Racing Extinction

486 00:29:44,407 --> 00:29:45,657 it doesn't all stay there. 487 00:29:46,993 --> 00:29:50,121 Between a third and a half gets absorbed by the oceans. 488 00:29:51,957 --> 00:29:53,958 The CO2 reacts with water 489 00:29:54,167 --> 00:29:55,876 to form something called carbonic acid, 490 00:29:57,128 --> 00:29:59,212 and each year, the ocean becomes more and more acidic. 491 00:30:00,923 --> 00:30:03,134 If you want to know what that does, 492 00:30:03,719 --> 00:30:06,261 get a seashell and drop it in, 493 00:30:06,512 --> 00:30:08,263 ...you know, a glass of vinegar. 494 00:30:12,978 --> 00:30:17,606 A whole variety of creatures will simply 495 00:30:17,691 --> 00:30:21,486 dissolve into the acid ocean that we have created. 496 00:30:26,450 --> 00:30:28,659 There's massive death in the oceans. 497 00:30:30,287 --> 00:30:31,828 It's already started. 498 00:30:32,455 --> 00:30:34,582 Well, it's not only started, it's well underway. 499 00:30:36,460 --> 00:30:37,751 Those are larvae? 500 00:30:37,836 --> 00:30:39,628 Yeah. See the little... 501 00:30:39,712 --> 00:30:41,130 The brown smudge? 502 00:30:41,214 --> 00:30:42,381 Yeah, yeah. 503 00:30:43,383 --> 00:30:46,594 Each year, we harvest seven to ten billion oyster larvae... 504 00:30:46,677 --> 00:30:50,056 ...that we send out to growers throughout the Pacific northwest. 505 00:30:51,266 --> 00:30:54,477 I still remember the day all of the larvae essentially 506 00:30:54,560 --> 00:30:56,645 in our entire hatchery were on the bottom of the tanks. 507 00:30:57,439 --> 00:31:00,316 So around six billion larvae all died in a single day. 508 00:31:04,946 --> 00:31:06,571 That deep-ocean water 509 00:31:06,656 --> 00:31:09,157 off the coast of Washington and Oregon 510 00:31:09,451 --> 00:31:11,618 comes into the hatchery intakes, 511 00:31:12,703 --> 00:31:14,579 ...and they can't grow their shell. 512 00:31:14,664 --> 00:31:16,249 lt's dissolving faster than they can grow it. 513 00:31:19,001 --> 00:31:21,503 It seemed outlandish to think that the ocean 514 00:31:21,880 --> 00:31:24,548 could be acidified enough to cause these kinds of problems. 515 00:31:24,633 --> 00:31:26,800 It just seemed like something from the distant future 516 00:31:26,884 --> 00:31:29,135 and nothing we ever had to pay attention to. 517 00:31:31,807 --> 00:31:33,974 The rate of change that we're seeing in the ocean 518 00:31:34,101 --> 00:31:37,435 and the change that it's gonna create in our food chain... 519 00:31:37,938 --> 00:31:41,022 it's gonna be dramatic, and it's gonna be in our lifetimes. 520 00:31:42,651 --> 00:31:44,026 The things that we're used to eating 521 00:31:44,193 --> 00:31:46,028 may not be available anymore, 522 00:31:46,113 --> 00:31:47,779 and we may need to transition to, you know, 523 00:31:47,864 --> 00:31:49,740 eating jellyfish or something like that. 524 00:31:50,491 --> 00:31:51,784 Start a new trend. 525 00:31:58,500 --> 00:31:59,916 It sounds a bit silly, 526 00:32:00,001 --> 00:32:03,296 "Change your diet and save the planet" 527 00:32:03,922 --> 00:32:07,924 But if humans could become vegetarians now, 528 00:32:08,009 --> 00:32:09,719 you would make a massive difference. 529 00:32:10,846 --> 00:32:12,430 By far and away, 530 00:32:12,513 --> 00:32:16,308 the biggest factor in terms of this mass extinction 531 00:32:16,602 --> 00:32:19,936 is destroying natural habitat or converting natural habitat 532 00:32:20,021 --> 00:32:21,355 into land for food. 533 00:32:23,232 --> 00:32:25,734 The more dependent we are on meat, milk, and eggs, 534 00:32:26,319 --> 00:32:28,988 the greater the CO2 and methane emissions. 535 00:32:31,907 --> 00:32:34,910 Cattle and Brahmanas of all kind 536 00:32:35,953 --> 00:32:41,416 produce methane as a byproduct of breaking down grass 537 00:32:41,626 --> 00:32:43,877 and other things that they feed on. 538 00:32:48,424 --> 00:32:49,884 So, the contractions 539 00:32:49,968 --> 00:32:52,510 are pushing this gas out from the stomach, 540 00:32:53,763 --> 00:32:55,640 going through here and the one-way valve and into that? 541 00:32:55,723 --> 00:32:57,516 Yes. And after this, we collect inside the bag. 542 00:32:57,976 --> 00:32:59,769 So, how long has that bag been collecting gas? 543 00:32:59,853 --> 00:33:01,144 Only two hours. 544 00:33:02,189 --> 00:33:05,816 Methane is something like 22 times more potent 545 00:33:06,942 --> 00:33:09,487 as a climate-changing gas than is CO2, 546 00:33:09,570 --> 00:33:11,946 so it doesn't take very much methane to make a difference. 547 00:33:13,825 --> 00:33:17,202 A cow can basically fill up a 55-gallon garbage bag 548 00:33:17,287 --> 00:33:19,288 full of methane every day. 549 00:33:21,415 --> 00:33:24,626 One cow's not a problem, but now we h