For
example, they Protect shores from the impact of waves and from storms; Provide benefits to humans in
the form of food and medicine; Provide economic benefits to local communities from tourism. The
World Meteorological Organization says that tropical coral reefs yield more than US$ 30 billion annually
in global goods and services, such as coastline protection, tourism and food. The US agency NOAA (the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) puts the economic value even higher and says that
coral reefs provide economic services — jobs, food and tourism — estimated to be worth as much as
$375 billion each year. In the past few years, however, global threats to coral reefs have been increasing
and in the context of the wider environment, the value of coral reefs may be even greater: Ecologically
speaking the value of coral reefs is even greater [than these estimates] because they are integral to the
well being of the oceans as we know them. … picture [reefs] as the undersea equivalent of rainforest
trees. Tropical waters are naturally low in nutrients because the warm water limits nutrients essential
for life from welling up from the deep, which is why they are sometimes called a “marine desert”.
Through the photosynthesis carried out by their algae, coral serve as a vital input of food into the
tropical/sub-tropical marine food-chain, and assist in recycling the nutrients too. The reefs provide
home and shelter to over 25% of fish in the ocean and up to two million marine species. They are also a
nursery for the juvenile forms of many marine creatures. I could go on, but the similarity with the
rainforest should now be clear. Eliminate the undersea “trees”, which mass coral bleaching is in the
process of doing, and you’ll eliminate everything that depends on it for survival. — Rob Painting
Coral reefs are key to marine biodiversity, they provide food and shelter for ¼ of all
ocean species
OPT 2013(The Ocean Portal Team, The Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, “Corals and Coral
Reefs”, 2013, http://ocean.si.edu/corals-and-coral-reefs)
Coral reefs are the most diverse of all marine ecosystems. They teem with life, with perhaps one quarter
of all ocean species depending on reefs for food and shelter. This is a remarkable statistic when you
consider that reefs cover just a tiny fraction (less than one percent) of the earth’s surface and less than
two percent of the ocean bottom. Because they are so diverse, coral reefs are often called the
rainforests of the sea.¶ Coral reefs are also very important to people. The value of coral reefs has been
estimated at 30 billion U.S. dollars and perhaps as much as 172 billion U.S. dollars each year, providing
food, protection of shorelines, jobs based on tourism, and even medicines. ¶ Unfortunately, people also
pose the greatest threat to coral reefs. Overfishing and destructive fishing, pollution, warming, changing
ocean chemistry, and invasive species are all taking a huge toll. In some places, reefs have been entirely
destroyed, and in many places reefs today are a pale shadow of what they once were.
Commercialization Kills Enviro
More corporate involvement in development projects will exacerbate environmental
problems – they only care about money
Shah 02, Shah, Anup, Editer of Global Issue holds an M.B in Enviormental Scirences . "Corporations and
the Environment." Global Issues. Global Issues, 25 May 2002. Web. 08 July 2014.
In the developing world, many development projects have come under criticism for damaging the environment, even when
they are presented as helping it. Concerns have increased in line with the rising investment in the developing
world. In the late 1990s attention was drawn to a United Nations (U.N.) project to get corporate collaboration/sponsorship in development
projects, supporting human rights and the environment, and being generally more responsible and accountable. However it fell under a lot of
criticism for involving corporations that are known to have contributed or caused
some of the more severe human rights and
environment problems, allowing these companies to attempt to repair their tarnished image, while not
actually tackling the problems. In May 2002, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) released an extensive report saying
that, “there was a growing gap between the efforts to reduce the impact of business and industry on
nature and the worsening state of the planet” and that “this gap is due to the fact that only a small number
of companies in each industry are actively integrating social and environmental factors into business
decisions.” (The actual quote is from a U.N. News Centre article, 15 May 2002 that introduces the report.) One sharp example of
environmental problems caused by multinational corporations, is the drive to extract oil from Nigeria. As
the previous link, from this site’s section on Africa shows, corporations have even backed the military to harass, even
kill, local people who continue to protest at the environmental and other problems the activities of the
various oil companies have caused. Some local groups have become extreme themselves, kidnapping foreigners for example. The
interests of the various big polluters, such as the auto, mining, oil and chemical corporations influenced the Kyoto Global Climate Change
Conference outcome. And with biotechnology and genetically engineered food production, companies are accused of following a profit motive
even as they promote the technology as a means to address world hunger. Environmental concerns
also feature quite
strongly on this issue. With increased consumerism, there has been a rise in the number of
environmental groups campaigning on various issues such as environmentally friendly products. To varying
extents then, environmental concerns are issues that sometimes make the mainstream news. However, a cover story, of Down To Earth
magazine from Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment as an example, warns that the
latest craze in green and ethical
consumerism may just be another way for corporations to exploit people and make money by
misrepresenting the facts. As another example of this, EarthDay Resources’ annual Don’t Be Fooled Awards highlight some
of what they call the corporate “greenwashing” that goes on through advertising and lobbying campaigns.
There are countless examples where corporate involvement in various issues could contribute to environmental
problems as a result. Corporations are major entities in the world and thus have an enormous impact
(negative and positive) on all our lives. And concerns of overly corporate-led globalization contributing to
environmental problems are increasing, as reported and documented by countless environmental and social justice groups
around the world.
Local Disturbances
Anthropogenic disturbances have negative effects on ocean biodiversity and spill over
to global ecosystem destruction
Ramirez-Llodra 11 (Eva, Paul A. Tyler, Maria C. Baker, Odd Aksel Bergstad, Malcolm R. Clark, Elva Escobar, Lisa A. Levin, Lenaick
Menot, Ashley A. Rowden, Craig R. Smith, Cindy L. Van Dover, ” Man and the Last Great Wilderness: Human Impact on the Deep Sea”, PLoS
ONE 6(8): e22588. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0022588,
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0022588#pone.0022588-Smith8)
The deep sea is clearly not immune from anthropogenic impact. Changes in ocean use, climate and the
biodiversity and ecosystem function patterns of deep-sea ecosystems mean that certain habitats are more at risk
than others. As resources on land become exhausted, exploitation of the marine environment increases
and, with it, so does extraction of the biological and mineral wealth of the deep sea. Furthermore, as the world
population grows, the amount of litter produced increases and a large amount finds its way to the
oceans and subsequently to the deep seafloor. Long-term anthropogenic pressure will often affect
ecosystems at a regional or local scale, but the impact on the wider deep-sea fauna is mostly unknown.
Climate change will affect the oceans at a global scale, in some cases amplifying the disturbance caused by
other human related activities such as fishing or mining. Based on the current knowledge available in the scientific
community and expert estimates, we suggest that the overall anthropogenic impact in the deep sea is increasing (Figure
8 A–C,Tables S1, S2 and S3) and has evolved from mainly disposal and dumping in the late 20thcentury, to
exploitation in the early 21st century (Figure 8A & B). At present, exploitation is the most important humanrelated activity that affects the deep-sea ecosystem, where increasing ecosystem modifications in the
future may be caused by climate change (Figure 8B). The habitat types most affected at present, when considering
all impacts together, are sediment slopes, followed by cold-water corals, canyons and OMZs (Table S2). Sediment
slopes and canyons are mainly affected by fishing, including trawling, longlining and ghost fishing caused by
lost or discarded gear. Cold-water corals are especially vulnerable to fishing activities, as the physical damage
caused by fishing gear results in the destruction of whole communities of long-lived structural
framework builders and associated species. For OMZs, climate change is the most important factor
affecting this habitat at present, because of the significant increase in hypoxia. During the remainder of the current century, we
predict that the major impact in the deep sea will be climate change (Figure 8C, Table S3), affecting the oceans
globally through direct effects on the habitat and fauna as well as through synergies with other human activities.
Below we identify the deep-sea habitats that we believe are at higher risk from anthropogenic impact in the future (Table S3):
Local level tipping points are just as disastrous as global tipping points—triggers
keystone species loss
Howard 11 (Patricia, Wageningen University, The Netherlands, and University of Kent United Kingdom, “Tipping Points and Biodiversity
Change: Consequences for Human Wellbeing and Challenges for Science and Policy, Prepared for the Kavli Seminar “Addressing Global Tipping
Points”13-15 March 2011,
http://www.academia.edu/537857/Tipping_Points_and_Biodiversity_Change_Consequences_for_Human_Wellbeing_and_Challenges_for_Scie
nce_and_Policy)
There are many possible and actual tipping points related to biodiversity change at local level whose
effects may be as pervasive as regional scale tipping points due to the sheer number of ecosystems
across the globe that are vulnerable – should a high number of these tip within a relatively short
timeframe, the stresses caused for human populations could give rise to responses that may be adaptive
with respect to a particular community, but maladaptive at higher scales (e.g. emigration, occupation of
neighboring lands, leading to conflict). The drivers of change that lead to the reconfiguration of
ecosystems (including tipping into alternate states) were discussed above. Within this, there are specific
threats posed by the loss of single species(e.g. ecological engineers, keystone species, or framework
species) or trophic levels in particular contexts, including the loss of functional groups of species, such as
pollinators (see e.g. Potts et al. 2010), which have major implications for ecosystem productivity and
thus the provision of benefits for humans, and which can lead to ecosystems crossing thresholds into
alternative states that are undesirable from the point of view of the benefits that they provide for
humans
Biodiversity tipping points spread globally to all ecosystems—leads to global
catastrophe
Howard 11 (Patricia, Wageningen University, The Netherlands, and University of Kent United Kingdom, “Tipping Points and Biodiversity
Change: Consequences for Human Wellbeing and Challenges for Science and Policy, Prepared for the Kavli Seminar “Addressing Global Tipping
Points”13-15 March 2011,
http://www.academia.edu/537857/Tipping_Points_and_Biodiversity_Change_Consequences_for_Human_Wellbeing_and_Challenges_for_Scie
nce_and_Policy)
Recently, potential biodiversity-related tipping points have been identified that are seen to have larger scale
regional effects, where such effects are of great concern not only because of the implications these have
for large numbers of smaller-scale ecosystems and the people who inhabit them, but as well for global
biodiversity per se , and for their potential contributions to other Earth systems tipping points. Leadley et al.
(2010)carried out a new assessment of such potential tipping points for Global Biodiversity 4, drawing upon all previous relevant scenario
exercises (the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, Global Environment Outlook 3, the IPCC assessments), where previous assessments had not
fully accounted for the ‘extremely rapid dis-ppearance of the Arctic polar ice cap, nor the possible widespread dieback of the Amazon forest’
(Ibid.: 8).They concluded that major biodiversity transformations will occur at levels near or below a low level of only2°C global warming,
including ‘Widespread coral reef degradation, large shifts in marine plankton community structure especially in the Arctic ocean, extensive
invasion of tundra by boreal forest, destruction of many coastal ecosystems, etc.’ They found that ‘the
risk of catastrophic
biodiversity loss...has been substantially underestimated in previous global biodiversity
assessments...Most of the biodiversity tipping points that we have identified will be accompanied by
large negative regional or global scale impacts on ecosystem services and human wellbeing’ (Ibid.: 8). The
main regional tipping points they identified are presented in Box 2
Humans are quickly depleting the oceans, and will further harm ecosystems if
exploration is continued
Aguilera 2014 (Mario Aguilera, author for Scripps Institution of Ocranography, “Scientists Call for New
Stewardship if the Deep Ocean: Earth’s Last Frontier”, Feb 16, 2014,
https://scripps.ucsd.edu/news/scientists-call-new-stewardship-deep-ocean)
The deep ocean, the largest domain for life on earth, is also its least explored environment. Humans are now encroaching more
vigorously than ever into the ocean’s deep regions, exploiting the deep’s resources and placing its
wealth of vibrant habitats and natural services for the planet at risk.¶ Lisa Levin, a biological oceanographer at Scripps
Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, believes the vital functions provided by the deep sea—from carbon sequestration to nurturing
As humans ramp up exploitation of deep-sea fish, energy, minerals,
and genetic resources, a new “stewardship mentality” across countries, economic sectors, and
disciplines is required, Levin says, for the future health and integrity of the deep ocean.¶ Levin was joined by
fish stocks—are key to the health of the planet.
several other experts at last weekend’s “Deep-Ocean Industrialization: A New Stewardship Frontier” symposium and news briefing held at the
annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Chicago.¶ As the human population has more than
doubled in the past 50 years, demand for food, energy, and raw materials from the sea has risen with it.¶ “At the same time human society has
undergone tremendous changes and we rarely, if ever, think about these affecting our ocean, let alone the deep ocean,” said Levin, who has
conducted research on the deep sea for more than 30 years. “But the truth is that the types of industrialization that reigned in the last century
on land are now becoming a reality in the deep ocean. As we exhaust many coastal stocks, commercial fishers have turned towards deeper
waters.Ӧ Beyond marine
life depletion, the deep sea also is being threatened by the search for new
sources for energy and precious materials. Oil and gas exploration now routinely targets seabeds in
more than a thousand meters of water depth. Demand for modern technology devices—from cell phones to hybrid car
batteries—has fueled a push by the mining sector to deep waters in search of new sources of metals and other materials.¶ “Vast tracts of deep
seabed are now being leased in order to mine nodules, crusts, sulfides, and phosphates rich in elements demanded by our advanced economy,”
said Levin. She added that rising carbon dioxide emissions are exposing deep-sea ecosystems to additional stress from climate change impacts
that include warmer temperatures, altered food supplies, and declining pH and oxygen levels.¶ “Extraction
from the deep sea is a
tradeoff. Is the value of what we’re extracting greater than the damage?” asks Linwood Pendleton, director of the
Ocean and Coastal Policy Program at the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University. “Are there ways to extract
that might be more economically costly but have lower ecological impact? How can we repair the considerable damage that has already been
done to the sea floor through trawling, pollution, and other practices? These are questions that we need to answer before industrial activity
gets ahead of scientific understanding.”¶ Levin’s stewardship efforts for the deep sea go hand-in-hand with her role as director of the Center
for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation at Scripps, which has been addressing stewardship challenges for the past 12 years. The center brings
together social and natural scientists to address issues critical to the ocean environment, including overfishing, contamination, climate
agreements, and the creation of marine reserves.¶ Such efforts continue a long history of stewardship for the planet born at Scripps Institution
of Oceanography.¶ The California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations (CalCOFI) program, as an example, is one of the world’s premier
ocean observation programs. Now 64 years old, CalCOFI conducts regular cruises and sampling off the California coast to help the state manage
its fisheries and living marine resources. Led by Scripps, NOAA’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center, and the California Department of Fish and
Game, CalCOFI’s legacy featuring a vast observational data resource has led to a range of insights vital for fisheries, resource management,
understanding climate impacts, and other aspects that enable a comprehensive understanding of the oceans and in turn well-informed policy
decisions.¶ CalCOFI exemplifies an approach to science that is common at Scripps: the making of long-term observations and the accumulation
of data over many decades. Almost as old as CalCOFI is the Keeling Curve, a measurement of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels that has taken
on icon status since it began in 1958. The steady and ultraprecise measurement has been the underpinning of much modern climate change
research. Charles David Keeling, the namesake creator of the measurement series, also contributed to early complementary measurements of
ocean acidification in the 1980s.¶ Other programs at Scripps include earthquake monitoring and natural hazard early-warning systems to
The deep sea, however, represents a unique challenge since it represents an area of the
ocean that is woefully underexplored, a fact that is prompting scientists to act with urgency before
damage occurs prior to fully understanding what’s at risk.¶ The deep sea holds a nearly infinite amount of genetic
enhance public safety.
