A cry for help | The Seattle Times

People who live in Ohio or Oklahoma, or anywhere in the middle of the country, probably don’t think much of the fact that 71% of our planet’s surface is covered by water. Even people who live here on Puget Sound and are very aware of the bays and channels and shorelines around us may not spend much time thinking about what is going on under the waves. But with so many manifestations of climate change now dramatically visible – extreme drought, terrible forest fires, monster hurricanes, great floods, glacier melts, mountains with no snow, summer temperatures reaching lethal levels – we shouldn’t ignore how the oceans run through rising temperatures.

Ocean warming has increased acidity, seriously damaged coral reefs, disrupted the aquatic food chain, and made the oceans less hospitable to all living things in the aquatic world. And now, off the coast of Washington and along the entire West Coast, researchers are finding hypoxic areas that are growing bigger and longer than ever. What does hypoxic mean? It means lack of oxygen. Crabs, fish and other inhabitants of the deep literally suffocate from the low levels of dissolved oxygen in seawater. And climate change is the culprit.

If this continues, the state’s fishing industry and Indian tribes with contractual rights to a significant portion of the fish will be at risk. Sport fishermen and anyone with a small boat and a crab trap will find fewer and fewer catches. Those silvery fish thrown to customers at Pike Place Market could one day be considered an endangered species. Our food supply will shrink and be less diverse.

In contrast to the other manifestations of climate change, the damage that is being done right off our coast cannot be seen; our view of the sea seems unchanged. But soon we could be shocked if we discover what is missing.

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David Horsey
is a double Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist for the Seattle Times. His latest book is Drawing Apart: Political Cartoons from a Polarized America.