What are plankton?
Plants (phytoplankton) and animals (zooplankton) are included in the term plankton, which comes from the Latin word for “ocean drifter”. Copepods are zooplankton from the Subphylum Crustacea; there are 13,000 Copepod species; and this is also the name of our research vessel. We are the only Copepod yacht in the world.
Our vision and mission is to restore the health of our oceans, mitigate climate change, and return our planet to its natural state prior to the Chemical Revolution, which began in the 1950s with the production of toxic chemicals and plastic.
Marine plankton are the planet’s lungs, but we have polluted the oceans and poisoned more than half of all life. Currently, plankton is dying at a 1% annual rate; by 2045, nearly 90% will be gone. We will also lose all whales, birds, and seals, as well as the food supply for 3 billion people. We will have runaway climate change because the plant’s life support system will be destroyed. The GOES Foundation’s mission is to eliminate microplastics, partially combusted carbon, and toxic chemical pollution from the oceans.
Few people have heard of marine Copepods, which are tiny marine insects measuring about 1mm in size. They are the most numerous animal on the planet, with more mass than all terrestrial animals combined; they are the greatest Carbon Bank, and our best hope for preventing climate change.
Copepods
5 gigatons of these 1mm-sized zooplankton called COPEPODS live in all the world’s Oceans. This is equivalent to 17 million 747 jets, and if you laid the jets end to end, they would go around the planet 31 times.
The copepods migrate from around 200m below the ocean surface every night to feed on plants (phytoplankton) at the surface. It is the greatest mass migration of animals on the planet, and it happens twice a day. The vertical motion of the copepods moves just about as much water as the moon and the tides.
The copepods eat 30 times more carbon than humanity generates from burning fossil fuels, and about 6%, or 3 gigatons, of their dead bodies and poop end up in the world’s largest carbon bank, the Abyss.
Yet humanity has wiped out more than 50% of marine plankton productivity over the last 70 years due to toxic forever chemical, micro-plastic and partially combusted carbon particle pollution. We have also wiped out 50% of Arctic krill, which are just as important. and we are now even contemplating dredging the ocean floor!
We would not have had climate change if we had not poisoned and destroyed most of the world’s oceans. Even if we had commercially fished more sensibly, we would not have had climate change. The loss of ecosystem services and carbon sequestration from overfishing is equivalent to 100% of carbon from the burning of fossil fuels.
By 2045, the destruction will be complete unless we act now to stop the inevitable annihilation of nature and life on Earth. Let’s put things into perspective, in comparison to protecting nature, carbon mitigation, windmills and electric cars are almost a joke.
Bioclimatic climate change: this report provides what we consider to be the most accurate mechanism for climate disruption, and it’s not carbon dioxide; https://lnkd.in/ev6_2cXN
THE BAD NEWS
NASA’s satellite imaging states that the mass of phytoplankton plants has been reducing by 1% year on year over the last 20 years. Research by Dalhousie University, published in NATURE, confirms a reduction of more than 40% from 1950’s (Up to 2012).
Plankton provide up to 90% of our oxygen and remove the majority of our carbon dioxide. They account for 90% of all biological productivity on the planet. Every year, roughly 1% of all life on Earth dies.
We will have lost 80%-90% of all plankton by 2045, and the oceans will become more acidic, with a pH of 7.95. We will then lose all remaining whales, seals, birds, and fish, as well as a food supply for 2 billion people. Life on Earth will change; indeed, life on Earth may become impossible.
We cannot survive without healthy oceans, and common sense tells us that we must stop poisoning them with toxic chemicals and plastic. We would not have had elevated CO2 and climate change if we had not killed more than half of the plankton with toxic chemicals since the 1950s chemical revolution.
Invasive alien species are a serious threat to the planet: 4 key messages for Africa
When it comes to our planet’s deteriorating health, the dominant focus has been on rising carbon dioxide levels caused by the use of fossil fuels. We must reduce carbon emissions while also eliminating toxic chemical pollution. The oceans are the planet’s lungs, but since the 1950s and the production of herbicides and pesticides, the oceans have been suffocating under a toxic chemical cocktail. Every type of household cleaner and personal care product contains marine toxic chemicals. Thousands of different toxic chemicals are now being manufactured around the world, killing plankton and impeding their ability to produce oxygen and remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
IF WE HAD NOT POISONED THE OCEANS, WE COULD HAVE PREVENTED CLIMATE CHANGE.
It is impossible to overestimate the importance of marine plankton in the maintenance and now precarious balance of life on Earth. We can all see the loss of phytoplankton, the decrease in oxygen production, and the well-documented CO2 increase. Our oceans are already becoming more acidic, and climate change is accelerating much faster than predicted. Oils and surfactants produced by marine plankton form the SML surface micro layer, which regulates water evaporation. The primary GHG is water vapour in the atmosphere, which accounts for 70% of all GHGs greenhouse gases. CO2 is a minor gas.
WE MUST RESTORE OUR OCEANS.
It’s not just about saving whales and dolphins; we can’t live if we continue to poison them. If we do not address this, they will become too acidic, resulting in a cascade failure of the global ecosystem. Life on Earth will become impossible unless you have an oxygen tank strapped to your back! We will reach this tipping point within the next 25 years if current rates of decline continue. Unless we act now, it will happen quickly and irreversibly, resulting in runaway climate change and mass starvation on a global scale.
THE GOOD NEWS
If we consider all terrestrial life on land, it takes approximately 60 years to double in mass and lock out carbon. The majority of terrestrial ecology is in balance; for example, when a tree grows, it removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but when it dies, it releases the same amount of carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere. As a result, mature forests like the Amazon are carbon neutral, unless they are cut down and burned, in which case they add about 10% to the world’s carbon budget.
Only out-of-balance ecosystems, such as marshlands, wetlands, peat bogs, and mangrove swamps, sequester carbon. All terrestrial carbon sequestration occurs in these environments.
The deep ocean is by far the largest carbon bank on the planet. When marine life dies, it falls into the abyss and is trapped for thousands of years. The good news is that most marine life is less than 1mm in size and has a doubling time of only three days.
If we remove the toxic brakes on marine life, the oceanic ecosystems and all marine life will recover quickly.
Universal sea change necessitates global participation. AND it’s simple for you to assist. Whether you’re in a position of power, sailing the seas, or simply want to change a few bad purchasing habits and help protect the world you live in, it’s time to make a change — go non-toxic!
The GOES Foundation is acting quickly to lead the necessary and universal sea change required to address climate change. We are working around the world to stem the toxic tide that is polluting our oceans.
GOES involves people and organisations at all levels of society, from children to world leaders and daring adventurers who sail across the oceans at high and low latitudes to collect plankton samples.
GOES employs all available digital technology and artificial intelligence (AI) tools to demonstrate the urgent need to eliminate all toxic chemicals, hazardous waste, and plastics from homes and industry.
We should simply stop using highly toxic chemicals as a precautionary measure or as a reality check. GOES will collect thousands of samples in order to provide irrefutable evidence to policymakers, allowing them to make faster decisions and get these chemicals out of our lives.
Copepod photo of the Ria Formosa in Southern Portugal, one of the last remaining sea-horse sanctuaries
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