August 12 - Deep Sea Canyons on Your Desktop - The live streaming video from the NOAA research vessel Okeanos Explorer brings eye-popping images from the ocean floor as scientists maneuver a remotely operated vehicle (or ROV) called Deep Discoverer along the canyons and seamounts at the edge of the continental shelf.

August 16 - Fish Talk in the News – Friday, August 16 - In this week’s Fish Talk in the News, NOAA and the Council continue to argue over herring trawl observer coverage; lobster shell disease moves north; the Maine Lobstermen Union holds its first meeting; a new NOAA research vessel will map the seafloor; shark fin bans may hurt the dogfish fishery; low sand lance abundance hurts whale watch businesses; southern species are becoming more common in New England; an expedition to tag great white sharks is moving slowly; lobstermen oppose gear changes; the MAFMC discusses coral conservation; MA fishermen catch fewer, larger bluefin; climate change may inhibit Atlantic salmon recovery; recovering alewife populations feed the lobster bait industry.

August 5 - Man, Eating Shark - My plan was to kick off Shark Week by feasting on Squalus acanthias, aka Spiny Dogfish, and reporting my impressions. Spiny dogfish are one of the few fish populations in good biological condition that New England fishermen can still catch, having recovered from a crash back in the early 1990’s. Once a fish despised because of the havoc it caused with fishing gear and its voracious predation on more valuable commercial fish, many fishermen who can no longer find cod or other prime species are turning to dogfish out of financial desperation.

August 6 - Uncertain Science Isn’t to Blame for Groundfish Crisis - The real issue is not whether there is uncertainty in fisheries management science. Of course there is, and the more you get into the weeds of fishery management science the more the numerous uncertainties reveal themselves. The real issue is how managers choose to deal with the uncertainty that is inherent in fisheries management. In New England, by and large, they deal with it badly.

August 7 - Managing Fisheries in “A Climate of Change” - The Maine nonprofit Island Institute organized the two-day symposium “A Climate of Change” to bring fishermen, scientists, fishery managers, and NGOs together to share information and ideas about how climate change is already affecting fishing, and what they can do about it.

August 9 - Fish Talk in the News – Friday, August 9 - In this week’s Fish Talk in the News, a new study shows marine species moving poleward in response to climate change; the ASMFC delays a decision on elver management; NEFMC chair Rip Cunningham writes to John Bullard in response to NERO’s refusal of Amendment 5 to the herring plan; NOAA declines to list river herring under the Endangered Species Act; Obama nominates Kathryn Sullivan to lead NOAA; Maine’s lobster monoculture is vulnerable to climate change; Senator Warren calls for federal disaster aid for the groundfish industry.

May 21 - Tom Toles Tackles Fisheries and Climate Change - The great Tom Toles takes on the effects of climate change on fish with this cartoon in the Washington Post.

May 24 - Fish Talk in the News – Friday, May 24 - In this week’s Fish Talk in the News, Eric Schwaab is leaving NOAA; fisheries regulators ask fishermen not to take out frustration on at-sea observers; the ASMFC postpones a decision on the elver fishery; alewife counts in New England rivers are way up this year; a parasite may be affecting yellowtail flounder populations; Michael Conathan writes on fisheries and climate change; a local scientist testifies in a Magnuson-Stevens reauthorization hearing.

May 15 - Nature Study Shows Fish Feeling Heat from Global Warming - A study featured in the current issue of the journal Nature reveals that ocean warming has already affected fisheries around the world over the past four decades as fish populations shift in response to changing sea temperatures. The study is a stark reminder that climate change is a serious challenge in the here and now, not off in the distant future. It’s time for fisheries managers to start acting on that.

May 16 - Setting the Record Straight on Forage Fish - The Thursday, May 9, piece from Saving Seafood, titled “Pew’s recommendations and assumptions in calling for conservation of forage fish questioned,” contained a flat-out falsehood about the peer review of the Lenfest Forage Fish Task Force’s findings.

May 17 - Fish Talk in the News – Friday, May 17 - In this week’s Fish Talk in the News, a new study focuses on fisheries and climate change; alewives return to the St. Croix River; stakeholders discuss ecosystem-based fisheries management; Canadian lobstermen again protest low prices; Magnuson-Stevens reauthorization hearings continue; the mayor of Gloucester publishes a plan for responding to the groundfishing crisis; a lucrative elver fishery is a symptom of struggling eel populations.

The New Hampshire legislature is being asked to impose a moratorium on wind power projects in the Granite State. In written testimony, CLF and other environmental groups, like the Nature Conservancy, are urging the legislature to reject this proposal. Our position is simple and clear – the wind siting process in New Hampshire may not be perfect but slamming on the brakes with regard to the largest and most immediately available source of truly zero-emissions electrical power available to New Hampshire and New England would be a mistake. Indeed, it would be contrary to New Hampshire’s codified Renewable Portfolio Standard requirements, which seek to increase the amount of wind energy in New England.

