Earth's overwhelmed oceans are crying out for help

We must take urgent action to slow down, if not halt, the melting of ice sheets and stop dumping plastic in the sea

Scientists watching a major rift in the Antarctic that has grown in the past few years say it will soon cause a section of the ice shelf to break off and "collapse" into the ocean.

The ice sheet that could break off from the west Antarctica ice shelf, known as Larsen C, is the size of the US state of Delaware, or about 5,000 square kilometers.

Project Midas, which provides frequent updates on Larsen C, says in its latest report that when the ice sheet breaks off, the shelf will lose more than 10 percent of its area, leaving the ice front "at its most retreated position ever recorded". This event will fundamentally change the landscape of the Antarctic Peninsula.

Project Midas has previously shown that the new configuration will be less stable than it was before the rift, and that Larsen Cmay eventually follow the example of its neighbor Larsen B, which disintegrated in 2002 after a similar rift-induced event.

This may not appear catastrophic to the world at large, which seems busy celebrating the opening of new shipping lanes in the Arctic, the other "ice land" that many scientists believe has entered a vicious circle of summer melting. More icebreakers exploring and exploiting the oil and gas reserves, and manpower and equipment tapping the wide variety of minerals and forest resources in the Arctic, appear to be the order of the day.

Oceans and their resources-the Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets are fundamental resources that sustain life on Earth-are there to be exploited, we believe. It is because of this misplaced belief that we have also been using the oceans as garbage dumps-dumping more than 165 million tons of plastic.

Still, we are not bothered that by 2050, plastic in the oceans will outweigh fish, if the forecast by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation proves accurate.

All this matters, not least because the melting of the entire Larsen ice shelf, which is about 50,000 sq km, could raise the sea level by 10 centimeters. That in itself may not be a major threat to coastlines across the world, but it shows the future path other ice shelves could take: the unpinning of the ice sitting on land, which can activate the ice that rests on bedrocks and make it unstable, eventually forcing it to float and melt because of the continuously warming oceans.

This scenario appears more likely after US President Donald Trump pulled out of the Paris climate change agreement, meaning that, instead of controlling emissions, the United States will now release more toxic gases into the atmosphere and thus accelerate climate change.

In terms of plastic, some countries, including China, have introduced legislation forbidding supermarkets and grocery stores from providing plastic carrier bags to customers for free, in an effort to reduce the use of plastic bags. Sadly, such legislation has not succeeded in reducing the use of plastic bags, simply because they are cheap.

Perhaps the time has come to include the environmental costs and raise the price of plastic bags in order to curb their use and reduce the dumping of plastic into the oceans.

China and some other countries and regions are now at the forefront of the fight against climate change. Sadly, though, their efforts may not be enough if the world continues on the current trajectory of economic development, which rests on a continuous increase in profits.

That we can still prevent the world from this spiraling out of control because of increasing exploitation of natural resources and dumping of waste into landfills and water bodies is something we already know.

It's an irony that we know what the solutions for most of our problems are, yet we continue doing just the opposite. We have to curb climate change to slowdown, if not stop, the melting of ice sheets and stop dumping plastic in the oceans. Otherwise, more plastic than fish in our oceans will add to the problem of rising water levels and fast-receding coastlines.

The author is a senior editor with China Daily. Contact the writer at oprana@hotmail.com.

(China Daily Africa Weekly 06/30/2017 page12)