Working on the Ocean Climate Action Plan

Gulf Stream going haywire

Back in the darkening days of the previous administration, Rep. Raul Grijalva, Chair of the House Natural Resources Committee, introduced the Ocean Based Climate Solutions Act of 2020 – a roadmap to advancing our engagement with the ocean with a focus on climate change mitigation through various sustainable and regenerative practices.

The Bill presents a comprehensive map to help us navigate our relationship with the ocean, including sections on “Marine and Coastal Blue Carbon,” “Marine Protected Areas,” “Coastal Barriers,” “Ocean Resiliency,” and of course, “ Offshore Energy.”

With the makeup of the of the 116^th Senate, this could have been just another of the hundreds bills passed through the House to stall in the Senate, but with the new Administration and shifted balance in the Senate, this looks like something we can put our shoulders behind.

I have been convening (zooming) with conservation colleagues in various affinity groups working on the many aspects of this Bill, because as this legislation runs through the meat-grinder of House/Senate deliberations, we want to make sure our key issues are included.

Some of the work we’re doing we need to keep “close to our chest” so as not to alert adversarial interests about our strategies. But there are other aspects of our work which we want to have seep into the civic conversation to get the public winds at our backs.

I will be sharing this work as it unfurls, grateful that we can now advance policies and practices that address our climate, and our healthy engagement with the ocean.

I am deeply relieved with the current Administration headlining Climate on pretty much everything. This, along with the flailing of the fossil fuel industry, should make climate much harder to discard into the “hoax” pile should we fail to enlist better lawmakers in the future.

And it is none too soon (and actually 30 years too late), because it is becoming frighteningly apparent that the earth systems we have relied upon since the dawn of human civilization are destabilizing. Some of this is apparent in extreme weather events becoming more common, extended fire seasons in Australia and the American West. And perhaps more troubling, destabilization of the Atlantic ocean currents – which have been warming Northern Europe forever, and arguably facilitated western civilization’s expansion away from the equator.

If we are to mitigate for these catastrophic systematic changes, focusing our efforts on the ocean is a good place to start.