Let me explain: Octopuses are ridiculously smart. They can solve puzzles and mazes and have been shown to have both short-term and long-term memory. In captivity, they have broken out of their aquariums to go look for food, then proceeded to return to their aquariums. They can distinguish between shapes and patterns. They can use tools. Beyond that, they are just interesting in general. They can change color and texture (which is pretty amazing to watch close up), they have this sensory thing in their head that always lets them know where their body is in relation to a horizontal plane, and most of them have no bones or anything hard (besides their beak) so they can squeeze through these impossibly small spaces.
Octopuses are pretty awesome.
What does an octopus have to do with environmental policy and lifestyles? Simple: water. Octopuses live in it, you drink it, the plants need it, the atmosphere has it...water's important. In my opinion, it is the most important, most terrifying challenge facing environmental politics...and beyond politics, our own, everyday lives.
This past week was actually World Water Week, so this is wonderfully relevant.
It is estimated, according to the UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme), that in Africa alone, over 300 million people could be living in water-stressed countries. Water-stress means simply: not enough water. That doesn't mean there isn't plenty of water, but it may be contaminated, it may be mismanaged, it may be any number of things. This map from BBC shows a pretty interesting look at water-stressed countries over the past 60 years: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7821082.stm
1.8 million children under 5 will die from water-related illnesses each year.
1.1 billion people lack access to improved water supply. 2.6 billion lack access to improved sanitation (and sanitation and clean water largely go hand in hand).
The statistics on water use and supply are quite staggering. We use water for everything. Everything. For agriculture, for washing, for drinking. Without access to water, we all suffer. Even here, in the United States, we suffer already. Look at California (where I'm from): Central Valley of California is one of the largest agricultural production centers in the world. Due to bad water management, the overall yield of the hundreds of different types of crops that the valley produces has gone down drastically - and the farmers are hurting because of it. Not just Big Ag farms, but the small, family farms have had to cut down on the numbers of trees in their orchards, the amount of cattle on their lands. And don't get me started on L.A....which would be screwed if Nevada ever said, "Sorry, we're gonna keep Lake Mead for ourselves over here."
Looking beyond even trying to sustainably manage water, whether from prevention of further pollution as well as the cleaning of contaminated water...looking into our oceans, our fisheries, our ice, we've got more issues.
People LOVE to eat fish, even my good friend the octopus (who I will admit is very tasty). People love to eat fish so much...we're killing them all off. This nice little graphic (I love graphics) shows how we were doing with natural fisheries in 2004: http://www.unep.org/dewa/vitalwater/jpg/0314-fishcatch-EN.jpg. That basically shows we like to catch fish. I mean, China is crazy with the fish! Both the catching it in the wild and with fish farms! Insane.
But we're fishing like fish are going out of style...or just out of existence. That's not a very sustainable viewpoint. We're exhausting something around 3/4 of our world fish stock, and as result, because we've essentially overfished all the big predators (hey tuna) that we like to eat, we're going lower down on the fish eating food chain to catch smaller fish. None of this is sustainable, none of this is rational.
Looking at our ice: It's melting. Mostly. Not all, but a lot of it. Ice shelves are breaking off from their landmasses like angsty teenagers trying to prove their independence. Except in this case, these icy teenagers aren't going to go home again. Glaciers are receding faster that...well not really that fast, but they are disappearing left and right. And while you may think, "HEY! More water!" It isn't that simple (remember the whole water management thing?). Climate change means more ice breaking off, as well as more droughts, more hurricanes, more storms...just not in the places you'd expect, or how you'd expect.
Don't get me started on coastal development either.
In species conservation, they have this thing called a "keystone" species. Basically, this species acts as an indicator for the rest of the ecosystem - if it is doing well, then you can be relatively sure that the rest of the ecosystem is doing alright. Water acts as a keystone issue for the planet. If it is doing alright, in terms of how it is used and abused, then we and everything else on the planet, can think we're doing swell. ...Um. ...We are in trouble.
And so are those lovable cephalopods, the octopuses.
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