diversity, some of which could provide novel materials or future therapeutics to treat human diseases, but if not protected, these could be
disturbed or lost before we discover them.¶ The need to preserve deep-sea ecosystems in the face of growing industrialization of the deep
ocean, Levin says, requires a new “precautionary” mode of thinking about the deep sea that promotes sustainable, ecosystem-based
management across industrial sectors and governance realms.¶ “We need international cooperation and an entity that can develop and
oversee deep-ocean stewardship,” said Levin. “We also need multiple sources of research funding that can help provide the scientific
information that we need to manage the deep sea. All of this will require efforts that bridge several disciplines and engage stakeholders in
these discussions.”¶ “It
is imperative to work with industry and governance bodies to put progressive
environmental regulations in place before industry becomes established, instead of after the fact,” said
Cindy Lee Van Dover, director of the Duke University Marine Laboratory. “One hundred years from now, we want people to say ‘they got this
right based on the science they had, they weren’t asleep at the wheel.’”¶ “From a legal perspective, the deep ocean is filled with
contradictions. Deep sea mineral resources located beyond national boundaries are part of the ‘Common Heritage of Mankind’ under
international law, but the fish and octopi that swim just above the seafloor are not,” said Kristina Gjerde, senior high seas advisor to IUCN—the
International Union for Conservation of Nature. “To prevent harm we can never hope to repair, precautionary rules need to be in place to guide
all human uses of the deep ocean across boundaries and across sectors.Ӧ Other AAAS participants with Levin included Samantha Smith
(Nautilus Minerals) and Bronwen Currie (National Marine Information and Research Center). The scientific symposium was sponsored by the
Deep-Ocean Stewardship Initiative and the Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation at Scripps.¶ With its decades-long history of deepsea exploration, Scripps is recognized as a world leader in investigating the science of the deep ocean, from exploring the deep’s geological
features and researching its exotic marine life inhabitants, to development of sensor and sampling technologies.
Precautionary Principle
Lack of Knowledge
Thinking we understand the full impact that our actions have on marine ecosystems
will result in bad policy
Craig 2011
(Robin Kundis, William H. Leary Professor of Law, College Of Law, University of Utah, Affiliated Faculty,
Wallace Stegner Center for Land, Resources, and Environment, College Of Law, University of Utah,
Affiliated Faculty, Global Change & Sustainability Center, University of Utah, Professor, College Of Law,
University of Utah, “Legal Remedies for Deep Marine Oil Spills and Long-Term Ecological Resilience: A
Match Made in Hell”, Brigham Young University Law Review, UMKC database/online library)
The Deepwater Horizon Commission had several other recommendations for governance reforms, although it largely chose to hew close to
existing law and policy, tinkering with existing structures rather than promoting a different and more precautionary philosophical approach.177
More important for purposes of this Article, however, is the Commission's unquestioned
assumption of the Gulfs continuing
ability to recover from massive oil spills (resilience in the first sense). In particular, its environmental recommendations seek to
ensure, inter alia, that "[t]he environment and the economy of the Gulf region recovers as completely and as quickly as possible, not only from
the direct impacts of the spill, but from the decades of degradation that proceeded it."178 This
is natural resources law's firstsense resilience dependence in action - an unwarranted assumption that human actions are unlikely to
push ecosystems over ecosystem thresholds into different structures and functions that, generally, will
have significantly reduced value to the humans that depend on the current ecological state. As William C.
Clark, Dixon D. Jones, and CS. Holling have noted, "A system which is globally stable is admirable for blind trialand-error experimentation: it will
always recover from any perturbation. It is this paradigm of an infinitely forgiving Nature that has been assumed implicitly in the past . . . ."179
Nevertheless, as
a result of this first-sense resilience dependence, the laws and policies governing offshore oil
drilling (and many other kinds of natural resource management) base their regulatory and liability regimes on the
assumption that violators can in fact "make the public and the environment whole."180 What would happen
instead if we incorporated full resilience theory into our laws? As Brian Walker and David Salt have discussed at length,
"Resilience thinking presents an approach to managing natural resources that embraces human and
natural systems as complex systems continually adapting through cycles of change."181 In addition to adopting a
systems perspective on ecosystem management, resilience thinking fully incorporates the implications of resilience in
the second sense (potential ecological regime shifts) - the recognition that "[s]ocio-ecological systems can exist in more
than one kind of stable state. If a system changes too much, it crosses a threshold and begins behaving in a different way,
with different feedbacks between its component parts and a different structure."182 Resilience thinking therefore seeks not - as is true under
current management paradigms - to tweak the operations of an ecosystem in order to optimize particular products or functions183 (for
example, oil production in the Gulf). Rather, it
seeks to more humbly recognize that "[t]he complexity of the many
linkages and feedbacks that make up a socio-ecological system is such that we can never predict with
certainty what the exact response will be to any intervention in the system."184 In other words, resilience
thinking acknowledges what is particularly true with respect to marine ecosystems: most of the time, we
have only the most simplistic of understandings of what our actions do to the ecosystems that we both
impact and depend upon.185
Precaution needs to be taken when dealing with the environment – there is way too
much we do not know
Curtin and Prezello 10, Curtin, Richard, University of Michigan economist Richard Curtin, director of
the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers. and Raúl Prellezo, Raúl Prellezo
Ph.D Economics Principal Investigator AZTI-Tecnalia · Marine Research Division . "Understanding Marine
Ecosystem Based Management: A Literature Review." Marine Policy 34.5 (2010): 821-30.JSTOR. Web. 8
July 2014. CS
Taking account of all the impacts on marine ecosystems is a high priority in EBM [17–19]. Humans have a multitude of effects on
aquatic resources of which extraction is but one. Pollution from agriculture and sewage eutrophies freshwater
spawning grounds and washes out to sea from watersheds, coastal development impacts on fragile habitats, irrigation and
dams change
habitats and interrupt migration patterns [17]. Current fishing practices affect marine
resources in differing ways also. Gears used for demersal fishing drag up the ocean floor, scraping, scouring and
resuspending the substratum. These actions can destroy habitats that have taken hundreds, if not more,
years to form. These activities can change the structure, composition, diversity and productivity of biota [19]. Size selective fishing
can affect the resilience and the sustainability of fish species by reducing their average size, their size at age
and their genetic diversity [18]. There is also the issue of bycatches and discards, which have been estimated to be at very high levels
(ca. 27 m tonnes in 1997) [17]. However, there are many environmental impacts that affect these ecosystems also. Availability of prey species
has a direct effect on recruitment to predator stocks. Botsford et al. [18] note that physical oceanographic conditions can have an effect on the
recruitment and distribution of species. Regime shifts are now accepted as occurring at decadal time spans which can lead to shifts in the
structure of whole ecosystems. Also, annual changes in weather and events at the spatial scale of individual fish during critical larval and
juvenile stages can have major implications on the structure and biological productivity of many stocks. Most papers on the subject state
clearly that there is an urgent need for further research into the mechanisms of ecosystem functioning,
to understand better how the ecosystem deals with stressors and their impacts, and to identify the vital
relationships [12,3,2]. This acknowledgement is due to the difficulty in discovering and finding out how these
key processes work. The study of terrestrial ecosystems has been a very work intensive undertaking. When dealing with mobile fish
stocks which traverse the deep seas it is a much greater task to observe all the interactions that take place within these ecosystems. Quite
possibly, it will never be known how some of the processes of the seas work. For this reason, another
important aspect of EBM is adaptive management. Adaptive management entails realizing that all the
factors affecting ecosystems are not at hand and may never be and so precaution must be exercised. The
scientific consensus statement on marine ecosystem based management [20] believes that levels of
precaution should be proportional to the amount of information available. The less that is known of the
effects of an action requires extra precaution to be taken. As Guerry [4] has alluded to the many connections
between marine species, marine environments and between the land and sea, marine ecosystems are
impacted by many different sources. Therefore, they are the recipients of cumulative amounts of impacts, which at a certain
point, it is believed that they pass over the “threshold” and are transformed into structurally different types of ecosystems [21], [19] and [4].
Gaichas [12] noted how the “tipping
point” is passed when small changes combine to create a large change in
the overall system state. Sea conditions also change at a variable rate, from decadal ocean oscillations to daily weather conditions.
This requires a more flexible form of management so that these types of data can be considered, which could change the status of some
components from desired to less desired. According to Grumbine [3] adaptive
management should involve assuming
scientific knowledge is provisional and focussing on management as a learning process or a continuous
experiment. Managers should remain flexible and adapt to uncertainty in contrast to the rigid structure
of traditional management. While the process of investigating ecosystem processes and functioning is ongoing management must be
capable of absorbing new materials and knowledge as it becomes available. Traditional fisheries management has focussed on setting annual
targets for fish extraction while the main day to day duty is the collection of data and monitoring. While these latter tasks are essential for
modern management the process of guiding and steering “the ship” is felt by many to require a more constant presence than an annual one.
Only with precautionary principles could environmental degradation ever be solved –
critical to multilateral cooperation
Ellis and Maguire, Maguire, Steve, Professor, Strategy and Organization; Director, Marcel Desautels
Institute for Integrated Management, and Jaye Ellis, Professor Ellis, who holds a joint appointment with
the McGill School of Environment, teaches and conducts research in the fields of international
environmental law, public international law, international legal theory and international relations.
"Redistributing the Burden of Scientific Uncertainty: Implications of the Precautionary Principle for State
and Nonstate Actors." Global Governance 11.4 (Oct-Dec 2005): 505-26. ProQuest. Web. 8 July 2014. CS
The precautionary principle has emerged as an important yet contentious issue in multilateral environmental
agreements. Even as it progressively becomes consolidated into international law and widely acknowledged as an
appropriate response to scientific uncertainty, the application of the precautionary principle internationally has, as some state
and nonstate actors claim, generated even more uncertainty. The principle's contentious nature was obvious during negotiations leading to the
2001 Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants,1 which provides an excellent opportunity to examine the role of the principle not
only in that particular regime but also in international environmental law more generally. We thus draw on these negotiations to anchor an
analysis of the implications of the precautionary principle and to explore the paradox of uncertainty associated with it. Our findings indicate
that a
major function of the precautionary principle is the redistribution of the burden of scientific
uncertainty. Whereas actors could formerly act as if they were ecologically independent by ignoring
weak signals of transboundary damage, such behavior is no longer acceptable. By lowering the threshold
of scientific evidence of threats of serious or irreversible damage to human health or the environment
required to trigger deliberations, the precautionary principle is speeding up the process by which
underlying ecological interdependence is recognized and translated into policy interdependence. By
triggering deliberations on the appropriate response to transboundary threats about which there is scientific uncertainty, the
precautionary principle translates scientific uncertainty borne by exposed populations into policy
uncertainty borne by state and nonstate actors, which then prompts these actors to take a much more coordinated approach
to policymaking to manage their ecological and economic interdependence. Thus, the institutionalization of precautionary
norms and ideas means that segments of what would once have been considered domestic
policymaking may, increasingly, be carried out at the international level, which reinforces multilateral
processes and underlines the importance of the convening, coordinating, and facilitating roles of
international institutions such as the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
Precaution is a pre-requisite to policy – you must understand how your actions will
affect something before you actually do it
Ellis and Maguire, Maguire, Steve, Professor, Strategy and Organization; Director, Marcel Desautels
Institute for Integrated Management, and Jaye Ellis, Professor Ellis, who holds a joint appointment with
the McGill School of Environment, teaches and conducts research in the fields of international
environmental law, public international law, international legal theory and international relations.
"Redistributing the Burden of Scientific Uncertainty: Implications of the Precautionary Principle for State
and Nonstate Actors." Global Governance 11.4 (Oct-Dec 2005): 505-26. ProQuest. Web. 8 July 2014. CS
Application of the precautionary principle to global environmental problems lowers the threshold of evidence
necessary to trigger international precautionary deliberations, which may lead to international
precautionary actions. In the case of POPs, the Stockholm Convention provides a vehicle for the increasingly stricter regulation of
production, consumption, and trade in the chemical products it currently covers and, potentially, for a range of other substances that have not
yet been included in its lists. This stricter regulation will be brought about in large measure by an upward harmonization and coordination of
domestic policies regarding the substances the convention covers. Thus, states
will be expected to move in concert to adopt
stricter regulatory standards within their jurisdictions. The mutual vulnerability of states with respect to POPs arises, in
part, from the physical characteristics of these substances, particularly their capacity to be transmitted over large distances and to persist over
long periods of time. But it also arises, in part, from different levels of risk aversion in various jurisdictions along with different policy
approaches to the regulation and control of POPs. Because of underlying ecological interconnectedness, unilateral attempts by a state to keep
POPs off its territory are bound to be of limited effectiveness and could result in disruptions to relationships with other states. Thus,
an
international instrument is essential. Our main proposition relates the two types of uncertainty preoccupying actors and
reconciles the seeming paradox of a principle that is simultaneously a response to, and generator of, uncertainty: Proposition: By triggering
precautionary deliberations and, in many instances but not necessarily, precautionary actions, an important function of the precautionary
principle is to redistribute the burden of scientific uncertainty. The
precautionary principle redistributes the burden of
scientific uncertainty from vulnerable populations (of humans and/or other species) exposed to potential hazards,
to the producers of those hazards. In a nonprecautionary world, the producers of hazards could
continue to act "as if no hazard were being produced, but this is no longer tenable. With a lower threshold of
evidence required to trigger them, there is a higher probability that once issue entrepreneurs associate possible transboundary harms with
some industrial activity, precautionary deliberations-and possibly, but not necessarily, precautionary actions-will be undertaken. Unless the
deliberations triggered by the application of the precautionary principle are trivial, there will be uncertainty as to their outcome. Thus,
uncertainty about impacts on human health and the environment is initially translated into uncertainty about the value of industrial assets
linked to the potential harms that triggered precautionary deliberations. In other words, scientific
uncertainty is translated into
policy uncertainty. Where the precautionary principle is not applied, the absence of scientific certainty
of harms allows legal and economic certainty to persist: actors with a stake in access to chemical substances with POPs-like
properties have a fairly high degree of confidence that access will not be rendered more difficult through regulation. But as the precautionary
principle comes to be more influential internationally and domestically, and particularly as it finds its way into the texts of statutes and
conventions, a certain degree of uncertainty about the regulatory environment is created, and those with a stake in substances with POPs-like
properties become vulnerable to the regulatory process. They face uncertainty as to whether these substances will eventually be regulated, and
therefore economic uncertainty; investments in activities that depend on access to such substances may lose some of their value as a result.
