Post by @inquiline@assemblag.es

Using the "El Niño-La Niña" terminology makes it sound like normal oscillation and obscures that this year's event is an extreme one (hence many are saying "Super El Niño"), but even so this is one of the most egregious examples I've seen of pretending that we're in a "natural" cycle:

(unfortunately sent by a local marine mammal rescue org yesterday, whose activities are underwritten by the oil industry here)

#California #FossilFuels #oil #ElNino #ClimateDiary #oceans #LosAngeles

What Is a Marine Heat Wave?
The ocean can experience heat waves much like those that occur on land. One important difference is that heat waves in the ocean can last much longer—sometimes for months or even years. We use the term “marine heat wave” to describe unusually warm ocean temperatures that persist over an extended period.

What Is an El Niño?
El Niño is the warm phase of a natural climate cycle called the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). During an El Niño, sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean become warmer than average.

What Does This Mean for Marine Mammals?
For marine mammals, these warming events can have devastating consequences. Warmer waters can disrupt the ocean food web, reduce nutrient-rich upwelling, increase harmful algal blooms like domoic acid events, shift prey availability, and force animals into new and often dangerous habitats. — What Is a Marine Heat Wave? The ocean can experience heat waves much like those that occur on land. One important difference is that heat waves in the ocean can last much longer—sometimes for months or even years. We use the term “marine heat wave” to describe unusually warm ocean temperatures that persist over an extended period. What Is an El Niño? El Niño is the warm phase of a natural climate cycle called the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). During an El Niño, sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean become warmer than average. What Does This Mean for Marine Mammals? For marine mammals, these warming events can have devastating consequences. Warmer waters can disrupt the ocean food web, reduce nutrient-rich upwelling, increase harmful algal blooms like domoic acid events, shift prey availability, and force animals into new and often dangerous habitats.

#elnino #oceans #climatediary #oil #losangeles #california #fossilfuels

7 Replies

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a libi rose

@rose_alibi@post.lurk.org 1 hr. ago

@inquiline this reads like the section of our natural history museum that talks about climate and was funded by Phil Anschutz.

it's so frustrating because i am sure that the people who actually do the day-to-day work of the rescue are doing their best at what is an intensely demanding (emotionally and physically) line of work

tools for commensality 🧿

@inquiline@assemblag.es 58 min. ago

@rose_alibi

completely, i don't blame the orgs or the people who work there at all, they're in a pretty impossible situation. (i might blame org leadership somewhat bc it undoubtedly selects for people who are fine with such contortion, but that is another story)

a libi rose

@rose_alibi@post.lurk.org 56 min. ago

@inquiline oh, yeah, the leadership can get against the wall. non profit execs are generally a ghoulish group

tools for commensality 🧿

@inquiline@assemblag.es 54 min. ago

@rose_alibi

and re people who work there, i've interviewed some of them here and there and my sense is, caring about aspects of the mission while feeling moral injury and unmanageable dissonance/torque: familiar much?

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tools for commensality 🧿

@inquiline@assemblag.es 2 hr. ago

also see:

Did You Know that in California, the oil industry pays for and sponsors rehabilitation for wildlife injured by oil discharges?

#California #FossilFuels #conservation #OilBeach #ClimateDiary #oceans #oil

2 media files

cropped shot showing a pelican in the enclosure, sitting on a beam over water

Marc Trius

@alter_kaker@hachyderm.io 3 hr. ago

@inquiline this is a lot more egregious example than anything I've seen of normalizing this

tools for commensality 🧿

@inquiline@assemblag.es 2 hr. ago

@alter_kaker

yes i thought so too. oil company executives have been on the boards of these org's since they were founded in the 1970s and around 1990 legislation was passed in CA saying that oil co's have to fund conservation with a little tax on their industrial activities, but it leads to this total perversion where the org's can't be honest about ecological threat (and can only respond to injuries after the fact)