Life's Full of Surprises at the National Clean Energy Summit

I had lunch at the National Clean Energy Summit yesterday with Karl Reiber, PhD (pictured), a cardiovascular physiologist, the focus of whose work is aquatic animals and how they are affected by the changes that are happening to their environment.

The bottom line is that the waters in which they live are warming rapidly but sporadically due to climate change and the breakdown of livestock waste (an exothermic process). This causes suffocation since their metabolic rates soar and the levels of dissolved oxygen remain constant. Adults can move up near the water-air interface, but the embryos and larvae can’t.

He says we’re experiencing mass extinction at an ever increasing rate.

I enjoyed the salmon on my plate, but the conversation certainly made me wonder how much longer such delicacies are going to be available.