The State of the Oceans: Bad, And Getting Worse

Thanks to humanity's ever-increasing heavy "footprint" on the planet, the state of the oceans has never been poorer. Having killed off most of the larger fish in the oceans (by overfishing), unsurprisingly researchers are discovering that these predators are responsible for the health of the coral reefs. Comes now a couple of articles (here, and here) confirming what Chaos has recently read in a book (specifically, The World Without Us, highly recommended), to the effect that most of the oceans have suffered greatly from the human population explosion. It requires very little prognostication skill to see that the planet in the future will be terribly degraded, and no, humanity will not "wake up just in time" to mitigate its tremendously negative impact. It's not news (at least here it's not) that humanity has overshot the carrying capacity of the planet, and not by just a little. Just a few thoughts on what actually matters, as opposed to the ridiculous gladiatorial contests sweeping the national and local news media.