A view to krill

[zdashamber]

How much evil have you supported, today, because you didn't have what it takes to open your mouth and take a stand?

naudiz rants just now on an unrelated subject. What I'm worried about today?

Oceanic plankton have largely disappeared from the waters off Northern California, Oregon and Washington, ...

says the SF Chronicle.

Bill Sydeman, the director of marine ecology for the Point Reyes Bird Observatory, a science and conservation organization that maintains a research station on the Farallones, said the collapse of the nesting season is unprecedented in the three decades the group has monitored the islands.

And why is this happening? The seasonal upwelling of nutrient-rich cold water that moves into the shore area, this year, isn't. For the oceans, this is the equivalent of if the rain stopped and the plants all withered away. The currents of the ocean are failing. And why are they failing? Because the surface temperature of the ocean is heating up. And why is the ocean heating up? Because we burn too much gas.

And why are we wasting gas? Because some people don't turn their computer off at night.

Look, I drive a hybrid; not everyone does, not everyone can. I can't insulate my house properly because I rent; some people can, some people can't. There are hundreds of ways we can live closer to the bone when it comes to energy. One that every person reading this can do is:

Turn off your computer at night.

I'm not going to lie. We've already lived through the most ecologically diverse time we'll ever see, or our children, or theirs. There's no way we can stop the dieoff. All we can do is spit defiance into the night, and maybe pull a few species back from that plunge.

And it's pretty small potatoes to argue for just this one action. But it's something, at least.

So turn off your computer at night.

Do it for the krill!

Comments

[karjack.livejournal.com]

I shut my computer off at night. I tried stopping doing that because, for some reason, when I do my DSL doesn't work for several hours the following morning. However, it's such a reflex I keep doing it anyway.

Now I have a good reason to keep doing it. A not-working Internet means play Sims 2 til it comes back! ^_^