Oregon’s oyster industry, that is.  Peculiar currents off the Pacific northwest coast have been hauling up deep ocean waters heavily infused with carbon dioxide from fossil fuels burned 30 to 60 years ago.  (Isotope ratios date the carbon.)    

These waters are super-charged with carbon dioxide.  It’ll be 2050 before the rest of the ocean has concentrations this high. 2007 brought Oregon’s first oyster die-offs. The northwest’s shellfish industry is coping today with climate change the rest of the world will see in a few decades.  Continue reading →