CLF, and its allies, are strongly on the record favoring refinement of the New Hampshire energy facility “site evaluation” process, including in joint written testimony filed last week. All major energy projects sited in New Hampshire should be subject to a meaningful, open, and rigorous public review and should directly benefit the state, and wind projects that generate property taxes and lower emissions, if properly sited and planned, will do that. Transmission line projects like Northern Pass should be held to the same standard.

As we increasingly understand the peril our planet and welfare are facing, and the unconscionable harm being imposed on people worldwide by human-induced climate change, we must advance policies and “real projects” to reduce emissions in accordance with the climate and energy goals dictated by science: near complete decarbonization of our energy system. Increasing renewable generating capacity is a core element of decarbonizing, and we should not be delaying projects that help achieve that goal to the benefit of communities and the environment.

Lempster Wind Power Project seen from Pillsbury State Park (Washington, NH)

We’re still counting the casualties and costs, but one thing is sure: after a second “hundred year” event in the last two years in New England (last year’s Hurricane Irene and this week’s Sandy), we need to pay some sober attention to building our region’s capacity to roll with the climate punches.

“Adaptation,” “adaptability,” “resilience,” “adaptive capacity,” and “vulnerability” are all part of the emerging vocabulary that seeks to describe a basic and simple question: what prudent steps should we be taking to ensure that we can lower the risks and minimize the effects of severe events linked to climate change even as we strive to lessen greenhouse gases? In the wake of this week’s destruction, it’s worth considering how best to engage our communities in the kind of thoughtful planning and action that can prevent or offset the worst effects of events like Irene and Sandy, and then enable us to bounce back.

As noted by my colleague Tricia K .Jedele in Rhode Island on this blog, many coastal communities like Matunuck sustained significant damage to their beaches, seawalls, and jetties. The storm surge temporarily returned Manhattan to being a real island, cut off from the mainland, and stranding millions without power and transportation. The economic cost of replacing damaged public infrastructure and people’s homes will certainly be in the billions of taxpayer, insurance, and private dollars, not to mention the economic damage done when a region is brought to a standstill.

Anticipating and planning for potential problems associated with climate change makes a difference. New York City, for example, has been working for several years already to implement a climate adaptation plan that will make its transportation system less vulnerable to precisely the kind of effects that Sandy brought about this week. Similarly, Groton, CT has engaged in a local effort to calculate how best to use its resources to minimize the local economic impact of sea-level rise and storm surge.

Protecting New England’s fresh and ocean waters has been a CLF program priority since the organization’s beginnings. Hurricane Sandy has caused wide-spread runoff of farmland and urban pollutants into our streams, as well as sewer overflows from inadequate and damaged urban treatment plants and systems. In some places, like Wells, Maine, local decision makers are including climate considerations into the kind of choices all towns face, in this case the replacement of an aging sewage treatment facility that will not function adequately as sea levels rise.

Deciding how repair, rebuilding and replacement take place can either repeat the mistakes that brought us here, like allowing houses to be rebuilt in shoreline flood zones, or make significant progress toward lessening the effects of future storms. For example, the coastal towns of New Hampshire, and five municipalities in southern Maine, are each working together to establish common regulatory standards that will protect lives and property as the shoreline reacts to climate change. Hurricane Irene’s destruction of stream and river banks in Vermont in 2001 resulted in wide-spread damage, but as we noted recently, also demonstrated the importance of preserving and enhancing wetlands as a way to mitigate some of those effects.

George Santayana’s dictum, “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” together with Einstein’s definition of insanity, “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,” should lead us to consider what we can learn from these events, and then act with our elected leaders and communities to build resilience that can prevent or mitigate the effects of a changing climate on New England.

A New York Times opinion piece titled “Is Algebra Necessary?” caught my eye the other day. My first job out of college was teaching algebra to teenagers. I can still factor a quadratic equation, and I actually find it kind of fun. However, many students, at the high school and college levels, fail the required course in algebra and drop out. The eloquent author of the piece – an emeritus professor of Mathematics – argues that quantitative reasoning is essential, but mastery of algebra is an unnecessarily narrow measure of quantitative skill, and our society is poorer for excluding students who are befuddled by algebra.

In other words: a too-rigid insistence on a particular analytical technique (algebra) is tripping up people who “get it” (have a sufficient general grasp of quantitative issues), and we are worse off as a result.

In a recent edition of Rolling Stone, Bill McKibben beautifully demonstrates the importance of not getting tripped up on details, but firmly understanding the big quantitative picture. In “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math” (which I highly recommend), McKibben avoids the trees and tells the lesson of the forest, in its blindingly obvious and powerful simplicity: We have to change dramatically, and quickly, to preserve the planet as we know it.