Without precaution, the burden of scientific uncertainty is borne by exposed populations; with precaution, at least some of the burden is borne
by those with a stake in risk-generating activities. Uncertainties are created for those with a stake in the substances from the moment that
precaution begins to gain influence because, even if no formal evaluation of a substance for the purposes of a listing decision is under way, the
mere fact that a substance displays certain characteristics of POPs, combined with the fact that the precautionary principle is available to those
responsible for making listing decisions, means that the "risk" that the substance will be deliberated on and thus possibly regulated is
magnified. Legal and economic uncertainty is reduced once an official decision to list (or not) a substance is made, in that the "risk" of
regulation has been realized and the impact on asset holders can be determined with certainty. If precautionary action is not taken (that is, a
decision not to list a given substance in one of the annexes of the convention), this reduces but does not completely eliminate uncertainty for
those with a stake in assets dependent on the substance, as the chemical could potentially come forward as a POPs candidate again, at a later
date, once scientific understanding or socioeconomic circumstances change.
If precautionary action is taken (that is, a decision to
it reduces
the burden of scientific uncertainty on exposed populations. Precautionary action does, however, reduce
the policy uncertainty experienced by asset holders in that potential regulatory action has crystallized
into actual action; asset holders, now forced to bear the costs of having their products restricted or banned, thus assume the burden of
list a given substance in one of the annexes of the convention), this does not, of course, reduce scientific uncertainty per se, but
scientific uncertainty.
Precaution is necessary - ecosystems are too complex for single policy actions to solve
Curtin and Prezello 10, Curtin, Richard, University of Michigan economist Richard Curtin, director of
the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers. and Raúl Prellezo, Raúl Prellezo
Ph.D Economics Principal Investigator AZTI-Tecnalia · Marine Research Division . "Understanding Marine
Ecosystem Based Management: A Literature Review." Marine Policy 34.5 (2010): 821-30.JSTOR. Web. 8
July 2014. CS
EBM is an improved form of management for natural resources where ecosystems are seen as complex
adaptive systems of which humans are an integral part. The importance of managing ecosystems as a
whole is fundamental to EBM and represents a shift away from the traditional focus on components of
ecosystems. There are many other aspects of EBM that differ with traditional management such as: it is
geographically specified; takes into account ecosystem knowledge and uncertainties; recognizes multiple
factors affect ecosystems and their management; aims to balance diverse societal goals. Also, due to its
complexity and the importance of involving all stakeholders, the implementation of EBM must be
incremental and collaborative [5]. As part of the structure and functioning of ecosystems it is acknowledged that multiple human
actions, along with many other known and unknown processes, can have cumulative and multiplicative impacts on these systems and can lead
to irreversible changes in the functioning of them. EBM
is necessary because the traditional focus on single sectors has
failed to account for these multiple impacts. Ecosystem based management has a wider focus, aiming to
recognize how components interact with each other and taking into account all sources of impacts from
all sectors. To implement EBM it has been found that the utilization of the precautionary approach through
the medium of adaptive management is essential [18], [17] and [2]. This is due to the uncertainty that is
inherent in the knowledge of all the impacts and their consequences on complex adaptive systems such
as the marine ecosystems. As it may never be known all of what is going on under the waves, this lack of
knowledge must not be used as an excuse to prevent the implementation of plans that have the potential to reduce harmful effects on
ecosystem functioning. In this sense, adaptive
management and the precautionary principle go hand in hand.
Adaptive management is one of the key areas where EBM differs from traditional resource
management. Its importance in this subject is noted by nearly all of the literature that has been reviewed here. This type of management
takes into account the uncertainties in the scientific knowledge that is available of ecosystem processes and functions and allows the
absorption and adaptation of new knowledge when it becomes available. This flexibility is essential for the timely use of the precautionary
principle and to allow learning by doing.
The dynamics and behavior of the environment create a barrier to understanding
biodiversity and the environment. Development also is inefficient and harms the
environment
Cooney 04 (Cooney, R. (2004). “The Precautionary Principle in Biodiversity Conservation and Natural Resource Management: An issues
paper for policy-makers, researchers and practitioners” Pages 26-27 accessed 7/8/14 at https://portals.iucn.org/library/efiles/documents/PGC002.pdf Cooney is an ecologist and specialist in biodiversity policy, with twelve years experience of research, analysis and development. Rosie is
the Chair of the IUCN Sustainable Use and Livelihoods Specialist Group (SULi), and an independent consultant to governments, nongovernmental organisations and the private sector, as well as active in teaching and research. She has worked in leading international
conservation NGOs including IUCN The World Conservation Union and WWF International, and carried out research at University of Cambridge
and at UNSW, and consults to international and national clients. She holds degrees in Zoology and in Law from ANU and a PhD in Zoology from
Cambridge.)
Uncertainty is a prominent feature of conservation and resource management. There
are at least two types of uncertainty
that can be distinguished (Walker et al., 2003). One (epistemic uncertainty) derives from missing, inadequate or
incomplete data. It might be linked to lack of investigation, sampling error, or measurement biases. The
hallmark of this kind of uncertainty is that it can, at least in principle, be “solved” by more investigation or data. The second (ontological or
variability) uncertainty derives from the intrinsic nature of the system being studied. The characteristics of
the system: its complexity, scale, stochasticity, dynamics etc., make understanding or prediction of outcomes
impossible or highly unreliable. A good example is weather: while science and technology provide ever greater tools to reduce uncertainty
surrounding future weather, the scale, complexity of interacting factors and chaotic dynamics of the system preclude reliable prediction.
Uncertainty in the context of biodiversity andNRMis endemic, and is frequently of the latter type. The dynamics,
behaviour, and responses to disturbance, disease, habitat destruction and hunting, extraction or fishing
even of single species are usually poorly understood. Ecosystems, particularly the most biodiverse, are
composed of myriad interacting species engaged in complex interactions with each other and with
abiotic factors such as nutrient, temperature, and hydrological regimes. They exhibit the dynamics of complex
systems, characterized by chaotic dynamics, threshold effects, state changes, and inherent stochasticity. Experimentation involving any but the
simplest variables is not generally possible. While
the degree of epistemic uncertainty encountered in biodiversity
and natural resource management can be gauged by the fact that we do not know how many species exist to the nearest ten million (eg,
Stork, 1997), this ontological or variability uncertainty is much more intractable. The history of natural resource
management is characterized by “surprise” (Ashby, 2003), and ecology is unlikely ever to become a predictive science. Even where the
species or system in question is well understood, however, decision-making and management must
grapple with uncertainties in the economic, political, social and cultural realms. In the scenarios within which the
precautionary principle evolved the human behaviour consequent on regulation is, arguably, fairly predictable. Control of emissions generally
leads to predictable reductions; a ban on toxic chemical production will usually end production. However,
most biodiversity
conservation/NRM scenarios involve a close and complex interaction between natural ecosystems and
human social, economic, political and psychological factors. For instance, the impact of a decision
whether or not to decrease a fishery harvest quota or ban trade in a wildlife product will depend not
just on the biological characteristics of the species or system in question, but on human responses to it.
Fishers may exceed quotas or evade gear restriction. Trade in wildlife may not cease, but may follow
different routes and become illegal and harder to regulate. Management and decision-making may
therefore need to incorporate not just scientific information, but considerations of broad social,
economic and political contexts. To some extent, therefore, this suggests that the boundary between
precautionary and preventive action in conservation/NRM is a blurred one. It may be that most conservation and
NRM measures can be viewed as reflecting a level of precautionary action. This still leaves ample scope, however, for wide variation, dispute
and negotiation over the level of precaution to be applied and the measures chosen for its implementation.
Scientists predict we will be extinct within 100 years due to environmental destruction
Edwards ‘10(Lin Edwards, Humans will be extinct in 100 years says eminent scientist, Jun 23, 2010
http://phys.org/news196489543.html)
Eminent Australian scientist Professor Frank Fenner, who helped to wipe out smallpox, predicts humans will
probably be extinct within 100 years, because of overpopulation, environmental destruction and climate
change. Fenner, who is emeritus professor of microbiology at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra, said homo sapiens
will not be able to survive the population explosion and “unbridled consumption,” and will become extinct,
perhaps within a century, along with many other species. United Nations official figures from last year
estimate the human population is 6.8 billion, and is predicted to pass seven billion next year. Fenner told The
Australian he tries not to express his pessimism because people are trying to do something, but keep putting it off. He said he believes the
situation is irreversible, and it is too late because the effects we have had on Earth since industrialization
(a period now known to scientists unofficially as the Anthropocene) rivals any effects of ice ages or comet impacts. World
population growth chart World population growth chart. Fenner said that climate change is only at its beginning, but is
likely to be the cause of our extinction. “We’ll undergo the same fate as the people on Easter Island,” he
said. More people means fewer resources, and Fenner predicts “there will be a lot more wars over food.”
Easter Island is famous for its massive stone statues. Polynesian people settled there, in what was then a pristine tropical island, around the
middle of the first millennium AD. The population grew slowly at first and then exploded. As the population grew the forests were wiped out
and all the tree animals became extinct, both with devastating consequences. After about 1600 the civilization began to collapse, and had
virtually disappeared by the mid-19th century. Evolutionary
biologist Jared Diamond said the parallels between what
happened on Easter Island and what is occurring today on the planet as a whole are “chillingly obvious.”
While many scientists are also pessimistic, others are more optimistic. Among the latter is a colleague of Professor Fenner, retired professor
Stephen Boyden, who said he still hopes awareness of the problems will rise and the required revolutionary changes will be made to achieve
ecological sustainability. “While there's a glimmer of hope, it's worth working to solve the problem. We have the scientific knowledge to do it
but we don't have the political will,” Boyden said. Fenner, 95, is the author or co-author of 22 books and 290 scientific papers and book
chapters. His announcement in 1980 to the World Health Assembly that smallpox had been eradicated is still seen as one of the World Health
Organisation’s greatest achievements. He has also been heavily involved in controlling Australia’s feral rabbit population with the myxomatosis
virus. Professor Fenner has had a lifetime interest in the environment, and from 1973 to 1979 was Director of the Centre for Resource and
Environmental Studies at ANU. He is currently a visiting fellow at the John Curtin School of Medical Research at the university, and is a patron of
Sustainable Population Australia. He has won numerous awards including the ANZAC Peace Prize, the WHO Medal, and the Albert Einstein
World Award of Science. He was awarded an MBE for his work on control of malaria in New Guinea during the Second World War, in which
Fenner served in the Royal Australian Army Medical Corps. Professor Fenner will open the Healthy Climate, Planet and People symposium at
the Australian Academy of Science next week.
Impact
Extinction/Doom!
Destruction of aquatic ecosystems leads to extinction
Craig 3 (Robin, Associate Professor of Law at Indiana, Winter, 34 McGeorge L. Review. 155)
Biodiversity and ecosystem function arguments for conserving marine ecosystems also exist, just as they do for terrestrial ecosystems, but
these arguments have thus far rarely been raised in political debates. For example, besides significant tourism values - the most economically
valuable ecosystem service coral reefs provide, worldwide - coral reefs protect against storms and dampen other environmental fluctuations,
services worth more than ten times the reefs’ value for food production. Waste treatment is another significant, non-extractive ecosystem
function that intact coral reef ecosystems provide. More generally, “ocean
ecosystems play a major role in the global
of all the elements that represent the basic building blocks of living organisms , carbon,
nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur, as well as other less abundant but necessary elements.” In a very real and direct sense,
therefore, human degradation of marine ecosystems impairs the planet’s ability to support life. Maintaining
biodiversity is often critical to maintaining the functions of marine ecosystems. Current evidence shows that, in general, an
ecosystem’s ability to keep functioning in the face of disturbance is strongly dependent on its
biodiversity, “indicating that more diverse ecosystems are more stable.” Coral reef ecosystems are particularly
geochemical cycling
dependent on their biodiversity. Most ecologists agree that the complexity of interactions and degree of interrelatedness among component
species is higher on coral reefs than in any other marine environment. This implies that the ecosystem functioning that produces the most
highly valued components is also complex and that many otherwise insignificant species have strong effects on sustaining the rest of the reef
system. Thus, maintaining and restoring the biodiversity of marine ecosystems is critical to maintaining and restoring the ecosystem services
that they provide. Non-use biodiversity values for marine ecosystems have been calculated in the wake of marine disasters, like the Exxon
Valdez oil spill in Alaska. Similar calculations could derive preservation values for marine wilderness. However, economic value, or economic
value equivalents, should not be “the sole or even primary justification for conservation of ocean ecosystems. Ethical arguments also have
considerable force and merit.” At the forefront of such arguments should be a recognition of how little we know about the sea - and about the
actual effect of human activities on marine ecosystems. The United States has traditionally failed to protect marine ecosystems because it was
difficult to detect anthropogenic harm to the oceans, but we now know that such harm is occurring - even though we are not completely sure
about causation or about how to fix every problem. Ecosystems like the NWHI coral reef ecosystem should inspire lawmakers and policymakers
to admit that most of the time we really do not know what we are doing to the sea and hence should be preserving marine wilderness
whenever we can - especially when the United States has within its territory relatively pristine marine ecosystems that may be unique in the
world. We may not know much about the sea, but we do know this much: if
we kill the ocean we kill ourselves, and we will
take most of the biosphere with us. The Black Sea is almost dead, its once-complex and productive ecosystem almost entirely
replaced by a monoculture of comb jellies, “starving out fish and dolphins, emptying fishermen’s nets, and converting the web of life into
brainless, wraith-like blobs of jelly.” More importantly, the Black Sea is not necessarily unique. The Black Sea is a microcosm of what is
happening to the ocean systems at large. The stresses piled up: overfishing, oil spills, industrial discharges, nutrient pollution, wetlands
destruction, the introduction of an alien species. The sea weakened, slowly at first, then collapsed with shocking suddenness. The lessons of
this tragedy should not be lost to the rest of us, because much of what happened here is being repeated all over the world. The ecological
stresses imposed on the Black Sea were not unique to communism. Nor, sadly, was the failure of governments to respond to the emerging
crisis. Oxygen-starved “dead zones” appear with increasing frequency off the coasts of major cities and major rivers, forcing marine animals to
flee and killing all that cannot. Ethics as well as enlightened self-interest thus suggest that the United States should protect fully-functioning
marine ecosystems wherever possible - even if a few fishers go out of business as a result
Biodiversity loss has impacts comparable to climate change and pollution at their
worst, reduces plant growth and productivity
Erickson ’12 (Jim, professor of environmental studies at the University of Michigan, 5/2/12, Ecosystem effects of biodiversity loss could
rival impacts of climate change, pollution, Michigan News, University of Michigan, http://ns.umich.edu/new/multimedia/slideshows/20366ecosystem-effects-of-biodiversity-loss-could-rival-impacts-of-climate-changepollution?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+umns-releases+(University+of+Michigan+News+Service++News+Releases), accessed: 7/1/14 GA)
Loss of biodiversity appears to impact ecosystems as much as climate change, pollution and other major
forms of environmental stress, according to a new study from an international research team. The study is the first comprehensive
effort to directly compare the impacts of biological diversity loss to the anticipated effects of a host of other human-caused environmental
changes. The results highlight the need for stronger local, national and international efforts to protect biodiversity and the benefits it provides,
according to the researchers, who are based at nine institutions in the United States, Canada and Sweden. "Loss
of biological diversity
due to species extinctions is going to have major impacts on our planet, and we better prepare ourselves to deal
with them," said University of Michigan ecologist Bradley Cardinale, one of the authors. The study is scheduled for online publication in the
journal Nature on May 2. "These extinctions may well rank as one of the top five drivers of global change," said Cardinale, an assistant professor
at the U-M School of Natural Resources and Environment and an assistant professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.
