Do You Believe in Cod?

The cacophony of canaries in the “global climate change” coal mine have risen to a deafening, roaring chorus. It is continuous, painful and desperate scream, Mother Nature’s red alert. From the extinction of more species lost than at any time in tens of thousands of years to the decimation of once fertile plains, gentle coastal slopes and explosion of heat, drought, fire and plague to unprecedented explosions of storms and flooding. Today’s blog is a fish story. About what was once one of the most common fish populations, one that produced surplus catches that fed millions of people every year: cod.

The anomaly was a focused in a moving body of water that had absorbed more of its share of heat generated by the greenhouse effect. “In 2013, an unstoppable entity began terrorizing the Pacific. At times it spanned the entire stretch of ocean from Alaska to South America. No, it wasn’t some hyper-aggressive shark or killer whale — it was ‘the blob,’ a mass of water several degrees warmer than the ocean’s average temperature. It’s the kind of thing you might (foolishly) welcome in a chilly swimming pool, but can [and did] cause absolute havoc in the ocean…

“Thanks mainly to the blob, the Gulf’s cod population is now at the lowest level ever recorded, an expert at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA),  a U.S. agency focused on the world’s bodies of water and atmosphere, told NPR. In March, Alaskan governor Bill Walker even reached out to the federal government to ask it to declare the state’s cod fishery a disaster so former workers, and the governments that collected their taxes, would qualify for relief funds.

“Throughout the Gulf of Alaska, direct impacts will be felt by vessel owners and operators, crew, and fish processors, as well (as) support industries that sell fuel, supplies, and groceries,” he wrote in his letter. ‘Local governments will feel the impact to their economic base and the State of Alaska will see a decline in fishery-related tax revenue…

“While some researchers think the cod population could eventually recover, fisheries biologist Mike Litzow from the University of Alaska doesn’t think it will. ‘When you push a population down really hard, the resources that population used to rely on can be exploited by other populations,’ he told NPR.

“Ultimately, this could be another example of the widespread devastation caused by climate change, this time in the form of a murky ocean dweller known as the blob.” Kristin Houser writing for the August 2^nd Futurism.com.

“The decline is expected to substantially reduce the Gulf [of Alaska] cod harvests that in recent years have been worth — before processing — more than $50 million to Northwest and Alaska fishermen who catch them with nets, pot traps and baited hooks set along the sea bottom.

“The blob also could foreshadow the effects of climate change on the marine ecosystem off Alaska’s coast, where chilly waters rich with food sustain North America’s richest fisheries.

“Federal fisheries biologist Steve Barbeaux says that the warm water, which has spread to depths of more than 1,000 feet, hit the cod like a kind of double-whammy. Higher temperatures sped up the rate at which young cod burned calories while reducing the food available for the cod to consume.

“‘They get weak and die or get eaten by something else,’ said Barbeaux, who in October [2017] presented preliminary survey findings to scientists and industry officials at an Anchorage meeting of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council. The 2017 trawl net survey found the lowest numbers of cod on record, more than 70 percent lower than the survey found two years earlier.” Seattle Times, 11/4/17.

But this blog, oddly, is not really about the blob or lost cod in our oceans. It is just about one of tens of thousands of rippling changes that are completely redrawing every major assumption humanity has depended on since our species first evolved. It is about death of species, which definitely includes too many humans, the trillions and trillions of dollars of damage. It is about human greed, avarice, irresponsibility and ignorance… and the price God has and will impose on each and every one of us for our callous disregard of His gift to us all.

I’m Peter Dekom, and do future generations deserve to suffer horribly because prior generations (read: us), with plenty of warning, just did not care what desolation they left behind?