The Last Oyster Haul?

Common Dreams - Thanks to greenhouse gas emissions, it's looking like my days as a commercial fisherman are numbered.

I've been working the sea on-and-off my whole life. At 15 years old I quit high school to work the lobster boats out of Lynn, MA; later I fished cod and crab boats on the Bering Sea. As over-fishing decimated the cod stocks, I headed back home to Newfoundland to try my hand as a fish farmer growing halibut and salmon.

Now I'm an oyster man, growing 100,000 organic oysters a year on a 40-acre plot in the Long Island Sound. I see myself as a new breed of green fisherman, who have shifted from hunter-gatherers trolling the seas in search of declining fish stocks, to ocean-based farmers, sustainably growing shellfish on small plots of ocean acreage for local markets. (Oysters rank as one of the top "super green seafoods" by the Environmental Defense Fund.)

But now, just as I've regained my green sea legs, scientists tell me that in the coming decades I won't be able to make a living growing oysters anymore. They tell me greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels are turning the oceans acidic, and oysters, already fickle little creatures, are likely to be the first victims. Read more.