There’s No Crab Like No Snow Crab Anymore

There will be a continuing period of complex and often unpleasant adjustment as climate change reconfigures life in every place on Earth. A whole lot of species (plants and animals) will continue to disappear, parts of the planet will disappear or simply become uninhabitable, while others may benefit. Methane-releasing melting permafrost (tundra) may accelerate the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the Ozone, but countries at or near the Arctic Circle may just discover vastly more farmland and easier access to minerals and fossil fuels frozen for millennia. While it may spawn some nasty military confrontations – Russia has built the largest number of vessels (many state-of-the-art icebreakers, military, civilian and more than a few nuclear powered) designed to operate in the evolving “northwest passage” as ice melts away. A shortcut for military and cargo vessels… and a visual feast for cruise lines with the right ships. But there is a catch, perhaps the deadliest catch.

For the most part, this current accelerating climate change threatens to become the most expensive, life altering, shift since Homo Erectus and Homo Neanderthalensis evolved into Homo Sapiens, the tail of the Ice Age and Little Ice Age included. The cycle of life has become seriously altered for plant and animal life which are unable to adapt. As a result, many species are finding their habitat decimated, their food chain altered to the point of starvation, or the change in temperature moving new predators into regions and waters that were once too hostile for them to survive. Extinction is a very good description of what those life forms face, with no real way to change their human-caused devolving environment. Does it also describe mankind’s future?

There are millions of little stories of disappearing species, and while such abstract descriptions are unemotional and sanitized visions of agonizing starvation, defenseless creatures facing new predators they have never seen before and finding no place to reproduce and rear their young. So, when I write about yet one more “canary in the coal mine” event below, is this just another version of same old/same old… or should we begin to see these changes as dire warnings, even beyond the floods, wildfires, mega-storms, coastal erosion, desertification and searing heat that arrive today with increasing frequency and intensity?

You cannot vote out the laws of physics, enjoin nature’s rages, sue the sharks for moving into your beachy fun zones or believe you can build enough ocean barriers, stronger buildings, and control this awesome and awkward accumulation of climate change horribles. Sorry MAGA voters. Sorry campaign-contributing mega-corporations that refuse to pay for what they caused. And sorry to all the politicians who believe the pablum of their lies will do the trick and keep them in office. So, for today’s example, it is time to get our Berings Strait. Over what is supposed to be a $277 million segment of the Alaskan fishing industry.

Writing for the August 21st CNN News, Rachel Ramirez tells us: “Fishermen and scientists were alarmed when billions of crabs vanished from the Bering Sea near Alaska in 2022. It wasn’t overfishing, scientists explained — it was likely the shockingly warm water that sent the crabs’ metabolism into overdrive and starved them to death… But their horrific demise appears to be just one impact of the massive transition unfolding in the region, scientists reported in a new study released Wednesday [8/21]: Parts of the Bering Sea are literally becoming less Arctic.

“The research from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found warmer, ice-free conditions in the southeast Bering Sea — the kind of conditions found in sub-Arctic regions — are roughly 200 times more likely now than before humans began burning planet-warming fossil fuels… The study underlines ‘how much this Bering Sea ecosystem has already changed from what it was even within the lifetime of one snow crab fisherman,’ said Michael Litzow, lead author of the study and the director for Alaska’s Kodiak lab for NOAA Fisheries… It also suggests ‘we should anticipate many more [very warm] years,’ he said, while truly Arctic conditions — cold, icy, treacherous — will be few and far between.

“Snow crabs, a cold-water Arctic species, thrive overwhelmingly in areas where water temperatures are below 2 degrees Celsius, though they can physically function in waters up to 12 degrees Celsius… A marine heat wave in 2018 and 2019 was especially deadly for the crabs. Warmer water caused the crabs’ metabolism to increase, but there wasn’t enough food to keep pace… Billions of crabs ultimately starved to death, devastating Alaska’s fishing industry in the years that followed…

“The decline of the Alaskan snow crab signals a wider ecosystem change in the Arctic, as oceans warm and sea ice disappears. The ocean around Alaska is now becoming inhospitable for several marine species, including red king crab and sea lions, experts say.

“A warmer Bering Sea is also ushering in new species, threatening those that have long lived in its treacherous, cold waters like the snow crab… Normally, there is a temperature barrier in the ocean that prevents species like Pacific cod from reaching the crabs’ extremely cold habitat. But during the 2018-2019 heat wave, Pacific cod were able to go to these warmer-than-usual waters and ate a portion of what was left of the snow crab population.” So, this could just be “one of those tree-hugger stories” that proliferate left-leaning mass media… or it could be akin to getting a serious medical diagnosis from your doctor… and ignoring it.

I’m Peter Dekom, and if you vote for keeping things exactly the way they are, it is at your personal peril… because you will only ensure that things will do anything but stay remotely the way they are today.