It seems the alarming story of “Ocean extinction has started in our time” making the rounds of the alarmist blogs and gullible media is nothing more than an unpublished, unchecked opinion, and some pal review amongst activists at a three day conference.
Barry Woods writes:
Oh for goodness sake (parallels to IPCC 80% greenpeace renewables story)
The International Panel on the State of the Ocean !!! IPSO – modest bunch – see mission statement (front page website)
http://www.stateoftheocean.org/
The International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) was established by scientists with the aim of saving the Earth and all life on it.
Another Press release – Gets a shocking headline – the wait for the report (so that it can be checked) so that it is forgotten about and at the end – it is too early to say, but the trends are, etc,etc,etc
Maybe the Oceans are in a shocking state, I’m just getting too cynical to care…
BBC: World’s oceans in ‘shocking’ decline – Richard Black – 20th June 2011
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13796479
“The oceans are in a worse state than previously suspected, according to an expert panel of scientists.”
“In a new report, they warn that ocean life is “at high risk of entering a phase of extinction of marine species unprecedented in human history”.
The International Panel on the State of the Ocean !!! IPSO
This is getting beyond satire ‘panel for the State of the ocean’ but no doubt lots more UN jobs and research required, plus urgent action and control of the oceans.
“The findings are shocking,” said Alex Rogers, IPSO’s scientific director and professor of conservation biology at Oxford University.
“Its report will be formally released later this week.”
Its worse than we thought (they considered)
”…As we considered the cumulative effect of what humankind does to the oceans, the implications became far worse than we had individually realised.”
“We’ve sat in one forum and spoken to each other about what we’re seeing, and we’ve ended up with a picture showing that almost right across the board we’re seeing changes that are happening faster than we’d thought, or in ways that we didn’t expect to see for hundreds of years.”
” These “accelerated” changes include melting of Arctic sea ice and the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, sea level rise, and release of methane trapped in the sea bed.”
BUT at the end. – It is too early to say !!!!
“The IPSO report concludes that it is too early to say definitively.”
But the trends are such that it is likely to happen, they say – and far faster than any of the previous five extinctions.
I’m sorry but I have utter contempt for this sort of pseudo-science by press release…
I wonder what the report really says, and how well it holds up to the headline, I wonder if anyone will bother to check…
Seriously though: The International Panel of the State of the Ocean (IPSO)
With a name like that and their mission statement, – “with the aim of saving all life on the planet!” – they are hardly ever going to come to the conclusion, that it might be doing ‘just fine’,
Diagnosing the state of the Ocean’s health
IPSO is currently compiling the Global State of the Ocean Report, which will collate world-wide marine science to give a comprehensive overview of the health of the Ocean. The Report is due to be published in 2012 but we already know that the Ocean’s health is in a critical state.
=================================================================
Thanks Barry, but wait there’s more. Ben Pile, of the website “Climate Resistance” writes:
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water…
World’s oceans in ‘shocking’ decline
Warns Richard Black at the BBC.
The oceans are in a worse state than previously suspected, according to an expert panel of scientists.
In a new report, they warn that ocean life is “at high risk of entering a phase of extinction of marine species unprecedented in human history”.
They conclude that issues such as over-fishing, pollution and climate change are acting together in ways that have not previously been recognised.
The impacts, they say, are already affecting humanity.
The panel was convened by the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO), and brought together experts from different disciplines, including coral reef ecologists, toxicologists, and fisheries scientists.
Call me a cynic, but I no longer take claims about ‘expert panel of scientists’ at face value. Sadly, Richard Black of the BBC does.
…
Ok. So who the hell are the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition?
A coordination team works together with a Steering Group that currently consists of the Ecology Action Centre, Greenpeace International, Marine Conservation Biology Institute, Natural Resources Defense Council, Pew Environment Group and Seas at Risk. The DSCC has developed a formidable international team of scientists, policy and communication experts, lawyers and political activists who on behalf of the deep sea have established a strong reputation and profile on the issue at the UN and in other fora.
The ‘panel of experts’ — IPSO — may well be expert. But, look, again, we see Greenpeace’s name up there, steering the research — in its own words — alongside the Pew group, and Friends of the Earth.
I don’t believe a word of it. This is not scientific research, it’s ‘grey literature’, put out by yet another grey institution, the true nature of which is concealed from first appearances. Not far behind, the agenda is revealed.
[Anthony: Ben Pile also located a helpful video:]
From the video description on YouTube:
Dr. Alex Rogers, Scientific Director of IPSO and Professor of Conservation Biology at the Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, gives the overview of the main problems affecting the ocean – and some suggested solutions.
