Washington Post: Climate change isn’t just about extreme weather. Entire ecosystems are collapsing.
Windstorms have whipped up wildfires across California, forcing tens of thousands to flee the inferno. But while our collective attention has justifiably focused on the fires, they aren’t the only climate change-influenced event that’s menacing the state.
As fires rage on land, a massive ecosystem just off California’s northern coast that has buoyed a thriving fishing industry has collapsed. It’s an example of a much larger, potentially more ominous climate change story: the ongoing collapse of our planet’s biodiversity.
The leafy sea canopies of the Pacific Ocean’s bull kelp forests are largely gone, as a new paper in the journal Nature lays out in terrifying detail. But just because this emergency is out of sight and under the waves doesn’t make it any less vital.