Fishermen destined to eat tofu if acidification of Puget Sound continues

Please, don’t dance around the subject with your headline, “Shellfish at risk: Puget Sound becoming acidified” [Local News, seattletimes.com, July 12]. It should read, “Life at risk: Puget Sound dying.”

The shellfish are the proverbial canary in the coal mine. If they can’t reproduce, the entire food chain above them is not long to follow. Starfish, dead. Cute little furry otters, dead. Proud orcas, dead. Fishermen, out of work forever, destined to eat tofu.

The dying waters of the Puget Sound are every bit as alarming as the oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico. And they are going to be as difficult to clean up. Perhaps more difficult, because there is no BP to blame, no clear villain.

Instead, we are actually going to have to deal with climate change and the incredible quantity of carbon dioxide we are spewing into the air, which our oceans are trying their best to help absorb. But that CO2 absorption comes at the cost of ocean acidification, which spells death to everything living within in it and every creature dependent upon it for survival.

We, each one of us, must act now. We must harangue our elected officials until they pass comprehensive clean-energy bills. We must agitate our governor until she negotiates a rapid closure to Centralia’s coal plant. We must change our personal habits, including giving up the SUV and the hamburger, and talk with our neighbors about why we are doing these things. We must hold companies accountable for their environmental practices or lack thereof. We must act as if the oceans are dying.

Because the Puget Sound is, and the rest will follow if we continue to look the other way.

— original article posted in the Seattle Times, Northwest Voices Letters to the Editor July 18, 2010