Pile continues:
So, yeah, another NGO lobbying outfit, in cahoots with government and businesses, blurring the lines between activism, scientific research, and so on.
Back to IPSO. Here’s the web-page that relates to the new report. It describes the background to the report:
The 3 day workshop, co-sponsored by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), looked at the latest science across different disciplines.
The 27 participants from 18 organisations in 6 countries produced a grave assessment of current threats — and a stark conclusion about future risks to marine and human life if the current trajectory of damage continues: that the world’s ocean is at high risk of entering a phase of extinction of marine species unprecedented in human history.
So it turns out that this report took the scientists just three days of chin-wagging. Says the report:
The workshop provided a rare opportunity to interact with other disciplines to determine the net effect of what is already happening to the ocean and is projected to do so in the future. Over the three days 27 participants from 18 organisations in 6 countries (Annex 1) assessed the latest information on impacts and stresses, and the synergistic effects these are having on the global ocean.
Through presentations, discussions and recommendations the workshop documented and described the cumulative effects of such impacts, how these commonly act in a negatively synergistic way, and why therefore concerted action is now needed to address the consequences set out in this report.
==============================================================
Here’s the team from the IPSO website:
A high-level international workshop convened by IPSO met at the University of Oxford earlier this year. It was the first inter-disciplinary international meeting of marine scientists of its kind and was designed to consider the cumulative impact of multiple stressors on the ocean, including warming, acidification, and overfishing.
The 3 day workshop, co-sponsored by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), looked at the latest science across different disciplines.
The 27 participants from 18 organisations in 6 countries produced a grave assessment of current threats — and a stark conclusion about future risks to marine and human life if the current trajectory of damage continues: that the world’s ocean is at high risk of entering a phase of extinction of marine species unprecedented in human history.
Delegates called for urgent and unequivocal action to halt further declines in ocean health. (click for press release)
…
(They seem really upset about this photo, this fish seems happy with his new home though, and anyone who knows anything about aluminum in the ocean will tell you the fish will probably outlive the can – A)
So, the BBC story “World’s oceans in ‘shocking’ decline” seems to be based on nothing more than some joint opinion at a conference with Greenpeace activists, a regurgitated press release, and no peer reviewed publication yet.
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Tribune: totus escendo est nostri (Trans: – All climate base are belong to us!)
Caesar: IPSO facto? (Trans – is that a fact?)
Tribune: unus villa habitum sicco (Trans: one village refuses to surrender its base to us)
Caesar: quis est voluntas illius?
(Trans: What’s up with that?)
I didn’t see Chicken Little amongst the cast of characters.
1. Decide on the agenda and the conclusion of the symposium report.
2. Gather sympathetic academics to the symposium so that everyone’s on the same sheet of music.
3. Issue a preliminary press release to announce the findings of the symposium.
4. Perform studies and review each others work to ensure conformity to the results of the symposium.
5. Write cover summary for the report; grab the scariest elements from each predetermined study.
6. We’re uncertain of how certain the data is regarding certain future events, although we are certain that it’s certainly bad in certain areas. Therefore, to make certain that greater certainty exists in support of our grasp of certain elements of our study, we’ll need several billion dollars and euros with which to conduct several studies over the coming decades, to be certain of the uncertain depth of our uncertainty.
Ken Hall says:
June 21, 2011 at 4:29 am
The oceans are not becoming acidic. They are becoming slightly less alkaline.
===============================================================
Ken, we all know the oceans are buffered and the normal range of pH 7.5-8.5
What has to happen to a buffered solution in order to lower the pH?
…..you have to run out of buffer
Denitrification is the largest consumer of buffer and the largest producer of acids.
It’s impossible for CO2 levels to get high enough to produce as much acid as denitrification.
If denitrification has never crashed the system, it’s impossible for CO2.
Hmm, the owner of “Communications Inc Limited”, Mirella von Lindenfels, was also “director” at IPSO and “head of Media” at Greenpeace (see http://www.linkedin.com/pub/mirella-von-lindenfels/14/407/455 ). And her current clients include (not very surprising) IPSO and Greenpeace: http://communicationsinc.co.uk/clients.cfm
How can it be much worse than they thought when what they thought before never happened?
This is obviously a publicity stunt to propagandize their views and agenda to the public. And it is a whopper.
The scene that jumped to my mind was of the “lads” sitting around the table, each in turn try to top the others with his scare assessment:
“and all the algae will die…”
“The algae?! all the fish will be extinct!”
“Pffff, fish! All the corals will die out!”
“Ha! corals are small money, the whales will turn red and fly!”
