Why you should care, what the facts are, and what the science says.
The American Fisheries Society, the world’s oldest and largest organization dedicated to strengthening the fisheries profession, advancing fisheries science, and conserving fisheries resources, has developed a dedicated website to serve as a hub for resources to educate fisheries stakeholders on how climate change is affecting fish and their habitats.
Website offers a wealth of content. Under Education, for example, is a whitepaper on Best Practices for Communicating Climate Science for Fisheries Professionals, prepared by AFS’s Climate Change Outreach Committee to provide guidance for fisheries professionals in the communication of climate change to the public. It represents a distillation of various publications on the topic, with references:
Summary
Climate change has been documented for over 120 years with increasing scientific rigor, and its impacts are already observable in marine and freshwater fisheries. But after decades of communication to underscore the validity of these changes, and the urgency for action, a large component of the public and many elected officials deny the scientific consensus and reject the need for action. Therefore, we outline a more effective strategy to convey the climate message to stakeholders and inspire them to act.
Brief history
Scientists have long studied the effect that human activity can have on the climate. The concept first entered scientific literature in 1856 with research spearheaded by Eunice Foote who suggested that historical carbon dioxide concentrations influenced the Earth’s natural temperature (Mariotti 2019). Four decades later, the Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius proposed that as humanity burned fossil fuels, more carbon dioxide gas would be added to the Earth’s atmosphere, trapping more of the Sun’s energy and raising the planet’s average temperature (Arrhenius 1896). The topic received greater attention with the work of C. D. Keeling, who revealed that the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was indeed rising year by year and temperatures were increasing as a result (Keeling 1960). Further, the rate of change was unlike any natural fluctuation observed in the geological record.
Since those early days, scientific studies have continued to reaffirm the consensus that human activity is responsible. Numerous international meetings, intergovernmental organizations, focus groups and task forces have spent decades stressing that active steps must be taken to curtail greenhouse gas emissions; however, the message of needed action or the cost of inaction to human-wellbeing did not resonate or have lasting impacts on the general population.
Today, the consequences of this inaction are manifesting, along with their associated economic fallout. Sea levels are rising, storms are intensifying and becoming more frequent, ocean temperatures are trending upwards, and oceans are becoming more acidic (Doney 2012). Acidification is making it difficult for organisms like corals, zooplankton, shrimp, and oysters to form their calcium carbonate shells. Temperature and changes in ocean currents are altering the distributions of fishes, and there is evidence that a majority of fish species will experience reproductive failures (Dahlke et al. 2020).
Freshwater fishes are already among the most imperiled of biodiversity on the planet, and those residing in inland waters are particularly vulnerable to the effects of changing climate (Comte and Olden 2017). Elevated stream temperatures and alterations in flows will extirpate some species from their southern ranges. Unmitigated climate change is predicted to reduce cold water stream habitat 62% by the next century (EPA 2015). Species that can tolerate increased temperatures may still struggle due to food web alterations or reproductive failure as a response to more frequent and severe flood events (Woodward et al 2010).
Given that 1) the theory of greenhouse gases was proposed over 160 years ago, 2) a host of studies provide strong affirmative evidence for anthropogenic climate change, and 3) the climate is responding as predicted in the form of record-breaking temperatures and increased severity of weather events, why have we failed to instill action? Why are significant segments of the public, as well as elected officials, unwilling to accept the scientific consensus for immediate action?