Mercury levels in fish are rising despite reduced emissions by Riki Tanaka
New research suggests that warmer ocean waters on ecosystems can alter how much mercury builds up in seafood despite mercury emissions are decreasing around the world. When microorganisms consume mercury, the metal gets stored in their tissue, and as larger animals eat them, more and more metal gets stored in their bodies. Mercury poisoning can cause serious effects on our bodies because it damages the central nervous and digestive systems, causing cognitive damage, kidney failure, and possibly death. Researchers found out that the rise of seawater temperatures can be a cause of the increase of mercury levels in fish because warming waters increase fish acivity.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/mercury-levels-fish-are-rising-despite-reduced-emissions
How can this affect the environment and our society?
What can we do to lower the ocean temperature?
Who would be concerned about this?
This fish situation is going to effect the environment it's going to effect the food chains and effect the economy -jo
ReplyDeleteIt would be nice to know what exactly mercury is and how there is to be more and less of it. Maybe there is some way to treat the plankton and prevent it from spreading amongst the food chain. For now, it could be considered to not eat fish until it's resolved. - Grace Briggs
ReplyDeleteSome thing we could possibly do to lower the oceans temperature is to stop polluting the sea and dumping chemicals in there. I think that chemical dumping in the ocean is what causes the temperature to drop in the water. - Darren Madison
ReplyDeleteThis can effect us economically, the more fish that are contaminated with mercury, the more likely it is that these fish won't taste right and cause us illness, that is if they are caught before they die from mercury poisoning - Mitchell Shabansky
ReplyDeleteI think this can affect people because there's a lot of people who eat fish and if these ended up being part of that it could cause people to die if it rises too high which would affect the planet globally - Nathaniel H.
ReplyDeleteMercury levels in our body will definitely increase as we consume fish that carry it. If warming waters cause increased fish activity, then we need to reduce CO2 emissions to reduce global warming and ultimately reduce fish activity to deplete the amount of mercury getting into our body.
ReplyDeleteMercury is harmful to everyone and i think we should find a way to stop this, and we should warn people to stop eating fish's that have a high amount of mercury.
Delete- Anushka
This could greatly damage the fish industry and make companies loose thousands. If these fish are consuming more mercury, and we are eating the fish, that is almost like death dominos. There could be a new way to clean the fish out of the mercury, if that is even possible. -Tori Favazza
ReplyDeleteI don't think we can really do anything to lower the oceans temperature because there is just so much ocean and it would eventually just begin to warm again. This negatively impacts the wildlife in the ocean and us humans because people are getting sick from eating fish that are contaminated and fish are dying, which isn't good for the Earth -Andrew
ReplyDeleteI think this could really negatively affect our society, because if there were to be a large amount of mercury contained in a fish, and a human ate the the human would be seriously in danger, and you could not predict is or prevent it. -Kaylyn
ReplyDeleteI think its almost impossible to lower the temperature of the ocean, and the fish are just going to get worse and it will effect the fish industry-Connor Ortmann
ReplyDeleteEveryone should be concerned about this. Mercury is poisonous to all people, especially expecting mothers and elderly people. Not fixing this issue will be extremely dangerous. Scientists need to find a way to prevent the mercury from being released into the ocean.-Haleigh Madi
ReplyDeleteLowering ocean temperatures is extremely difficult, and would have to happen over a long period of time, but we could start by reducing carbon emissions and tackling the global warming issue first. -Sawyer L
ReplyDeleteThis affects us because we eat those fish and that causes a lot more mercury to enter our bodies which is toxic. -Shannon Easley
ReplyDeletethis will effect us economically, the more fish with mercury the more people wont buy fish -brooke phelan
ReplyDeleteWhat can be done to change this? These fish with higher levels of mercury and not healthy for us to eat and that effects our health and our economy too because nobody will buy these fish. - Brandon Smith
ReplyDeleteI think the mercury level in fish causes significant damage to the ecosystem and people will not buy or eat seafood. - Riki Tanaka
ReplyDelete