Etc…
June 21, 2011 at 5:12 am
It would be rather nice if Richard Black, as the BBC’s Environmental Correspondent,did a more professional job of un-biased reporting and discussed contentious environmental issues with experts from both sides of the argument without always quoting, parrot fashion, questionable scare mongering press releases created by groups of political lobbying AGW ‘scientists’ that support his own pre concieved AGW position. Why are you afraid to open up the argument in your reporting Mr Black, the BBC should allow all points of view to be heard?
Just googled alex rogers greenpeace
No conflict, no pressure
Ho hum
The Times: (paywalled)Allmost a FULL page article.
Quote it all almost word for word…….
Times: Marine LIfe is Facing Mass Extinction – Hannah Devlin, June 21, 2011
‘the implications are far worse than we expected’ Rogers
”The marine scientists called for a range of urgent measure to cut carbon emission, etc”
Guardian, Independent, Times, Daily Mail, BBC, Churnalism at its wost… (note dates)
BBC: Worlds Oceans in Shocking Decline’ – Richard Black – June 20, 2011
Daily Mail: Extinction of Oceans looms in a generation’ – June 21, 20011
Guardian: Shocking State of the seas threaten mass exticntions – Fiona Harvey, June 21,2011
Independent:: Oceans on the Brink of Catastophy – Michael McCarthy – June 21, 2011
Times: Marine LIfe is Facing Mass Extinction – Hannah Devlin, June 21, 2011
All tyhe above – word for word quotes, no analysis, no questioning who attended, do other scientists think differently in the relevant scientific fields, etc…..
I imagine Ocean extinction story will go around the world a bit in the next few days…
The Carbon Brief twittered a link to the BBC Richard Black article, to all its followers, which includeds the worlds environment medi and press officers for lobbysist, NGO’s, etc
http://twitter.com/#!/carbonbrief/status/83113137326395392
Shall we play a little game and watch over the next day or so, which news organisation and warmist bloggers can that follow The Carbon Brief, repeat it most closely, with out doing ANY questioning of the people, wheter other marine scientists and organisations agree with it, etc and the detail behind it.
New ocean species are just a thing of the past.
Important Information.
The IPSO main report will not be issued until NEXT year.
a short and long report of the Oxford meeting is being released today – Tues 21st .
http://www.stateoftheocean.org/pdfs/1806_IPSOshort.pdf
http://www.stateoftheocean.org/pdfs/1906_IPSO-LONG.pdf
The Big green of Greene$$e strikes again..
When I saw that breathless headline I knew that this
was conducted by the ususal suspects..
So the BBC had high profile coverage of this story, but seemed to neglect the decrease in solar activity. Was there any BBC article for the decrease in solar activity?
“policy and communication experts, lawyers and political activists”
Once again, scientists yes, but scientists preceeded by the word “political.”
Remember when one had to put down the beer, and study your butt off to be a scientist? Now one can just party their way to a Poli Sci degree, and play a real scientist at the UN.
I think they should all sit in a room with a shrink, then they wouldn’t depress themselves.
IPSO-facto… we’re all gonna die.
Ah, ,yes, the maniac-self-proclaimed-world-savior trick: to get in people’s face and promptly shout you’re gonna save them, mankind, and the world from doom and, or, damnation, without making the rational non-existing crowd believe you’re a high hippie kook, or religious fanatic.
That seem to be working out real swell. :p
i take exception to the idea in the title that the media was duped. The media is in on the Climate Scam. They are important players in the con. Without them how long would this sham last; Not long ! They spread the lies because it fits perfectly with their leftist ideologically driven agenda that capitalism is bad, not living in poverty is bad, having children is bad, cars are bad, and so on. I used to think the media types are just stupid but now I believe they are just plain evil, broadcasting nonsense for their own benefit. We’re living in an Orwellian world where up is down and white is black. Propaganda, lies and distortions of reality are what the media deals in. The mainstream media is as corrupt as the people behind the climate change scam. The only dupes are the people who actually believe the media are telling them the truth.
Fly around at night around any Asian’s coast and you can see just how much trawling and fishing is happening-it’s amazing how much. Then, look at the loss of cod stocks around New England and the great N. Atlantic fishing regions. Sport fishing is not a problem-commerical fishing is. Then, take a day airplane or blimp ride off the coast of Manhattan and watch the many garbage ships dumping off the coast and observe the vast ocean area that turns brown from this. You will feel sad. Overfishing? Yes. Pollution? Yes. CO2? Not! We can solve the 1st two problems, but the last one is not a problem as I see it.
There really are problems with overfishing and nutrients creating dead zones and these are recognized by a wide swathe of the populations, including conservative sportsmen. These guys are trying to piggyback their agenda on that recognition.