McKibben’s message stirs you deeply. It evokes an existential, even spiritual response. And it does so by appealing to our hearts and our guts. There’s enough math to convince our heads, but his message is not aimed at our heads. We know what’s going on in the world. We can feel it. McKibben knows that, and aims to connect with us where we feel things, not in the left side of our brains.

Which leads me to the question: does the environmental movement have the equivalent of an algebra requirement? Do we tacitly insist that everyone master the complex facts before they get involved? If so, should we? Does everyone need to be a left-brained, deep diver into the complexity of the debates, or is it sufficient that they feel strongly that it’s time to act, and are compelled to do so by their heart, their gut or their spirit?

This is somewhat uncomfortable terrain for us. Let’s acknowledge that. We have seen examples in the public realm of policy being based solely on faith, without regard to evidence from the real world. Sometimes this can be disastrous. And it is a rock-solid principle of our movement that policy must be based on sound science and evidence. All of that is entirely true and I would never veer from it.

But there are many people who could be our allies who are not, even though they know the same truth: we need to change in order to save the planet as we know it. And to avoid massive human suffering in the near future. And to protect species faced with extinction. And to deliver a more equitable world. And even to help promote a world better aligned with spiritual forces much larger than us.

Does our preoccupation with matters of the head prevent us from reaching those for whom matters of the heart and soul are more motivating? Is that our “algebra”?

My hunch is that as a movement we expect too much “head” and not enough “heart,” in general. We look for people who can “figure out” what to do next, and trust that if we can win people’s minds either their hearts will follow or we don’t even need their hearts.

What if we attracted to our movement people who appeal to the hearts of others, to begin with? Who see water pollution in the lower Mystic River in Boston, for example, not as an issue of discharge pipes and toxicity but as an issue of hunger and hope, exclusion and unity? What if we talked about climate change not as sea level rise and drought, but as a threat to our spiritual wellbeing?  Would we reach different audiences, and could they help us achieve our mission, having become part of us?

Recently I read two books, one new and one old, on the subject of environmentalism and spirituality, or at least environmentalism and much bigger, existential themes.

The first, Between God and Green, is by Katharine Wilkinson, who is a friend and former classmate of CLF staffer Ben Carmichael. The Boston Globe recently reviewed the book, saying:

Wilkinson tells a vitally important, even subversive, story at the heart of this carefully researched book. Over the past 30 years or more, even as the culture wars raged, an honest-to-God “evangelical Center” came to life in the political no-man’s land between the old-guard religious right and the secular liberal establishment. And as Wilkinson shows, one of the most significant expressions of that increasingly assertive center — as it seeks to broaden the “evangelical agenda” beyond abortion and sexuality to include global poverty, health, and social-justice issues — is a far-reaching environmental movement, based on the theology of “creation care,” and the effort by a new generation of moderate leaders to put climate change on the evangelical map.

I was struck by this more general observation by the author (p.8), about how messages grounded in spiritual terms can be more powerful than those aimed at the head, which we normally rely upon: “The guilt-based, fear-inducing messages that have often dominated can lead to paralysis rather than action, but religion is in the business of communicating a future worth fighting for. It can generate new meanings for climate change that drive engagement.”

The second book was Moby Dick, by Herman Melville. It is a true New England original – written in a snowy winter in the Berkshires (looking out at Mt. Greylock, in fact), also describing New Bedford and Nantucket in some detail, and expressing (it seems to me) the New England Transcendentalists’ view of the natural world and humans’ place in it. My colleague at CLF, Robin Just, like me, also just re-read this great fish tale and pronounced it “a strange and wonderful book.” I concur. It’s worth the time and investment, yielding sentences you stop and re-read several times, just for the joy of it. But I was arrested by this famous passage, from ch. 35, the Mast-Head, where Ishmael explores his spiritual connection to nature, high aloft in a crow’s nest on the mast, scanning the sea for whales:

. . . lulled into such an opium-like listlessness of vacant, unconscious reveries is this absent-minded youth by the blending cadence of waves with thoughts, that at last he loses his identity; takes the mystic ocean at his feet for the visible image of that deep, blue, bottomless soul, pervading mankind and nature; and every strange, half-seen, gliding, beautiful thing that eludes him; every dimly-discovered, uprising fin of some undiscernible form, seems to him the embodiment of those elusive thoughts that only people the soul by continually flitting through it. In this enchanted mood, thy spirit ebbs away to whence it came; becomes diffused through time and space . . . forming at last a part of every shore the round globe over.

There is no life in thee, now, except that rocking life imparted by a gentle rolling ship; by her, borrowed from the sea; by the sea, from the inscrutable tides of God. . . .

If we as an organization – and a movement – began appealing more to the heart, where would this take us? What would we do differently? What would it cost, and what returns can we expect?