Studies over the last two decades have demonstrated that more biologically diverse ecosystems are
more productive. As a result, there has been growing concern that the very high rates of modern extinctions – due to habitat loss,
overharvesting and other human-caused environmental changes – could reduce nature's ability to provide goods and services like food, clean
water and a stable climate. But until now, it's been unclear how biodiversity losses stack up against other human-caused environmental
changes that affect ecosystem health and productivity. "Some people have assumed that biodiversity effects are relatively minor compared to
other environmental stressors," said biologist David Hooper of Western Washington University, the lead author of the Nature paper. "Our new
results show that
future loss of species has the potential to reduce plant production just as much as global
warming and pollution." In their study, Hooper and his colleagues used combined data from a large number of published studies to
compare how various global environmental stressors affect two processes important in all ecosystems: plant growth and the decomposition of
dead plants by bacteria and fungi. The new study involved the construction of a data base drawn from 192 peer-reviewed publications about
experiments that manipulated species richness and examined the impact on ecosystem processes. The global synthesis by Hooper and his
colleagues found that in areas where local species loss this century falls within the lower range of projections (loss of 1 to 20 percent of plant
species), negligible impacts on ecosystem plant growth will result, and changes in species richness will rank low relative to the impacts
projected for other environmental changes. In ecosystems where species losses fall within intermediate projections (21 to 40 percent of
species), however, species loss is expected to reduce plant growth by 5 to 10 percent, an effect that is comparable in magnitude to the
expected impacts of climate warming and increased ultraviolet radiation due to stratospheric ozone loss. At higher levels of extinction (41 to 60
percent of species), the impacts of species loss ranked with those of many other major drivers of environmental change, such as ozone
pollution, acid deposition on forests, and nutrient pollution. "Within the range of expected species losses, we saw average declines in plant
growth that were as large as changes seen in experiments simulating several other major environmental changes caused by humans," Hooper
said. "I think several of us working on this study were surprised by the comparative strength of those effects." The strength of the observed
biodiversity effects suggests that policymakers searching for solutions to other pressing environmental problems should be aware of potential
adverse effects on biodiversity, as well, the researchers said. Still to be determined is how diversity loss and other large-scale environmental
changes will interact to alter ecosystems. "The biggest challenge looking forward is to predict the combined impacts of these environmental
challenges to natural ecosystems and to society," said J. Emmett Duffy of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, a co-author of the paper.
Authors of the Nature paper, in addition to Hooper, Cardinale and Duffy, are: E. Carol Adair of the University of Vermont and the National
Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis; Jarrett E.K. Byrnes of the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis; Bruce Hungate of
Northern Arizona University; Kristen Matulich of University of California Irvine; Andrew Gonzalez of McGill University; Lars Gamfeldt of the
University of Gothenburg; and Mary O'Connor of the University of British Columbia and the National Center for Ecological Analysis and
Synthesis. Funding for the study included grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Center for Ecological Analysis and
Synthesis. "This
analysis establishes that reduced biodiversity affects ecosystems at levels comparable to
those of global warming or air pollution," said Henry Gholz, program director in the National Science Foundation's Division of
Environmental Biology, which funded the research.
Bio D is important to keep the ecosystems that humans depend on functioning
Lefroy 08 (E. C., “Biodiversity : Integrating Conservation and Production: Case Studies From Australian
Farms, Forests and Fisheries”, Collingwood, Vic : CSIRO Publishing. 2008, EBSCO)
Here is another reality. There are some ideologically driven sceptics (such as Julian Simon of the University of Maryland), but those who actually
do the science estimate that extinctions
are occurring in the range of 17 000 species per year (Edward Wilson’s
mathematically derived 1988 estimate; Wilson 1988) to a mind-boggling estimate of an annual loss of 150 000 species (Diamond
1992). Richard I.eakey (with Roger Lewin) argues that even if we take a lower figure in this range, e.g. 30000 species per year,
that is an extinction rate 120 000 times higher than the ‘normal’ or ‘background’ extinction rate, which the fossil
record establishes at ‘an average of one every four years’ (Leakey & Lewin 1996). The problem is largely one of habitat
loss. By the mid-1990s, 80 000 square miles of forest were falling each year (40—50% higher than a mere decade previously), with the result
that only about 10% of the original tropical forest cover is still in place. By 2050 that will be reduced to a ‘tiny remnant’ (Leakey & Lewin 1996).
If these trends continue, they conclude, the world stands to lose something like 50% of all species. Does this matter?
Conservation biologists have always assumed that it does, and much of the burgeoning corpus of scientific literature in this area begins from
this starting-point, assum ing it to be self-evident and beyond a need for defending. The literature of popular science is another matter; here,
spirited explanations of the need to maintain biodiversity are much more easily located. For example, in his widely read 2005 book, Collapse:
how societies choose to fail or survive, Jared Diamond notes that it is one thing to argue for the future of embattled species that are large and
charismatic but much more difficult to generate a critical mass of support for the defence of species that fall below the radar of public regard.
He articulates an archetypal response: “WhO cares? Do you really care less for humans than for some lousy useless little fish or weed, like the
snail darter or Furbish lousewort?’ He answers the rhetorical question thus: This response misses the point that the
entire natural
world is made up of wild species providing for us free with services that can be very expensive, and in sorne cases
impossible, for us to supply ourselves. Elimination of lots of lousy little species regularly causes big
harmful consequences for humans, just as does randomly knocking out many of the lousy little rivets holding together an airplane.
Here is the same argument, put by Edward O. Wilson in his popular 1998 book. Consilience: Why do we need so many species anyway ...
especially since the majority are bugs, weeds and fungi? Ir is easy ro Issm iss the creepy—crawlies of the world, forgetting that less than a
century ago ... native birds and mammals around the world were treated with the some callous indifference. Now the
value of the little
things in the natural world has become compellingly clear. Recent experimental studies on whole ecosystems
support what ecologists have long suspected: The more species that live in an ecosystem. the higher its
productivity and the greater its ability to withstand drought and other kinds of environmental stress.
Since we depend on functioning ecosystems to cleanse our water, enrich our soil, and create the very air
we breathe, biodiversity is clearly not something to discard carelessly.
Biodiversity risks full ecosystem collapse- it means no species in the food chain can
adapt and survive
A. S. MacDougall, K. S. McCann, G. Gellner, and R. Turkington 13 (“Diversity loss with persistent human
disturbance increases vulnerability to ecosystem collapse”, Nature. 2/7/2013, Vol. 494 Issue 7435, p86-89, EBSCO)
Long-term and persistent
human disturbances have simultaneously altered the stability and diversity of
ecological systems, with disturbances directly reducing functional attributes such as invasion resistance
while eliminating the buffering effects of high species diversity’. Theory predicts that this combination of
environmental change and diversity loss increases the risk of abrupt and potentially irreversible
ecosystem collapse’, but long-term empirical evidence from natural systems is lacking. Here we demonstrate this relationship in a
degraded but species-rich pyrogenic grassland in which the combined effects of fire suppression invasion and trophic collapse have created a
species-poor grassland that Is highly productive, resilient to yearly climatic fluctuations, and resistant to invasion but vulnerable to rapid
collapse after the re-Introduction o4’ fire. We initially show how human
disturbance has created a negative relationship
between diversity and function, contrary to theoretical predictions. Fire prevention since the mId-nineteenth century Is associated
with the loss of plant species but it has stabilized high-yield annual production and invasion resistance, comparable to a managed high-yield
low-diversity agricultural system. In managing for fire suppression, however, a hidden vulnerability to sudden environmental change emetEes
that Is explained by the elimination of the buffering effects of high species diversity. With the re-introduction of fire, grasslands only persist In
areas with remnant concentrations of native species, In which a range of rare and mostly functionally redundant plants proliferate after burning
and prevent extensive invasion Including a rapid conversion towards woodland. This research shows how biodiversity
can be crucial
for ecosystem stability despite appearing functionally insignificant beforehand, a relationship probably
applicable to many ecosystems given the globally prevalent combination of Intensive long-term land
management and species loss.
Ethics
Resist the urge of environmental pessimism – the only chance we have at actualizing
environmental change is by taking individual action.
Sheppard in 2004(James, Ph.D. Binghamton, Professor of Philosophy at the University of MissouriKansas City, Reducing Pessimism’s Sway in the Environmental Ethics Classroom, Worldview: Environment
Culture Religion, July 1, 2004)
Given the breadth and depth of environmental challenges, it is tempting for students and teachers to adopt the
view that small individual actions will be unlikely to impact on the overall situation in any significant manner .
Efforts to address environmental challenges individually seem to present us with a hopeless situation wherein little gets done and the
systemic problems are left unaddressed. If anything that falls short of systemic change is likely to fail, what would seem to be needed would
be some type of radical and revolutionary change in thinking and behavior. Unfortunately, revolutionary change also is unlikely
primarily because of the systemic nature of environmental challenges . Put differently, it is unlikely that any silver bullet
solution exists that would be able to permeate all parts of a system filled with so many problems on so many levels. In the absence of a
silver-bullet solution, addressing challenges once and for all visà- vis some radical systemic reorientation of
thinking and practice is unlikely. If revolution is unlikely and if small individual actions are viewed as unviable
options, it is to be expected that the pessimistic mood will find a place to take root , especially when it comes to
how students view the possibility of change. Under the sway of the pessimistic mood, apathy and aloofness is apt
to set in and the problems that exist today are likely to remain unaddressed , potentially becoming more serious
and numerous. As problems increase in severity and number, it is entirely possible that the very hopelessness and inaction
that contributed to the initial situation that produced hopelessness and inaction will also increase —a vicious
downward spiral if there ever was one. Put simply, pessimism has a tendency to reinforce itself . I have witnessed the
reinforcing tendency of pessimism in especially vivid ways in the classroom. It is no secret that students play off the ideas, moods, and
general dispositions of others in the college classroom. Questions asked, answers provided, body gestures offered, and the overall worldview
expressed by certain students can take root in a classroom in various ways, including—but not limited to—what happens in class
presentations, class discussions, group work, and informal discussions. Classroom dynamics often evolve and change rapidly over the course
of a term; these changes are often spurred on by the introduction of certain issues.
We have a moral responsibility to attend to environmental damage – the defeatist
attitude that says it’s too late abdicates our obligation to systems that support
ourselves and each other.
Sheppard in 2004(James, Ph.D. Binghamton, Professor of Philosophy at the University of MissouriKansas City, Reducing Pessimism’s Sway in the Environmental Ethics Classroom, Worldview: Environment
Culture Religion, July 1, 2004)
In view of this recognition, reducing
the sway of pessimism in the classroom begins with deemphasizing the false dualism
of optimism and pessimism and tapping into the pedagogical resource that is the idea of meliorism , first introduced
by James and then further elaborated by John Dewey. For what it is worth, I have had success incorporating this pedagogical resource into
my environmental ethics classes. Based on several classes I have taught, I have found that both William James’ and John Dewey’s writings
on the subject of meliorism work nicely in the classroom, with the edge probably going to James due to his more accessible prose style.
Whether in the writings of James or Dewey, teaching the doctrine of meliorism introduces students interested in confronting
environmental challenges to the idea that the world is neither good nor bad in and of itself ; it is only good or bad
and only gets better or worse as a result of human intervention and action . Meliorism is not a cure-all for
pessimism, but it does work against the sway of pessimism because it tends to undercut the defeatist , alarmist,
and generally depressing appraisals of the future by encouraging us to invest in the possibility of possibility .
