Oysters on Acid

Billions of baby oysters in the Pacific inlets here are dying and Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington is busy spreading the bad news.

“It used to be the canary in the coal mine,” Mr. Inslee said in a recent interview. “Now it’s the oyster in the half shell. You can’t overstate what this means to Washington.”

Mr. Inslee, who is campaigning for his agenda across the state this summer with oyster farmers in tow, is trying to position himself as America’s leading governor in the climate change fight. But Mr. Inslee does not have the support of the majority of the Washington State Senate, particularly those conservative lawmakers from the rural inland … NY Times: Davenport

This is a strangely snarky report on Inslee using out of state money to get his ideas out — after out-of-staters have poured billions into the political troughs to do just the opposite, deny and define down the dangers of climate change.  In this year of WW I centenary it’s like complaining about French taxi drivers carrying soldiers to the front after the Germans have poured across the border….

For more, here’s a Science Daily article:

Marine researchers have definitively linked the collapse of oyster seed production at a commercial oyster hatchery in Oregon to an increase in ocean acidification.