These are tricky questions for us, but we have to pursue them. Otherwise, we will continue to fail to include large parts of our population in our movement, just like algebra may be excluding many who should be thriving in our society, and helping it thrive. The environmental movement needs a change of “heart.” We must not steer away from evidence-based, quantitative reasoning, but we must also reach out to people’s hearts. That’s where they feel their deep connection to nature and the planet.

At this unsettled and noisy time, it may be much easier to reach people’s hearts than their minds.

A recent scientific article from four Maine ocean scientists reminded me of a not-very-good environmental joke. An archangel was reporting to God all the terrible things that humans had done to the earth’s environment. God listened patiently as the list expanded, interjecting regularly that the archangel was not to worry; these events had all been anticipated. But when the angel reported that there was now a hole in the ozone layer, God bolted upright in shock: “I told them not to mess with the ozone layer!”

The article I was reading was not about ozone holes. Obscurely titled Step-changes in the physical, chemical and biological characteristics of the Gulf of Maine, as documented by the GNATS times series, four researchers, led by Dr. William M. Balch from the prestigious Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, reported on work they had done looking at a number of data bases of various physical, chemical, and biological markers in the Gulf of Maine. They focused on a series of ship-based sampling data collected between 1998 and 2010.

The researchers reported a startling fact: “[t]he standing stock of phytoplankton … generally decreased since 2005” and there had been a “dramatic” decrease in carbon fixation by phytoplankton across the Gulf of Maine in recent years.

The paper explained this dramatic decrease by pointing to increased precipitation in the Gulf of Maine watersheds in recent years. Four of the eight highest annual precipitation years in the last century in Maine occurred between 1998 and 2010. The data led them to conclude that this increased and atypical precipitation—a commonly predicted phenomenon associated with climate change –interfered with phytoplankton production by discharging increased amounts of colored dissolved organic matter from the watersheds into the Gulf that outcompeted marine plankton for available light.

This is no small matter. Phytoplankton is the base of virtually all marine life in the ocean. Moreover, marine phytoplankton around the world has been estimated to draw more carbon dioxide—a primary climate change gas—from the atmosphere and the oceans than all land plants combined. The punch line to the joke might just as well have been: “I told them not to mess with the phytoplankton!”

While it will take some time before a decline in phytoplankton production in the Gulf of Maine would manifest itself higher up in the marine food web by fewer numbers of high level fishes, the Bigelow researchers were correct to point out that historic high fish productivity in the Gulf of Maine marine system is directly linked to its high productivity of plankton. The health of the marine food web depends on the strength of its planktonic base.

This report’s startling analysis aligns in a troubling way with anecdotal information from fishermen and from fisheries science data that has been surfacing recently. Fish don’t seem to be as large at the different ages as they used to be and a number of predicted strong larval year classes of fish like Atlantic cod have “disappeared” before they became big enough to enter the fishery. Are Gulf of Maine fish failing to thrive like they once did as a consequence of declines in plankton production?

Climate change is happening and its impacts are already being registered in New England. The consequences of our profligate carbon consumption patterns will continue to challenge our ecosystem, our economy, and our way of life through both dramatic and random events that devastate coastal areas as well as chronic ecosystem changes that can be seen at the level of a single-celled phytoplankton. Sadly, it’s no joke.

Waves off West Barnstable, Massachusetts. Photo: nd-nʎ@flickr

Sea levels are rising 3-4 times faster along the east coast, from North Carolina to Massachusetts, than the global average, says a new study by the United States Geological Survey (USGS). This “hot spot” of rising water puts us at unique risk from the changes that are happening to our ocean and will “increase the vulnerability of coastal cities to flooding, and beaches and wetlands to deterioration,” according to the report.

The reasons for our higher than average sea level rise are complex and involve changes in ocean circulation, temperature, and salinity, among other things (read the full report here if you want all the details). But you don’t need to understand why it’s happening to know that this is a problem we need to figure out how to manage. Look at the recent debate in Matunuck, Rhode Island over whether to “Save the Beach or Save your House” for an example of why this matters – and matters right now.

Ocean resources are currently managed by more than 20 federal agencies and administered through a web of more than 140 different and often conflicting laws and regulations. We have to find a better way to plan for our oceans and coasts in the face of the unprecedented changes that are already happening to them.

And there IS a better way. Regional Ocean Planning is one of nine objectives of the National Ocean Policy. It’s a way to make decisions about our ocean resources that helps us factor in multiple uses and changing conditions – by using the best data and latest information and, most importantly, working together.

Regional Ocean Planning is a science-based process of improving decisions about ocean resources before conflict arises – by involving everyone who has a stake in those resources, including municipalities, conservation groups, recreational users, and commercial and industrial entities.

The rate of sea level rise is predicted to continue increasing if our global temperatures keep rising. Hopefully our level of planning will rise as well.