James invested in and was attracted to the doctrine of meliorism most likely because it encouraged a view of the world as containing multiple
possibilities. One of these possibilities: things can get better. As the popular urbanist James Howard Kunstler poetically reminds us, however,
“. . . There are no guaranteed rescues from the blunders of history” (Kunstler 2001: xiv). Meliorism takes this lack of
guarantees seriously and offers itself as an alternative to the undesirable extreme positions of optimism and
pessimism. To be excessively optimistic is to risk overlooking how ineffective human beings can be at changing undesirable
circumstances. To be excessively pessimistic is to risk overlooking the possibility of change itself (McDermott 1986: 118). Meliorism,
because it accounts for both ends of the spectrum, may not only offer itself as a foil to classroom pessimism, it also may be the
psychological disposition best suited to dealing with environmental challenges . It allows us to remain grounded
and realistically cognizant of the depth and breadth of challenges and at the same time keep an eye on the future
with the hope that we will have the wherewithal to come up with effective solutions to make things not perfect ,
but better. Meliorism, then, abandons the false dream of a sudden systemic overnight change to a perfect future in
favor of an emphasis on making things better step-by-step. It encourages us, in the words of the environmental activist
William Shutkin (2003), to be careful to not “let the perfect be the enemy of the better” in our efforts. The melioristic
posture thus requires that we abandon some of the human hubris that often prevents us from acting unless , that is,
we feel as if we will be able to solve all problems once and for all through our actions . Echoing Brower once more,
allowing our desire for perfection to override our responsibility to begin to make things better is a luxury that
many living systems cannot afford. The doctrine of meliorism links up nicely with the project of reconstructing
how we view problematic situations and with how we view the possibility of coming up with solutions to those
situations. John Dewey argued that a new understanding of progress and change was part of this with reconstruction when he wrote:
Progress is not automatic, nor is it progress en bloc, it is cumulative, a step forward here, a bit of improvement there. It
takes place day by day, and results from the ways in which individual persons deal with particular situations ; it is
step-by-step progress which comes by human efforts to repair here, to modify there, to make a minor replacement
yonder. Progress is retail business, not wholesale. It is made piecemeal, not all at once. (Dewey 1973: 62) If Dewey is on target,
perhaps what was called The Quiet Crisis (1963) by Stuart Udall will be answered by a quiet revolution made up of a series of
small reforms that are themselves made up of a series of small steps. Admittedly, this amounts to a tacit
endorsement of adopting an incremental understanding of change , which coincidentally runs counter to the
methodology of some already working in environmentally- oriented career fields, such as landscape design and
environmental planning, to name just two. Richard Forman (2002: 86 and 105), for example, has argued that environmental professionals, in
order to reach a “new level” and to become “emergent leaders,” should embrace the need to be bold as a professional norm; anything less
than this norm ought to be viewed critically and as falling short of what is needed. In Forman’s words, “boldness is an alternative to tinkering
or the status quo” (Ibid.: 86). One wonders, regardless of the role such a view might have in the historical heritage of the professions of
design and planning, whether this is the correct view or, better yet, the correct norm to teach students interested in environmentally-oriented
careers? Should environmental ethicists decry incrementalism as mere “tinkering”? I will be the first to agree that there is
intellectual value to be derived from understanding what it requires to have bold visions for the future. In terms
of curriculum content, students should be made aware of the bold visionaries of the past . These figures have
much to teach us about having a theoretical vision, no matter how impractical, against which actions can be
judged. However, when it comes to understanding the public role students will play in the future as economists ,
politicians, social workers, designers, architects, planners, and citizens, a reconsideration of this unbridled
boldness and idealism is warranted.4 As it turns out, there is merit for doing the exact opposite of what Forman
recommends—students should be learning the importance of adopting incrementalism as a norm.
A2:
Adaptation
At best, human adaptation to biodiversity loss requires life altering reforms—at worst,
humans can’t adapt
Howard 9 (Patricia, Wageningen University, The Netherlands, and University of Kent United Kingdom, “Human Adaptation to Biodiversity
Change: Facing the Challenges of Global Governance without Science”, Paper presented to the 2009 Amsterdam Conference on the Human
Dimensions of Global Environmental Change, ‘Earth Systems Governance – People, Places, and the Planet’, 2 - 4December 2009,
http://www.academia.edu/198178/Human_Adaptation_to_Biodiversity_Change_Facing_the_Challenges_of_Global_Governance_without_Scie
nce)
Human adaptations to biodiversity change are expected to include a diverse range of strategies, some
of which are responses common to various types of stresses (such as drought or illness), i.e. changing
land use, altering cropping and grazing practices, changing consumption patterns, liquidating assets,
seeking alternative sources of income, and migration. Other adaptations are expected to be more
specific, such as creating or using micro-environments to cultivate threatened or missing species, in situ
conservation of planting materials, substituting species, and sourcing the required diversity (and
knowledge) through extended social networks and/or trade (human biological corridors). Maladaptation is certainly expected: for example, as biodiversity derived livelihood assets diminish,
pressure in-creases to over-exploit remaining resources; imperfect knowledge given new species configurations and ecological conditions can result in threats to health and safety (e.g. incorrect
substitutions of species for medicine, food and animal fodder) and loss of productivity (e.g. failure to
encounter appropriate grazing resources, incorrect planting dates, ineffective means to combat weeds
and pests). Given the dearth of research, however, such examples of adaptive and mal-adaptive
responses are very incomplete.
Biodiversity critical to prevent species loss—no adaptation
A. S. MacDougall, K. S. McCann, G. Gellner, and R. Turkington 13 (“Diversity loss with persistent human
disturbance increases vulnerability to ecosystem collapse”, Nature. 2/7/2013, Vol. 494 Issue 7435, p86-89, Ebsco)
Biodiversity can stabilize ecological systems by functional complementarity with different species
thriving under different conditions thereby buffering the effects of environmental change’. Despite an often
demonstrated positive correlation between diversity and stability, however, the generality of this relationship remains unclear in natural
systems, especially in those under persistent anthropogenic influences”.
Human land management is often persistent, by
intentional (for example, fire suppression and overfishing) or inadvertent (for example, nitrogen pollution) disturbances
that homogenize both resident diversity and environmental condition. Persistent disturbances obscure
diversity—stability relationships because they can affect ecosystem function independently of diversity
as when overgrazing directly decreases production and provides opportunities for invasion’. Because persistent disturbances can
also drive species loss, false positives may arise between diversity and ecosystem function, in which reductions in diversity and function
are correlated but have weak mechanistic connections. The homogenizing effect of human activity on environmental
conditions and diversity may also increase the risk of abrupt and potentially irreversible changes after
disturbance pulses. even when systems appear stable beforehand’. The question of whether simpler systems are more or less resistant to
disturbance has characterized diversity stability research for decade.° Recent research typically supports the latter model, but data are often
derived (rom shorter-term studies in constructed experimental communities4. It is unclear, however, whether these stability-regulating
mechanisms operate in a similar manner in environmentally heterogeneous natural systems, and whether all mea sures of stability respond
similarly in different environmental contexts (for example, the presence or absence of disturbance). The stabilization of functional attributes
after abrupt disturbances is assumed to derive from the asynchronous population-level responses of disturbance- resistant species which
maintain function at the aggregate community level as disturbance-sensitive species falters. Yet in
persistently managed systems
characterized by the loss of environmental variability and diversity, species that are well-adapted to previous
environmental conditions have often become rare or extinct. These declines may have Little functional significance as
long as the existing conditions of persistent management are maintaine&4. However, this may create a hidden vulnerability to abrupt
environmental change, analogous to reduced gene tic diversity limiting the capacity for adaptive responses in populations.
Technology advances won’t save us – Only makes the problem worse because we are
trying to increase efficiency – fishing industry proves
Pearson 09, Pearson, Chris, Daily Kos Senior Policy Editor and Editor of Daily Kos TV. . "Get Energy
Smart! NOW!" Get Energy Smart NOW RSS. Get Energy Smart, 02 Nov. 2009. Web. 08 July 2014. CS
Technology is not going to solve our environmental problems. Yes we’ve made dramatic improvements in feeding the
world, with current crop yields much higher than in previous generations. But the environmental degradation and the
overuse of fossil fuels has created a false panacea whereby we’ve thought that we can solve all of our
problems with more technology, rather than using sustainable practices and more intelligent utilization
of existing resources. And for my main argument, I’ll talk about worldwide fishery depletion. The biggest technological
innovations in aquaculture and fishing has in the last half century led to a near total breakdown of all
saltwater fisheries worldwide. Rather than enhance stocks and provide for greater resource
management, it has led to the exact opposite. Technology hasn’t made life easier for the fish, it has
made life easier for the fisherman. Mile long seine nets, city-sized drag lines, sonar fish-finders and
commercial harvesting boats the size of the Titanic have reduced our stocks to the point where many
are approaching total collapse. This creates a cascade effect, where people who have invested huge
sums of money in infrastructure to harvest the more expensive table fish now find themselves with
rusting boats, crews that spend more time unemployed than active, and banks anxiously awaiting mortgage payments. So they go
“downstream”, choosing to catch fish that were previously considered bait, to sell as cat and dog food.
Anything to make a living. Go out and seine the Chesapeake, or the Delaware and you’ll see that game fish are now much smaller than
in the past. What we’ve done is we’ve harvested the menhaden (aka, “bunker”) to serve as petfood. Now they’ve got less and less
to eat. This continues even further- we are now harvesting horseshoe crabs for bait, in order to catch
conch, and eels. Crabs that were once for all practical purposes commercially worthless (except for medical
purposes, we use extracts of their blood for testing human blood) are now worth about $2. A guy with a pickup truck can roam the
beaches of Delaware and pick up an easy $2,000 for a day’s work. The numbers of crab eggs available for migrating birds
to eat has dropped precipitously, to the point where migrating red knot populations are roughly a fifth
of what they were 30 years ago. And the birds are coming out of the region lighter than before, making
further migration to the arctic difficult, and breeding virtually impossible. (You knew I’d have to get birds in here
somehow…) The main point is, technology allows us to harvest and extract more and more efficiently than ever
before, and that permits us to wipe out entire populations with little problem, in a generation or less. We
need advanced technology to improve food production and food gathering, but when that technology depends upon species
that have limited and finite numbers we have the potential to cause ripple effects throughout the food
chain. I haven’t even discussed aquaculture, where they pen a few million tilapia or salmon and feed them ground
up fish so they can be harvested more easily. It takes about 6 pounds of harvested fish to grow one
pound of tilapia! They’ve improved the harvest, but not the efficiency of the ecosystem! (And they
frequently introduce diseases back into the wild populations which cause even more problems…)
Sustainability requires rethinking how much of a specific natural resource we can harvest before we exhaust that population, either for our
future needs or for wildlife. Human
population can not continue to grow indefinitely unless we decide to live
lives that have less and less impact on the environment. Put simply, we can’t use technology to reduce our
footprint, unless we change the economic structures that reward endless growth. We need to add ways to
replenish existing environmental infrastructures, or else sustainability is impossible. And all of our technology will be useless to help us improve
the quality of life, as opposed to the quantity of humans.
Humans cannot adapt – there is nowhere to migrate too because climate change is a
global problem
Conniff 12, Conniff, Richard, Richard Conniff, a 2012 Alicia Patterson Journalism Fellow, is a National
Magazine Award-winning writer whose articles have appeared in Time, Smithsonian, The Atlantic, The
New York Times Magazine, National Geographic, and other publications. "When Civilizations
Collapse." Enviormental Yale. Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, Sept. 2012. Web. 08 July
2014. CS
Nationwide, that drought drove 1.5 million people from the countryside to the cities, with no jobs or other means of support. Such underlying
environmental causes rarely get much attention in reporting on the protests and violent crackdown in Syria. But they are liable to be a recurring
challenge even if political and human rights issues get resolved. (Weiss has suspended his research at Tell Leilan because of the continuing
crisis. But he has a research permit to drill a pollen core in a swamp alongside the nearby Iraqi border. Asked if he will be able to do the work
before the permit expires, he shrugs and says, “I always go back. Let us hope the present tragedy ends quickly.”) “In
spite of
technological changes,” Weiss has written elsewhere, “most of the world's people will continue to be
subsistence or small-scale market agriculturalists,” who are just as vulnerable to climate fluctuations as
they were in past societies. In the past, people could go elsewhere. “Collapse is adaptive,” says Weiss. “You don’t
have to stay in place and suffer through the famine effects of drought. You can leave. And that’s what the
population of the Khabur Plains did. They left for refugia, that is, places where agriculture was still sustainable. In Mesopotamia, they moved to
riverine communities.”
But climate change is now global, not regional, and with a world population projected
to exceed 9 billion people by midcentury, habitat-tracking will inevitably bring future environmental
refugees into conflict with neighbors who are also struggling to get by. One of the most important differences
between modern climate change and what he is describing at Tell Leilan, said Weiss, is that we can now anticipate and plan for climate change.
Or we can do nothing. The danger is that, when
there’s no longer any grain to stack up at the train station, the
strategy of collapse-and-abandon may be streamlined to a simpler form: Collapse.
Renewables Solve
Renewable energy development harms the environment and hurts poor – increased
CO2 output
Huizinga 13, Huizinga, Danny, Danny Huizinga is a syndicated political columnist for Communities at
WashingtonTimes.com. He is currently studying at Baylor University, pursuing three business majors in
Economics, Finance, and Business Fellows with minors in mathematics and political science. "Clean
Energy Policies Won't Save the Environment, But They Might Hurt It." Policy Mic. Mic Network Inc., 23
Oct. 2013. Web. 08 July 2014. CS
Policies that claim to be sustainable don't always live up to their billing. Before supporting clean energy policies that
claim to be sustainable, we should look at the facts. Many of these policies actually increase energy prices and hurt the
environment. Steven Cohen, the executive director of Columbia University's Earth Institute, once wrote in the Huffington Post about what
he believed should be the president's most important goal: "The center of [the president's] mission should be a single great national project:
the development and implementation of low-cost, renewable energy." President Obama has been clear on that point as well. In his 2009 State
of the Union address the president said he wanted to "make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America." But to make something
profitable that would not be otherwise, the money must come from somewhere. Subsidies
for clean energy sources create
higher energy prices and higher taxes. Both consequences have very real effects on poor people. In fact,
the government subsidies for renewable energy may even make the industry less profitable and less
beneficial for the environment. "Government subsidies to new wind farms have only made the industry
less focused on reducing costs. In turn, the industry produces a product that isn't as efficient or cheap as it
might be if we focused less on working the political system and more on research and development," Patrick Jenevein,
the CEO of a green-energy firm, wrote in the Wall Street Journal in April. When words like "clean energy" are used, it seems as if
objective evaluation and critical thinking fall by the wayside. In the same 2009 State of the Union address Obama
claimed, "We invented solar technology, but we've fallen behind countries like Germany and Japan in producing it." But those countries are
disastrous models for energy policy. In Japan, generators of renewable energy are paid almost four times the consumer average in the United
States, National Geographic reports. Spiegel Online reported last month that German consumers are paying twice as much for electricity as
they did in 2000. Two-thirds of the price increase is due to the more than 4,000 government energy subsidies the country has implemented.
Even worse, the policies aren't saving the environment. Because of inconsistent wind and the inherent
inefficiencies of renewable energy sources, Spiegel reports that Germany ended up releasing more CO2 into
the atmosphere in 2012 than in 2011. German citizens are forced to pay the highest electricity prices in Europe to make the
environment worse, and this is the President's idea of a model country? In President Obama's Executive Order 13514, he defines sustainability
as the "conditions, under which humans and nature can exist in productive harmony, that permit fulfilling the social, economic, and other
requirements of present and future generations." We
can have productive harmony without needlessly driving up
costs and hurting poor families. We can fulfill our social and economic requirements without raising taxes to subsidize politicallyconnected, inefficient, and financially questionable "clean energy" industries.
Collapse Inevitable
Biodiversity collapse not inevitable – ocean is already recovering and more sustainable
practices are already in place
SeaWeb. "Now More Than Ever, Our Seafood Choices Matter Global Collapse of Fisheries Not
Inevitable." Seafood Alliance. Seafood Choices Alliance, June 2011. Web. 8 July 2014. CS
The international group of ecologists and economists show that progressive biodiversity loss not only impairs the ability of
oceans to feed a growing human population, but also disrupts the stability of marine environments and
their ability to recover from stresses. The global trend indicated by the authors is a serious concern: the collapse (defined as 90% depletion) of
all species of wild seafood that are currently fished by 2048. According to the study (“Impacts of Biodiversity Loss on Ocean Ecosystem
Services”) every species lost causes a faster unraveling of the overall ecosystem. Conversely, every species recovered adds significantly to
overall productivity and staEarly indicators: Path to sustainability?bility of the ecosystem. In other words, every species matters. Collapse
is
not inevitable The good news is that the data show ocean ecosystems still hold great ability to recover.
