Or something like that, per the headline: Chesapeake Bay critters suffer from climate change and pollution
The country’s largest estuary faces the loss of its life below the surface. These animals not only make up a significant part of the overall ecosystem, but they also provide for a vital industry in the Chesapeake region.
In May 2009, President Obama declared the Chesapeake Bay a national treasure because of its numerous environmental assets, including the seafood, public lands, military installations, museums, and wildlife. However, the bay is also in the state of natural disaster because of the pollution build-up and loss of marine life that has plagued the bay for years.
The executive order reports that the major pollutants in the bay are the build-up of nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus), sediment and runoff waste coming from energy plants, farms and development projects.
The story goes on to tell us all about the pollution and over-fishing occurring within the Chesapeake Bay, and virtually nothing about how climate change has hurt the life in the Bay. Surely, there must be something else besides the pollution (which I agree needs to be reduced) and the over-fishing to warrant that headline, right?
Havemann remains hopeful of initiatives being made my the local government and the federal government. In particular, the Copenhagen conference could have significant implications for the Chesapeake Bay.
“Copenhagen will affect the bay indirectly if an international renewable energy standard results,†said Havemann. “It would put additional pressure on the Senate to pass something. It would not only stop global warming from harming the bay, but it’ll also reduce the demand for coal plants.â€
So, that is pretty much it. A climahysteric headline with no actual substance or backing. Let’s flash forward two short months to today
And now for something completely different: good news about the Chesapeake Bay.
The Chesapeake’s blue crabs, in decline for a decade, are in the middle of an extraordinary comeback, officials in Maryland and Virginia said Wednesday. The estuary’s crab population has more than doubled in two years, they said, reaching its highest level since 1997.
The chief reason, officials said, is a set of limits placed on the crab harvest in 2008. These were aimed at protecting more female crabs, which can produce millions of baby crabs apiece — but not if they’re turned into she-crab soup first.
Ah. So the problem wasn’t climate change idiocy, but, over-fishing (they could still work on the actual real pollution in the Bay. Anyone who knows me or has read my posts knows I am very much in favor of clean land, sea, and air.)
Solve the pollution problems. Natural global warming is Not part of the problem. AGW does not exist. Natural cycles of climate change, Do.
“Anyone who knows me or has read my posts knows I am very much in favor of clean land, sea, and air.)”
…. and crab cakes!!
Bingo, Otter. Drives me nuts when these AGW kooks hijack true and real environmental issues.
Crab cakes good! Love them. Especially when they are a bit spicy.
Baltimore Inner Harbor. Best soft-shelled crab sandwiches I ever found. With legs literally hanging out the sides…
Baltimore Inner Harbor. Best soft-shelled crab sandwiches I ever found.
That’s kind of sad. The Inner Harbour has some decent places to eat, but if you ever want to get great crabs, you have to go to the local restaurants that are not designed for tourists.
Dundalk, Pigstown, Fells Point, etc all beat any soft shell crab sandwich the Inner Harbour puts out.
With legs literally hanging out the sides…
Believe it or not, this illustrates the problem of over fishing the Bay. I grew up in Baltimore and spent summers working on crab boats and fishing.
The minimum size of a soft shell crab that was legal to keep was 4.5″ point to point. There was no way that you could not have the legs of the crab falling off the side of the bread. In fact, many restaurants used to have a larger, somewhat denser bread made just for the soft shell sandwich otherwise it would look like the creature from the Black Lagoon or something.
They lowered the size of soft shell keepers which meant that more and more crabs were available to catch. Catching them sooner meant not as long of a lifespan to reproduce.
I am no where near a enviro-nut, but you could see the shifting tides (no pun intended) when the bigger fishing ships and fleets of crabbers took over the bay.
It does my heart good to see the crab population coming back.
And by the way, if you have never seen it, watching a crab grow larger by pulling out of its former shell is truly one of the great things to see in nature.
Hey Otter,
Bet that was one heavy sandwich. With all the toxins and heavy metals and all……
:)
Chesapeake Blue Crab is being eaten. By people. And it is mm-mm-good!
That’s all I need to know!
gee only 1 year intyo Obama’s term and he has already fixed that crab problem. Oh and March was record for heat according to NOAA and Otter of course there are warm/cold cycles BUT the 2% of the gases athat are green house gasses are the ones that trap and hold heat and they are increasing. Say how is that long promised “global cooling” working out ? And let’s not forget that the Sun has been in a longer than usual “dim and cool” peroiod, wonder what will happen when the Sun comes up to a normal level ?
gee only 1 year intyo Obama’s term and he has already fixed that crab problem.
You can’t be that stupid. Really. You can’t be.
Oh and March was record for heat according to NOAA
And already the data that NOAA used has been demonstrated to be false. Some data points were not correct, which threw the whole perspective off.
Nice try though.
[…]  Pirates Cove points out that AGW gets blamed in a headline that appears to in the article be more about a pollution problem.  In another post he points out that the post office is positioning its’ reduction to 5 days delivery as a way to prevent AGW, when the article refers to balancing rising costs and reduced volumes due to email. There’s so much message confusion and so few discussions about how AGW proponents got from A to H in their arguments – I’m surprised the pollsters haven’t simply given up – maybe they should try “yes, and….” […]