plenty of fish
When we left Vancouver, our friends Mark and Stephanie gave us some money as a gift with specific instructions for spending it. Mark described a place in San Francisco that he had read about consisting of an aquarium, a biodome, and a planetarium under one roof and insisted that we visit it. Kevin and I forgot the name of the attraction, but intended on looking it up once we got settled here.
Yesterday morning over coffee, we were discussing weekend plans with our roommate and the latest houseguest (houseguests are a regular occurrence here). We had none and Paul was going to the California Academy of Sciences (the CalAcademy) with a friend. I asked what that was and Paul described it as an aquarium, a biodome, and a planetarium under one (green) roof. Assuming that this must be the place Mark referred us to, we went along.
The CalAcademy was great, especially the aquarium. The re-created tropical seascape reminded me of the course I took at McGill that involved two weeks in Barbados studying the coral reef ecosystem (Kevin claims that I only enrol in programs where I get credits to travel to warm destinations - I also went to Baja Mexico for a grad school course). Many of the fish were familiar, but many of the names had evaporated from my memory. Proof of the "if you don't use it, you lose it" principle.
The dark rooms of the aquarium were packed full of families (consequence of going on a weekend), including small children captivated by colourful fish schooling amongst the coral in the huge tanks. Unlike me, they had names for many of the fishees, such as Nemo and Dora.
Standing before the glass, mesmerized by the fish swimming to and fro in their limited habitat, I couldn't help but contemplate the potential for coral reefs to become artifacts in my lifetime, seen only in aquariums and natural history museums. The prospect of not being able to snorkel in natural living reef ecosystems with parrotfish, eels, butterflyfish, angelfish, urchins, groupers... the list goes on, is disturbing and depressing but highly likely, due in part to climate change:
It is clear that anthropogenic climate change is already negatively impacting the world’s corals and coral reefs. The threat will almost surely grow over the next several decades as the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide increases and ocean warming and acidification accelerate. Predicting future impacts of climate change on corals and coral reefs is complicated given all the uncertainty about the political response, future technologies, changes in human behavior, the earth climate system and the actual effects on reef inhabitants. But even conservative forecasts suggest that we could loose coral reef ecosystems by the end of the 21st century.Bruno, John (Lead Author); Mark McGinley (Topic Editor). 2008. "Coral reefs and climate change." In: Encyclopedia of Earth. Eds. Cutler J. Cleveland (Washington, D.C.: Environmental Information Coalition, National Council for Science and the Environment). [First published in the Encyclopedia of Earth December 19, 2007; Last revised August 26, 2008; Retrieved November 8, 2009]
We didn't make it into the biodome because of the long line, but I'm thinking we'll get a membership to the CalAcademy and go back.