In the absence of corrective policies, the findings identify a trend (a collapse by 2048) based on current
observations. “From the Alliance’s perspective, one of the more significant findings of this study is the inherent ability of the
ocean to self-heal and regenerate, but only if given the opportunity” says Mike Boots, Seafood Choices Alliance
director. Seafood buyers, sellers and consumers play an important role Many companies, big and small, are integrating
sustainability into their seafood purchasing. Well before the study was published, companies like Unilever, Ahold USA, WalMart, Marks & Spencer, Compass Group, Darden Restaurants and many others were already examining their seafood procurement policies
and/or shifting their business towards more responsible choices. And increasingly, seafood suppliers, retailers and restaurateurs are
incorporating environmental responsibility in their catalogs, menus, newsletters and websites, and we expect this trend to continue. “By
making investments now to change business operations and reorient purchasing practices, Alliance
members are working to ensure that these dire predictions do not come true,” adds Boots. “Instead, they
are forcing change both within their companies and across the industry that will allow them to maintain
profitable businesses and sell a greater diversity of seafood for years to come.” Study in Science Reveals Ocean's
Ability to Rebound If Given Opportunity In "Impacts of Biodiversity Loss on Ocean Ecosystem Services" (published November 3, 2006 in the
journal Science), an international group of ecologists and economists show that the loss of biodiversity is profoundly reducing the ocean’s
ability to produce seafood, resist diseases, filter pollutants, and rebound from stresses such as overfishing and climate change. The authors
note that, unless we manage for whole ecosystems (instead of indisvidual species), wild seafood species are heading for global collapse before
every species recovered
adds significantly to overall productivity and stability of the ecosystem and its ability to withstand
stresses.
2050. The study reveals that every species lost causes a faster unraveling of the overall ecosystem. Conversely
Aff
Uniqueness
Past Brink
We are past the brink of saving the ocean—the current regime won’t be able to
remedy the damage already done
Kunich 5 (John Charles, “Losing Nemo: The Mass Extinction Now Threatening the Worlds Ocean Hotspots”, 30 Colum. J. Envtl. L. 1,
LexusNexus)
Life in the Earth’s oceans can no longer be entrusted to a yawningly porous safety net. This tattered safety net—the
illusion of protection conjured up by the patchwork combination of international and national laws—is no match for the real commercial fishing
nets that are all too often inescapable and indiscriminate. In this Article I have shown that the
oceans are home to a stunning
array of life forms, including species, phyla, and even an entire kingdom adapted to some of the most extreme
conditions on the planet. Marine biodiversity extends from sunlit, nearby coral reefs to the deepest, most impenetrably dark abyss,
and from hyper-heated hydrothermal vents to the most frigid waters. The amazing spectrum of evolutionary adaptations represented by life in
these conditions is without parallel on land. But the
vastness of the oceans is both their greatest strength and their
most acute weakness. It has for many centuries caused people to think of the oceans as inexhaustible
resources and bottomless garbage dumps, immune to anything we do to them. This is exacerbated by the fact
that so large a share of the oceans’ expanse is legally international territory, not within the jurisdiction
of any nation. As a global common, the oceans at once seem to belong to everyone and no one. We
have treated them accordingly for too long. Modern technologically sophisticated commercial fishing has inflicted
tremendous damage on some portions of marine biodiversity. We have become much more effective at
locating and catching the seafood species we want. Through the widespread and strategically targeted
employment of trawls, dredges, immense nylon nets, and other methods, we have also become Far
more effective at catching and killing huge numbers of unwanted species, resulting in appalling losses
from bycatch. The combined effect is to eviscerate large segments of the once-teeming marine food web in key regions. Land-based
activities have also caused enormous harm to vital marine habitats such as coral reefs and other parts of
the continental shelf. Pollution run-off from agricultural, silvicultural, mining, industrial, and developmental activities, as
well as sedimentation, have profoundly altered these sensitive ecosystems, with devastating effects on the
biodiversity endemic to them. Marine pollution farther from shore has been another destructive factor.
Both deliberate dumping from ships and accidental discharges/leaks have introduced large amounts of
oil, organic waste, and chemicals into the oceans. Noise pollution, and the effects of climate change, add
to the habitat-altering crisis. As on land, marine biodiversity is most definitely not uniformly distributed
throughout the expanse and depth of the oceans. There are areas of concentrated biodiversity, where a disproportionate number of
species and higher taxa are endemic to a relatively small geographic region. These marine hotspots are epicenters of
biodiversity, with incalculable significance for the planet as a whole. Yet, just as on land, the legal regime does
not explicitly recognize the marine hotspots and in no way focuses legal protection or conservation
resources on what should be high- priority areas. There is an ongoing crisis in marine biodiversity,
amounting to a mass extinction of historic proportions, and the law has neither prevented nor halted it.
This is a colossal failure of the law in a matter of unimaginable importance. There are numerous international legal agreements that purport to
deal with the health of the marine environment and its biodiversity to one degree or another. But because of ambiguous, loophole-ridden
strictures, lax or nonexistent enforcement, and the refusal of important nations to become signatories, all of these conventions and treaties in
the aggregate have been inadequate. The mass extinction, indeed, has
largely begun during the last few decades when
individual laws of the many nations
with coastlines and/or major fishing and shipping industries have mostly done very little to fill in the
gaps. I have likened this agglomeration of laws to a placebo prescribed for a patient with a serious illness. All those laws, with grandiose,
this network of laws was either already in effect or assembling the final pieces. And the
encouraging names such as the Convention on Biological Diversity, the World Heritage Convention, and the United Nations Convention on the
Law of the Sea, have created a very dangerous illusion that, whatever problems might once have threatened our marine life, they have been
solved. But the
mass extinction rages on, and the presumptive solution is an illusion, a placebo. A placebo
might temporarily help a desperately sick person feel better psychologically, but ultimately the reality
and gravity of the situation will become inescapably apparent. Without real medicine with the actual
power to cure a person’s malady, a placebo only puts a happy face on an ugly truth. And if reliance on a
placebo causes a patient to forego other therapy, it can be a deadly deception, a prelude to a death mask.
It is unrealistic to expect mere amendments to the existing international legal structure to bring about
the needed sea change in marine biodiversity law. There are fundamental, systemic flaws in the current
regime that cannot be remedied by tinkering and fine-tuning around the edges. There are no edges. There is no
“there” there.
The earth is already experiencing the sixth mass extinction—species go extinct all the
time—means there’s no brink for bio-d extinction
Kunich 5 (John Charles, “Losing Nemo: The Mass Extinction Now Threatening the Worlds Ocean Hotspots”, 30 Colum. J. Envtl. L. 1,
LexusNexus)
With regard to extinction spasms, Earth’s oceans, along with all other habitats, have been there, done
that, long before now. It is generally accepted that there have been no fewer than five mass extinctions
in the earth’s history, at least during the Phanerozoic Eon (the vast expanse of time which includes the
present day). These “big five” mass extinctions occurred at the boundaries between the following
geological periods: Ordovician-Silurian (O S); near the end of the Upper Devonian (D) (usually known as
the Frasnian-Famennian events or F-F); Permian-Triassic (P-Tr); Triassic-Jurassic (Tr-J); and CreraceousI’ertiary (K-T) . In ternis of millions of years ago (Mya), the mass extinctions have been placed at roughly
440 for O-S, 365 for F-F, 245 for P-Tr, 210 for Tr-J, and 65 for K-T,8 with thc mass extinctions taking place
over a span of time ranging from less than 0.5 to as long as il million years.’ There is some evidentiary
support for other mass or near-mass extinctions in addition to the big five, including events near the end
of the Early Cambrian (about 512 Mya) and at the end of the Jurassic and Early Cretaceous, among
several others.’ Although much has been written in the scientific literature about these historical
extinctions, relatively little attention has been showered on extinctions in the oceans.8 For those areas
that often remain submerged under thousands of feet of sea water, the usually-formidable challenges of
piecing together the ancient evidence are greatly magnified. It is extremely difficult to arrive at a
satisfactory estimate of the magnitude of the current extinction crisis, whether in the marine realm or
on dry land. One problem is that we know so little about life on Earth today in the first place, even in
areas much more accessible that the oceans’ depths. If we do not know how many species exist, we
cannot know precisely how many are ceasing to exist respectable estimates as to the number of species
now extant vary by an order of magnitude. Moreover, for many of the species we have identified, we
know very little about their range, their habits, their life cycles, and other details important to an
understanding of their health or risk status. Although there is some scientific dispute because of these
considerable gaps in our information base, the most widely held expert view is that the Earth is now in
the midst of a mass extinction that rivals the great disappearances of ages past, i.e., a sixth mass
extinction.9 According to this theory, the vast majority of species now extant will be extinct long before
scientists have even identified and named them.
Ocean acidification is caused by the anthropogenic release of carbon dioxide—
threatens the entire ocean ecosystem
Ramirez-Llodra 11 (Eva, Paul A. Tyler, Maria C. Baker, Odd Aksel Bergstad, Malcolm R. Clark, Elva Escobar, Lisa A. Levin, Lenaick
Menot, Ashley A. Rowden, Craig R. Smith, Cindy L. Van Dover, ” Man and the Last Great Wilderness: Human Impact on the Deep Sea”, PLoS
ONE 6(8): e22588. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0022588,
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0022588#pone.0022588-Smith8)
The atmospheric partial pressure of carbon dioxide is currently the highest experienced on Earth for the
last 20 million years, and is estimated by 2100 to be double that of pre-industrial times [229]. Closely
associated with increased atmospheric CO2 and global warming is decreased pH in the water column.
The ocean is a natural sink for CO2 but has also absorbed half the anthropogenic CO2 in the
atmosphere, causing acidification. At present the pH of seawater is 0.1 units lower than that in the early
1900s, and by 2100 it is estimated to decrease by 0.4 to 0.5 units [230]–[232]. One of the effects is a
lowered calcium carbonate saturation state of colder waters. This change can have a profound impact
on calcifying fauna. Aragonite, high magnesium calcite and calcite are the main calcium carbonate
crystals made by these organisms and, because high magnesium calcite and aragonite are more soluble
than calcite, the species that use these compounds – such as scleractinian corals and echinoderms – are
more vulnerable and will be the first to be affected [233]–[236]. Deep-water corals are one of the most
important taxa to be affected, both because of their contribution to deep-water diversity and because
of their structural role in providing habitat to a variety of other species [237]. The distribution of coldwater corals already reflects the acidic conditions in the North Pacific [238] but, in the long term, the
entire ecosystem could be threatened by acidification. The calcium carbonate compensation depth
(CCCD) varies with ocean, being the shallowest in Antarctic waters, but as CO2 builds up the CCCD will
move toward the surface. Echinoderms, which have skeletons of high magnesium calcite, the most
soluble form of carbonate, are likely to be among the taxa most affected by acidification in deep water.
Their relative paucity in low-pH oxygen minimum zone (OMZ) waters [239], and the high susceptibility of
their larvae to developmental abnormalities at low pH [240] support this conjecture. The shallowing of
the CCCD has been predicted to leave the majority of deep-sea stony corals in water unsuitable for
obtaining aragonite for building their skeletons [239]. Habitat suitable for stony corals is predicted,
under future climate scenarios, to be particularly reduced in the North Atlantic [241]. Molluscs, which
often have aragonitic shells, will also be susceptible to damage, while foraminifera, with calcitic tests
may be least affected. Early life stages of calcifying species may be more susceptible to acidification
effects than adults [240],[242]. A decline in the numbers of some species will also have a secondary
effect on fish stocks in some circumstances (e.g. pteropods on fish stocks).
Environment = Resilient
Tech
The environment is resilient – “clean and green” tech initiatives will deter collapse
Yewande, Armide A. "Toward a Green, Clean, and Resilient World for All : A World Bank Group
Environment Strategy 2012 - 2022." The World Bank. The World Bank, 19 Aug. 2013. Web. 08 July 2014.
CS
Green "Green" refers to a world in which natural resources, including oceans, land, and forests, are sustainably
managed and conserved to improve livelihoods and ensure food security. It's a world in which healthy ecosystems
increase all the economic returns from the activities they support. Growth strategies are focused on overall wealth rather than GDP as it is
currently measured. Governments
pursue regulations that encourage innovation, efficiency, sustainable
budgeting, and green growth. Biodiversity is protected as an economically critical resource. In this world, good policies
enable the private sector to use natural resources sustainably as part of good business, creating jobs and
contributing to long-term growth. Biodiversity continues to decline as a result of habitat destruction and degradation. Over the past 40 years,
there have been significant declines in healthy ecosystems-e.g., forests, mangroves, sea grass beds, coral reefs-and their flora and fauna
populations, with species loss affecting everything from fungi to insects, plants, frogs, tigers, and gorillas. Forests
have seen annual losses
of 5.2 million hectares between 2000 and 2010, despite declines in deforestation rates and increased forest plantations.
As a result, the capacity of ecosystems to provide services such as water provisioning and flood control has declined significantly. Land
degradation is also worsening as a result of deforestation and poor agricultural practices, with soil erosion, salinization, and nutrient depletion
contributing to desertification. Freshwater supplies are seriously stressed, with 1.4 billion people living in river basins in which water use
exceeds recharge rates. Oceans and shared seas are also under stress from climate change, overharvesting, pollution, and coastal development.