In the last few years there has been a takeover of some sporting groups by well organized, well funded, watermelons, the CCA being a recent example. They took over the Sierra Club years ago.
Wolves in sheep’s clothing.
Since Richard Black did cover this prominently I made a complaint to the BBC. His scathing piece on the decrease in solar activity contains: “Firstly, the research itself has been presented at one rather small and rather select science meeting – not, as yet, formally published and peer reviewed.”.
Similar criticism is missing from the articles on this claimed ocean decline and Phil Jones’ new take on significant warming, clear bias.
You too, can complain to the BBC at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/
Of course all this stuff has been high on the BBC’s agenda for ages. They have had numerous shots at talking up oceanic doom and gloom over the last few years, this is just the latest alarmist hook that they have latched onto.
Having treated myself to a Blu-ray player recently, one of the disc sets I purchased was “South Pacific”. This is not the old Rogers & Hammerstein but the Beeb’s 6 part documentary series narrated by Benedict Cumberbatch. Cheap as chips from Amazon.
I have to say that it typifies the Beeb in a number of respects. The photography is absolutely stunning (and at the end of each episode is a ‘diary’ showing how they filmed it.) Nature photography at its best. Well I may as well get to see something made with my “Licence Fee” (= BBC tax). It is also pretty good on outline history but pretty much ignores socio-political issues. Except for the Beebs obsessions. OK, they had me shouting at the screen when they did the usual über-greenie interpretation of Easter Island and how the natives had “destroyed their environment”. Forgot to mention about the slavers and also brushed over imported disease and rats. Funny that!
But, predictably, in the sixth and final episode they let rip with the scary stories. Global warming, species extinction, acidification, pollution, coral reefs, Tuvalu drowning, more storms….you name it, they chucked it in there. They even had an extended sequence with the BBC crew breathlessly joining a Greenpiss ship “patrolling” International Waters to check out who was fishing there.
Entirely expected but entirely annoying. I don’t doubt that it is a bad thing that huge Spanish factory ships are effectively dragging absolutely everything out of the water (having already decimated Atlantic fish stocks) and certainly there are other genuine over-fishing and pollution issues as well.
But any rational person exposed to this much greenie political activist propaganda about ‘acidification’ and all the rest must be inclined to dismiss the whole thing as alarmist tosh.
But it also made me scratch my head how, rather ineptly, they hadn’t always really matched up their agit prop commentary with the pictures they were showing. So just after every viewer had been reduced to helplessly sobbing into their handkerchief about the plight of the poor corals, obviously with only months to go; they have a sequence with ‘coral gardeners’ taking cuttings and attaching them to a nursery, letting them grow and then using cuttings from the cultivars to restock areas of damaged coral. Now, let’s get this right. Corals are dying out because the sea temperature is now so high and the human CO2 emissions have turned it all acid. OK, now they didn’t show anyone with cooling or lime dosing plant trying to fix this, so presumably the nursery is still sited in this over-warm acidic stew. Right? So how come the cutting appeared to be growing hugely in a matter of six to nine months? I hadn’t realised coral could grow that quickly! Some confusion in the message, surely? Didn’t they join up the dots?
There are other examples. Disappearing fish stocks (and species) stories being followed by footage of absolutely amazingly large shoals of fish. Tuvalu disappearing ‘neath the waves followed by some of the damage that was being done (by the inhabitants) to the reefs. And so on.
But I guess neither the Beeb, nor this bunch of 27 self-satisfied con men and assorted shroud-wavers masquerading as “scientists” really want you to think too much about the message with which they spoon feed us.
Over fishing is a serious problem. Canada’s cod fisheries was shut down because the population of cod collapsed due to over fishing. Other parts of the world are also suffering from over fishing. Somolia, of all places, is being raped by other countries because there is no government to control the fishing off their coast. Declines in a number of major species has been well documented for decades.
Just because some sensationalism is being misused doesn’t mean the problem doesn’t exist.
I don’t east any sea food for this reason.
Isn’t it strange that CO2 zealots are so keen on international meetings?
jrwakefield says:
June 21, 2011 at 7:39 am
“Over fishing is a serious problem.” I would amend that to say overfishing of SOME species and SOME locations is a serious problem. For many species and locations the fishing rebounds quite quickly when pressure eases, as the northern Gulf of Mexico has done due to the decline in shrimping and gill netting. Last year’s oil spill may have also eased some pressure.
A lot of the stuff you hear, especially out of the watermelons at NOAA, is just lies. Red Snapper are abundant in numbers NEVER before seen in the northern Gulf due to habitat enhancement and effective management. These are not juveniles but spawning stock adults in the 10+ pound range.