Slate quotes Gill in article on Paris climate talks, fate of oceans
Jacquelyn Gill, a palaeoecologist at the University of Maine, was quoted in the Slate article, “Remember the Oceans! The most important consequence of the Paris climate talks will be the fate of the oceans.” More than 140 world leaders, including President Obama, are meeting in Paris for a two-week conference on climate change, according to the article. However, they won’t be discussing the effect of climate change on the world’s largest and most important ecosystem: the oceans, the article states. The author spoke with Gill for a perspective on mass extinctions. “Life is incredibly resilient, and it’s one of the things that gives me a lot of hope,” she said, “but at the same time, we are tweaking the knobs and dials of the planetary system in new ways and in much more rapid ways than it’s experienced in the past.” Barring relatively bold action in forums like the Paris meeting, Gill said she isn’t convinced that novel conservation methods will be enough to keep the oceans in a recognizable state by the end of the century, the article states. “There is such a thing as a point of no return in the environment,” she said. “My concern is, by the time we get governments and citizens on board, it’ll be too late.”