The decline of marine resources threatens the livelihoods of over 100 million men and women involved in fish processing. Through the global
Wealth Accounting and Valuation of Ecosystem Services (WAVES) partnership, partnership, the Bank Group is supporting efforts to measure the
value of countries’ natural assets and thereby inform policy choices. The Bank Group is also supporting the Global Partnership for Oceans to
help restore the world's oceans to health and optimize their contributions to economic growth and food security. In addition, the World Bank
Group will build on its experience in carbon finance to test the market's willingness to encourage the protection of critical habitat areas while
also providing carbon storage benefits; continue innovative work on forests and land use linked to the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation
and Degradation (REDD) program; and develop methodologies to capture and monetize carbon co-benefits—for example, through wildlife
conservation programs. Clean "Clean"
refers to a low-pollution, low-emission world in which cleaner air, water,
and oceans enable people to lead healthy, productive lives. It is a world where development strategies put a
premium on access-so that rural women no longer spend their days hauling wood-alongside options for low-emission, climate-smart
agriculture, transport, energy, and urban development. Cleaner production standards spur innovation, and industry is
encouraged to develop clean technologies that provide jobs and support sustainable growth. Companies
and governments are held to account on their low-emission, low-pollution commitments, and innovative
financing helps to spur change. The poorest countries suffer directly and measurably from an increasingly polluted and degraded
environment, with women and children disproportionately affected. Air and water pollution are rising sharply in cities in lower- and middleincome countries, and developing countries' water resources are under threat from drawdown and pollution-human waste, phosphorus, and
nitrogen that deplete waterways of oxygen and causing the death of fish and invertebrates. The increased use of fertilizers for food crops over
the next 30 years is expected to result in a 10- to 20-percent global increase in river nitrogen flows to coastal ecosystems (UNEP 2007). In some
regions, levels of heavy metals, stockpiles of persistent organic pollutants (POPs), and other chemical wastes from industry, which affect human
and animal health, water supplies, and land, are increasing. Meanwhile, carbon dioxide emissions continue to rise, reaching a record high in
2010 and making it more challenging to limit the rise in global temperatures to 2 degrees by 2100. Recognizing that countries cannot "grow
dirty and clean up later," the
Bank Group is encouraging low-emission development strategies and innovative
financing for renewable energies, climate-smart agriculture, and lower-carbon cities. It is also supporting
pollution management through river clean-up and legacy pollution projects, using carbon finance funds
to scale up use of cleaner stoves to reduce indoor pollution for women and children, and developing partnerships
with the private sector to spur cleaner production standards and strategies. Resilient "Resilient" means being
prepared for shocks and adapting effectively to climate change. In a resilient world, countries are better
prepared for more frequent natural disasters, more volatile weather patterns, and the long-term
consequences of climate change. Healthy and well-managed ecosystems are more resilient and so play a key role
in reducing vulnerability to climate change impacts. Climate resilience is integrated into urban planning
and infrastructure development. Through effective social inclusion policies, countries and communities are better prepared to
protect vulnerable groups and fully involve women in decision-making. Climate change will increase the vulnerability of human and natural
systems. The economic costs of climate change and variability will be large, making it even more challenging to address issues of poverty and
environmental degradation. Natural hazards-earthquakes, droughts, floods, and storms-continue to cause significant loss of life and economic
damage, with women and children the most affected by disasters. Cities and Small Island Developing States are also particularly vulnerable.
The Bank Group is helping countries adapt to climate change through better coastal zone management
and climate-smart agriculture; improving disaster risk management by expanding the use of climate risk
insurance and other financial instruments to help with recovery after natural disasters; and assisting
vulnerable Small Island Developing States to reduce dependence on oil imports, build sound
infrastructure, and restore protective coastal ecosystems such as mangroves.
Humanity will always move toward developing new technology and better ways of
managing the environment – makes our surroundings able to withstand and
regenerate
Casico 07, Casico, Jamais, Selected by Foreign Policy magazine as one of their Top 100 Global Thinkers,
Jamais Cascio writes about the intersection of emerging technologies, environmental dilemmas, and
cultural transformation, specializing in the design and creation of plausible scenarios of the future.. "The
Resilient World." Open The Future. N.p., 22 Feb. 2007. Web. 8 July 2014.
Environmental architect William McDonough is said to have asked, "If a person described her relationship with her spouse as merely
'sustainable' wouldn’t you feel sorry for both of them?" The word "sustainability" has come to dominate environmental discourse, employed to
mean a condition in which we take no more from our environment than the environment is able to restore. It's a reasonably goal, but a limited
one. Sustainability
is a static concept: it says nothing about change, or improvement. McDonough's point is that
is hardly a condition worth celebrating; at best, it's the maintenance of the status quo. It seems
to me that what we should be striving for is an environment -- and a civilization -- able to handle dynamic,
unexpected changes without threatening to collapse. This is more than simply sustainable, it's regenerative and
diverse, relying on both a capacity to absorb shocks and to co-evolve with them. In a word, it's resilient. If we're to survive the 21st century,
we need to be striving for environmental and civilizational resiliency. In a "sustainable" environment, we live in constant
fear of greed, accident or malice tipping the balance away from sustainability, returning us to the spiral of overconsumption and environmental depletion. Ironically, the goal of environmental sustainability is highly
likely to put us on the path of ongoing environmental management. To an extent, this is already true -- ecologist
Daniel Janzen argues that we're better off thinking of the environment as a garden to be tended than as wilds to
be preserved -- but sustainability as a goal means constant vigilance. It's not simply that the environment can no longer be considered
"wild;" in the sustainability paradigm, the environment can only be considered a subject. A sustainable world is one that
manages to avoid imminent disaster, but remains perpetually on the precipice. The underlying problem with the
"sustainable"
concept of "sustainability" is that it's inherently static. It presumes that there's a special point at which we can maintain ourselves and maintain
the world, and once we find the right combination of behavior and technology that allows us to reduce our environmental footprint to a "one
planet" world, we should stay there. For some sustainability advocates, this can include limiting ourselves technologically,
as suggested by the frequency with which such advocates dismiss "techno-fixes" as simply allowing us to continue to behave badly. More
broadly, as a strategic goal, sustainability pushes us towards striving to achieve success within boundaries; the primary emphasis of the concept
is on stability.
"Resiliency," conversely, admits that change is inevitable and in many cases out of our hands,
so the environment -- and our relationship with it -- needs to be able to withstand unexpected shocks.
Greed, accident or malice may have harmful results, but (barring something likely to lead to a Class 2 or Class 3 Apocalypse), such results
can be absorbed without threat to the overall health of the planet's ecosystem. If we talk about
"environmental resiliency," then, we mean a goal of supporting the planet's ability to withstand and
regenerate in the event of local or even widespread disruption. Like sustainability, resiliency is a strategic concept, intended
to guide how choices are made. But resiliency doesn't presuppose limitations; rather, it encourages the
diversification of capacities, in order to be responsive to uncertain future problems. We can think of this as
"strategic flexibility" or "maintaining our options," but it comes down to avoiding being trapped on a losing path. When
applied directly to environmental strategies, resiliency may appear similar to sustainability in superficial ways. Both sustainability and
resilience would encourage aggressive moves to greater energy efficiency, for example. The similarity of tactics
belies a divergence of intent, however; for sustainability the purpose is to reduce our impact to below a certain threshold, while for resilience,
it's to increase the resources available to meet future problems. We see overlap like this because resiliency
embraces the nearterm goal of sustainability, inasmuch as resiliency recognizes that the depletion of planetary resources
and ecosystem diversity is a self-destructive process. For me, environmental resilience is a much more satisfying
philosophy than environmental sustainability because of its emphasis on increasing our (our planet's) ability to withstand
crises. Sustainability is a brittle state: unexpected changes (natural or otherwise) can easily cause its collapse. Resilience is all about being
able to handle the unexpected. It does not ignore the need to be "sustainable" in the most general sense, but does not see that as a goal or
end-point in and of itself. Sustainability is about survival. The goal of resilience is to thrive. Adaptation in the Environmental Change Literature Adaptation
to environmental change is defined in the adaptation literature as
an adjustment in ecological, social, or economic systems in response to observed or expected changes in
environmental stimuli and their effects and impacts in order to alleviate adverse impacts of change (14, 19–22). Emerging key research
areas on adaptation to environmental change are (a) identifying system thresholds, limits, and barriers to implementing adaptation (3); (b)
defining successful or sustainable adaptation (reviewed in Reference 8) in promoting appropriate technological options for adaptation (23); (c)
cognitive processes of risk assessment and formulation (24, 25); and (d) the relative role of public and private actors in adaptation (26, 27).
Many of these issues are fundamentally about the governance of adaptation. Recent studies are
providing empirical evidence
of how actor networks access resources, make actual adjustments, and result in consequences for
ecological and social resilience at different scales. For example, Vásquez-León (28) examines how ethnicity is a factor in
determining pathways of successful adaptation to drought in southeastern Arizona. Few et al. (29) show how local stakeholders perceive
themselves to be constrained in implementing adaptation to climate change on the U.K. coast through complicated multijurisdictional
structures and lack of precise information on risks. Yet faced with the same risks, most communities in the United Kingdom differ widely in their
perceived resilience and their ability to govern and shape their own future (30). According
to the environmental change
perspective then, adaptation is about decision making and the power to implement those decisions. It is
a process in which knowledge, experience, and institutional structures combine together to characterize
options and determine action. The process is negotiated and mediated through social groups, and decisions are reached through
networks of actors that struggle to achieve their particular goals (31). Adaptation is concerned with actors, actions, and agency and is
recognized as an ongoing process. Nevertheless, adaptation is considered in respect to specific risks. Therefore, evaluations of adaptive actions
are static in nature; they measure levels of risk before and after adjustments have taken place.
Tech and adaptive advances prevent all climate impacts
Idso et al. 11, Idso, Craig D., R. M. Carter, S. Fred Singer, Susan Crockford, and Joseph L. Blast. Climate
Change Reconsidered: 2011 Interim Report. Chicago, IL: Published for the Nongovernmental
International Panel on Climate Change the Heartland Institute, 2011. Science and Environmental Policy
Project and Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change. THE HEARTLAND INSTITUTE, Sept.
2011. Web. 8 July 2014.
Decades-long empirical trends of climate-sensitive measures of human well-being, including the percent
of developing world population suffering from chronic hunger, poverty rates, and deaths due to extreme
weather events, reveal dramatic improvement during the twentieth century, notwithstanding the
historic increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations. The magnitude of the impacts of climate change on
human well-being depends on society‘s adaptability (adaptive capacity), which is determined by, among
other things, the wealth and human resources society can access in order to obtain, install, operate, and
maintain technologies necessary to cope with or take advantage of climate change impacts. The IPCC
systematically underestimates adaptive capacity by failing to take into account the greater wealth and technological advances that will be
Even accepting the IPCC‘s and Stern Review‘s worst-case
scenarios, and assuming a compounded annual growth rate of per-capita GDP of only 0.7 percent,
reveals that net GDP per capita in developing countries in 2100 would be double the 2006 level of the
U.S. and triple that level in 2200. Thus, even developing countries‘ future ability to cope with climate
change would be much better than that of the U.S. today. The IPCC‘s embrace of biofuels as a way to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions was premature, as many researchers have found ―even the best
biofuels have the potential to damage the poor, the climate, and biodiversity‖ (Delucchi, 2010). Biofuel
production consumes nearly as much energy as it generates, competes with food crops and wildlife for
land, and is unlikely to ever meet more than a small fraction of the world‘s demand for fuels. The
notion that global warming might cause war and social unrest is not only wrong, but even backwards –
that is, global cooling has led to wars and social unrest in the past, whereas global warming has
coincided with periods of peace, prosperity, and social stability.
Adaptation
The environment is resilient – will never collapse
Bandow 97, Bandow, Doug, Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and the author of a
number of books on economics and politics. He writes regularly on military non-interventionism.. "Book
Review: A Moment on the Earth: The Coming Age of Environmental Optimism by Gregg Easterbrook."
The Freeman. Foundation for Economic Education., 01 Feb. 1997. Web. 08 July 2014. CS
Environmentalists have long enjoyed the political high ground. After all, who could be against clean water? As a result, over the last two
decades the environmental movement has swept most everything before it. The result has been draconian legislative enactments, massive
regulatory bureaucracies, and inexplicably complex rules. But as compliance costs have risen, so has political resistance. Common
people
have grown less willing to see their interests sacrificed willy-nilly for measures with only marginal
environmental benefits. Thus, many environmental activists have moved beyond shrill denunciations of opponents to apocalyptic
threats. Their refrain has increasingly become: if you don’t do as we say, the world is doomed. Not so fast, argues Gregg Easterbrook. In his
mammoth A Moment on the Earth, he contends that the
Western world today is on the verge of the greatest
ecological renewal that humankind has known; perhaps the greatest that the Earth has known. The book
has it all, or almost. It is comprehensive, well researched, and well written. Equally important, its author is credible to those sympathetic to the
environmental movement, a liberal who has written for such publications as Newsweek and the New Republic. His liberal credentials account
for the book’s main flaw: a failure to fully appreciate the value of freedom and the way free markets operate. This occasionally leads to
nonsensical asides, like when Easterbrook blames capitalism for homelessness and drug shootouts. Easterbrook begins by describing a
predatory falcon swooping down upon a hapless pigeon. There
is nothing unusual about the eternal struggle between
prey and predator, which he terms the dance of ages—except that this particular skirmish is occurring in Manhattan. Although man may
view himself as omnipotent, Easterbrook shows man’s impact to be, in fact, quite limited. Easterbrook backs up his argument with facts. Only
two percent of America and eight percent of the world are built-up. Forests are expanding in the United
States and Europe. Farmland, no longer needed for agricultural production, is returning to forest or
prairie. And most of what man has done could be undone by nature which, Easterbrook notes, rearranges
entire continents, a task people cannot imagine, even in the abstract. A Moment on the Earth goes on to debunk
romantic rhapsodies about nature and defend mankind. Humanity’s vogue for culpability regarding its own existence must be exceptionally
difficult for nature to fathom, writes Easterbrook, since man’s activities are in strict accord with the behavior patterns of other species, most of
which attempt to expand to fill the maximum area available to them. Nor is there anything wrong in transforming nature. Easterbrook even
includes a wonderful chapter titled The Case Against Nature. Nature, he writes, is dangerous, generates pollution, kills humans and animals
alike, fosters disease, and is self-destructive. And this is never going to change, absent human intervention, since nature lacks morals, which are
artificial systems requiring forethought. These philosophical musings behind him, Easterbrook moves to the specific issues that dominate
environmental debates today. He proceeds issue by issue, largely dismissing warnings of imminent ecological disaster. For instance, he
concludes that the problem of acid rain is genuine but exaggerated, subject to correction surprisingly quickly at reasonable cost. Similarly
positive are his assessments of a variety of other problems: air pollution (overall air quality has been rising), the spotted owl (it is neither
endangered nor a separate species), chemicals (they are far less dangerous than charged), global warming (warnings about the planet heating
up appear to be as overstated as those about the imminence of a new Ice Age), energy (supplies are plentiful), and many, many more. In the
main, Easterbrook draws sensible
policy conclusions from these facts. But his liberal soul occasionally reasserts itself, to
costs of recent regulatory initiatives, like the 1990 Clean Air Act,
exceed their benefits. No matter. Opines Easterbrook: in the main environmental initiatives ought to be
considered worth the price unless proven otherwise, with the burden of disproof upon opponents.
