The idea that we need a reason to protect the sanctity of our sea is preposterous. However, allow me to address it if only to humor the detractors, and their benefactors, their biologists, and apologists.
The one thing the oil companies, nuclear waste producers, and over-fishing industry does not want is decisive action to be taken to promote sea sanctity and sanity. They don’t want a sanctuary because it might, well, protect the sea! And they have discovered a way to keep such decisive action from being taken—ask for the specific cause of whale beachings. Ask for a specific cause for deep sea whales and fish like oarfish and beaked whales to be washing up on Catalina and the mainland emaciated. After all, it could be overfishing, radioactivity from Diablo or Fukushima, or ocean acidification from oil burning, or seismic testing from oil and gas exploration, or it could be from Navy ocean war games, or it could be elevated sea temperatures, farm runoff, urban runoff, sewage dumping, point source pollution, non-point source pollution, pulse disturbances, or press disturbances.
So what is it specifically? Darn impossible to tell. And so because of that, they expect you to take no decisive action to create a marine sanctuary. Well all of those impacts have a hand in creating the poor conditions that are killing our marine life. So the only thing to do is say, ‘here is a myriad of insults our ocean is being forced to endure, that taken together constitute an emergency.’ A state of ocean emergency. That is the specific reason we are in a state of emergency. And this state of emergency is the specific reason we need to move ahead with the Chumash National Marine Sanctuary. Let’s do it now.
This article appears in Jul 30 – Aug 6, 2015.