Nevertheless, the book is truly a work that deserves wide attention. Its importance comes not only from the fact that it makes a
powerful case for environmental optimism, but that it specifically addresses those people who have been most concerned
about the future. Calls for ecorealism are not new, but Easterbrook has issued a particularly compelling one. Paradise may
not beckon, but, as he concludes: The arrow of the human prospect points upward.
bizarre effect. For instance, he acknowledges that the
In the short term Biodiversity collapse is inevitable but the environment will restore
itself
Dangerfield 11, Dangerfield, John M, Dr J. Mark Dangerfield is principal at alloporus environmental
Mark is an environmental scientist, ecologist, registered Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use
(AFOLU) expert with the Verified Carbon Standard and has over 30 years experience in the
measurement and evaluation of ecological processes, carbon dynamics and natural resource
management in Europe, Africa and Australasia. . "Biodiversity Loss." Climate Change Wisdom. Alloporus
Environmental, Apr. 2011. Web. 08 July 2014. CS
Significant biodiversity loss happens because there is a major change in global conditions, hitting hard whole swathes of biodiversity adapted to the previous status
quo. Usually it's a shift in the composition of the atmosphere, a change in energy from the levels reaching or retained within the huge heat sinks of the oceans and
atmosphere or specific forceful events such as a major meteorite strike. Remember that most of the earth is actually molten, held together by gravity and a thin
crust. Hit a bounded liquid hard and it wobbles for a long time. Volcanic activity witnessed by any dinosaurs who survived the initial strike would have been
spectacular. Dinosaurs notwithstanding, past extinction events were most significant in the oceans. So this warning from the Oxford meeting is important. It tells us
that the modifications we have made to the environment both locally from clearing land, polluting rivers and fishing out populations of fish; and globally from
changing the atmospheric composition; are enough for extinction rates to be high enough to qualify as a mass extinction. Biodiversity loss in a geological instant. It
is as though the earth had been hit by a big chunk of space rock. More
biodiversity loss seems inevitable. Our carbon pollution
grows, we still clear forests for agriculture, divert water to intensify production on the fields we already
had, and consume resources as our numbers and affluence grow. The mass extinction event is here and
now. There have been wins. A handful of pioneer conservationists at the start of the industrial revolution laid the foundations and serious effort
was ignited in the 1960?s that has led to most countries having some form of regulated attention to protection of at least some habitat and iconic species. This
effort has focused on the land, for that is where we live. Now
we have reserves, wildlife corridors, species recovery plans,
planning restrictions, land management restrictions, water regulations, a paid workforce to look after
the natural areas and a small army of volunteers actively promoting conservation and sustainability.
Thankfully. At best these actions will save some of those icons and keep a few wild places. Yet this is critically
important for these will be islands, or perhaps arks, to provide the raw material for evolution after the
biodiversity loss. A little like the stock market, even with crashes from extinction events biodiversity
keeps growing over geological time. This is what happens. Evolution and time will see a return to a
diverse flora and fauna, only it will take all our ingenuity to survive long enough to see it.
Biodiversity resilient – ecosystems will recover from damage
McDermott 09, McDermott, Matt, Editor, Business & Energy / New York City . "Good News: Most
Ecosystems Can Recover in One Lifetime from Human-Induced or Natural Disturbance." TreeHugger.
MNN HOLDING COMPANY,, 27 May 2009. Web. 08 July 2014. CS
There's a reason the phrase "let nature take its course" exists: New research done at the Yale University
School of Forestry & Environmental Science reinforces the idea that ecosystems are quiet resilient and can rebound
from pollution and environmental degradation. Published in the journal PLoS ONE, the study shows that most
damaged ecosystems worldwide can recover within a single lifetime, if the source of pollution is
removed and restoration work done. The analysis found that on average forest ecosystems can recover in 42
years, while in takes only about 10 years for the ocean bottom to recover. If an area has seen multiple,
interactive disturbances, it can take on average 56 years for recovery. In general, most ecosystems take
longer to recover from human-induced disturbances than from natural events, such as hurricanes. To
reach these recovery averages, the researchers looked at data from peer-reviewed studies over the past 100 years on the rate of ecosystem
recovery once the source of pollution was removed. Interestingly, the
researchers found that it appears that the rate at
which an ecosystem recovers may be independent of its degraded condition: Aquatic systems may recover more
quickly than, say, a forest, because the species and organisms that live in that ecosystem turn over more rapidly than in the forest. As to what
this all means, Oswald
Schmitz, professor of ecology at Yale and report co-author, says that this analysis
shows that an increased effort to restore damaged ecosystems is justified, and that: Restoration could
become a more important tool in the management portfolio of conservation organizations that are
entrusted to protect habitats on landscapes. We recognize that humankind has and will continue to actively domesticate
nature to meet its own needs. The message of our paper is that recovery is possible and can be rapid for many
ecosystems, giving much hope for a transition to sustainable management of global ecosystems.
Environment is resilient
Easterbrook 95, Easterbrook, Gregg, Gregg Edmund Easterbrook is an American writer, and a
contributing editor of both The New Republic and The Atlantic Monthly. A Moment on the Earth: The
Coming Age of Environmental Optimism. New York: Penguin, 1996. Jstor. Web. 8 July 2014. CS
In the aftermath of events such as Love Canal or the Exxon Valdez oil spill, every reference to the environment is prefaced with the adjective
"fragile." "Fragile environment" has become a welded phrase of the modern lexicon, like "aging hippie" or "fugitive financier." But the
notion of a fragile environment is profoundly wrong. Individual animals, plants, and people are
distressingly fragile. The environment that contains them is close to indestructible. The living
environment of Earth has survived ice ages; bombardments of cosmic radiation more deadly than
atomic fallout; solar radiation more powerful than the worst-case projection for ozone depletion;
thousand-year periods of intense volcanism releasing global air pollution far worse than that made by
any factory; reversals of the planet's magnetic poles; the rearrangement of continents; transformation
of plains into mountain ranges and of seas into plains; fluctuations of ocean currents and the jet stream;
300-foot vacillations in sea levels; shortening and lengthening of the seasons caused by shifts in the
planetary axis; collisions of asteroids and comets bearing far more force than man's nuclear arsenals;
and the years without summer that followed these impacts. Yet hearts beat on, and petals unfold still. Were
the environment fragile it would have expired many eons before the advent of the industrial affronts of
the dreaming ape. Human assaults on the environment, though mischievous, are pinpricks compared to
forces of the magnitude nature is accustomed to resisting.
Species can adapt quickly and will not go extinct due to environmental change
Zimmer ’09(Carl Zimmer, First Comes Global Warming, Then an Evolutionary Explosion, 03 AUG 2009,
http://e360.yale.edu/feature/first_comes_global_warming_then_an_evolutionary_explosion/2178)
In 1997, Arthur Weis found himself with an extra bucket of seeds. Weis, who was teaching at the University of California at Irvine at the time,
had dispatched a student, Sheina Sim, to gather some field mustard seeds for a study. When Sim was done with her research, Weis was left
with a lot of leftover seeds. For no particular reason, he decided not to throw the bucket out. “We just tossed it in a cold, dry incubator,” said
Weis. Weis is glad they did. When a severe drought struck southern California, Weis realized that he could use the extra bucket of seeds for an
experiment. In 2004 he and his colleagues collected more field mustard seeds from the same sites that Sim had visited seven years earlier. They
thawed out some of the 1997 seeds and then reared both sets of plants under identical conditions. The newer plants grew to smaller sizes,
produced fewer flowers, and, most dramatically, produced those flowers eight days earlier in the spring. The changing climate had, in other
words, driven the field mustard plants to evolve over just a few years. “It was serendipity that we had the seeds lying around,” says Weis. Weis
is convinced that his experiment is just a harbinger of things to come. Global
warming is projected to drastically raise the
average global temperature, as well as producing many other changes to the world’s climate, such as
more droughts in California. And in response, Weis and other researchers contend, life will undergo an
evolutionary explosion. “Darwin thought evolution was gradual, and that it would take longer than the lifetime of a scientist to observe
even the slightest change,” says Weis, who is now at the University of Toronto. “That might be the average case, but evolution can also
be very rapid under the right conditions. Climate change is going to be one of those things where the
conditions are met.” Over the past decade, conservation biologists have published a string of studies
demonstrating that global warming is changing the face of nature. Red squirrels in Canada breed earlier in the spring,
for Skelly David K. Skelly/Yale University Research by Yale University’s David K. Skelly suggests that the wood frog is capable of extremely fast
evolved responses to changing thermal environments. example. Feral sheep in Scotland are getting smaller. Many populations of birds, animals,
and plants are shifting their ranges, as well. Species that live on mountains are moving uphill; other species are shifting away from the equator
and toward the poles. There are two things that can cause these sorts of changes. One is known as plasticity. In many plant species, genetically
identical individuals will grow short in windy conditions and tall in calm ones. Humans are plastic, too. Over the past two centuries, for example,
people in industrialized countries have become much taller than their ancestors, mainly due to the extra protein and better health they’ve
enjoyed (and the extra protein and better health their mothers have enjoyed while they were pregnant). Plasticity can help animals and plants
thrive as conditions change. Insects, for example, emerge from cocoons in the spring as they sense the days getting longer. Their clock is
genetically encoded, but they are also plastic enough to emerge ahead of schedule if the plants they feed on start growing sooner. On the other
hand, genes themselves can change, too. When
the environment changes, individuals with certain genetic
variations may be more likely to survive than others and have more offspring. They pass down their own
genes to the next generation, and over time the entire population changes thanks to natural selection.
Yet conservation biologists have only rarely looked into which cause — plasticity or natural selection — has been responsible for the climatedriven changes they’ve documented. “People really weren’t thinking about evolution at all,” says David Skelly, a professor of ecology at the Yale
School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. “They thought it happened on thousand-year time scales.” But in
recent years,
evolutionary biologists have demonstrated that natural selection can move swiftly in response to
manmade events — including changes in climate. Skelly studies wood frogs that live in Connecticut ponds. Over the past few
decades, these ponds have been changing. Forests growing on abandoned farmland have been casting once-sunny ponds into cool shade.
Beavers have been creating new ponds in open fields, creating ponds that get lots of light. Skelly and his colleagues have collected wood frog
eggs from sunny and shady ponds and have reared them under identical conditions in his lab. Even though the frogs were close relatives, they
had quickly diverged in Natural selection can move swiftly in response to man-made events. many ways. Frogs from beaver-created wetlands
could survive in warmer water than ones from shady ponds. The shady ponds tended to dry up sooner than the sunny ones in Skelly’s study,
and that difference in timing had an effect on the development of the frogs. “The animals we collected from heavily-shaded ponds grew faster
than frogs in sunny ponds that were literally a rock’s throw away,” says Skelly. This changing view of evolution has led some researchers to look
for evidence that global warming is driving evolution. William Bradshaw and Christina Holzapfel at the University of Oregon, for example, have
studied a mosquito that lays its eggs inside carnivorous pitcher plants. The larvae hatch in the spring and feed on the dead insects that fall in.
Bradshaw and Holzapfel have demonstrated that the mosquitoes have experienced natural selection, causing them to open sooner than they
did a quarter-century ago. In some cases, natural selection is working in a straightforward way. Weis, for example, had predicted that droughts
would make field mustard plants bloom earlier. In wet years, it pays for plants to grow big before they flower, so that they can make more
seeds. But in dry years, they run out of water before they can reap the benefit. Instead, earlier flowering plants have more luck. “What we saw
was exactly what the theoretical model predicted,” says Weis. But there are also many complexities to climate-driven evolution that scientists
don’t understand very well yet. Red squirrels in Canada breed 18 days earlier in the spring, but the shift is not just a matter of natural selection
or plasticity. Both forces are at work at the same time. In other words, all the squirrels are responding to the changing climate by moving up
their breeding schedule, and genes associated with an early timetable are spreading through the population. In other cases, a warming climate
is changing animals by making natural selection weaker, not stronger. Among the feral sheep of Scotland, larger lambs used to be more likely to
survive the harsh winters. Now that the winters are milder, small lambs don’t pay such a heavy price for their size. As a result, the average size
of sheep is dwindling. Juha Merilä of the University of Helsinki warns that in a lot of cases in which natural selection seems to be at work —
some involving climate change, some not — there may not be any natural selection at all. Merilä and his colleagues have studied a colony of
red-billed gulls in New Zealand that have been gradually losing weight over the past 50 years. But when the scientists analyzed the pedigree of
16,520 birds, they found no evidence that the population was slimming because smaller birds were having more chicks than bigger ones.
Something in their environment is causing the birds to develop to smaller sizes, regardless of their genes. “There are a multitude of
possibilities,” he says, such as a dwindling food supply. Merilä urges his fellow biologists to use rigorous methods like those employed by Weis
and his colleagues on field mustard plants to look for natural selection. “It’s probably happening, but the methods we’re using aren’t up to the
rigorous standards I would like to see,” he says. If
life is indeed evolving in response to climate change now, a number
of scientists argue that this evolution will speed up in decades to come as temperatures rise and other
changes emerge. “Evolution is going to be important in the future,” says Andrew Hendry of McGill University in Montreal. That means
that conservation biologists need to take evolution into account when they try to project what happens to the world’s biodiversity as the planet
warms. MORE FROM YALE E360 Biodiversity
in the Balance Paleontologists and geologists are looking to the
ancient past for clues about whether global warming will result in mass extinctions. What they're finding
is not encouraging, Carl Zimmer writes. As Climate Warms, Species May Need to Migrate or Perish With global warming pushing some
animals and plants to the brink of extinction, conservation biologists are now saying that the only way to save some species may be to move
them.The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s latest report warns that roughly a quarter of all species may be committed to
extinction by global warming. The IPCC based that estimate on studies on the ranges of species. Researchers calculate the conditions to which a
species is adapted — temperature, rainfall, and so on — and then project where that range will be in the future. In some cases, the range shifts
faster than the species can move. In other cases, the suitable range shrinks. In either case, a species will be trapped in a dwindling habitat and
become more likely to become extinct. But these studies assume that species can only cope with climate change by moving, not by evolving.
And scientists
already know that some species have started evolving in response to global warming
already. “Evolution is going to save a number of species from extinction,” Hendry predicts. Yet Hendry doesn’t
consider evolution an ecological Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card. While some species may be able to evolve quickly, some will evolve slowly — if, for
example, they take many years to mature. “They may not evolve quickly enough to forestall extinction,” says Hendry. Hendry also points out
that natural selection can hit biological walls. “There are just some limitations that organisms can’t overcome. We’re never going to be able to
walk around at -273 degrees Celsius,” says Hendry. Likewise, some species may not be able to adapt to the new climate. Unfortunately,
scientists may not be able to appreciate the full scope of evolution’s effects for decades. Weis is now laying the groundwork for that research
with something he and his colleagues call the Resurrection Initiative. They are starting to gather seeds and put them in storage. “Fifty years
from now, botanists can draw out ancestors from this seed bank and do much more sophisticated experiments on a much bigger scale,” says
Weis. “It will answer some very nitty-gritty details about the evolutionary process itself. We want to take the serendipity out of it.”