Former Sen. Olympia Snowe said climate change is killing her New England fisheries.
The Maine Republican noted the Gulf of Maine shrimp fishery would be closed for the second consecutive year but said “it is unlikely to be the last” to close in New England as a result of climate change. Maine’s lobster harvest is now occurring farther north, near Canada, and a 2012 “ocean heat wave” spurring early spawning that led to a supply glut and price collapse.
“The message here is clear: climate change is taking dollars and jobs away from New England’s fishing communities,” Snowe said in an op-ed for Newsweek.
Last year was the hottest ever recorded globally, according to NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Ocean temperatures were their hottest ever at 1.03 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average of 60.9 degrees F.
Climate scientists have said the world’s oceans are heating up faster than ever before. That’s changed aquatic ecosystems in the United States, shifting habitats and migratory patterns for various sea life.
“Maine in particular is feeling this climate pinch: The water temperature in the Gulf of Maine increased eight times faster that [sic] the rest of the world’s oceans in recent years,” said Snowe, citing a 2014 study by the Gulf of Maine Research Institute.
The former senator implored lawmakers to support policies to slow greenhouse gas emissions scientists blame for global warming.
“As vigorous policy debates continue in Washington, the economic impact of addressing climate change and transitioning to a lower carbon economy is understandably a key issue — and one that is not the domain of one side versus the other,” she wrote.
Snowe, a moderate who retired in 2012, was one of the few Republicans who voted against a 2012 Senate bill to block Environmental Protection Agency regulations on power plant emissions of mercury and air toxics. Her op-ed comes after 15 Senate Republicans agreed that humans contribute to climate change, while five of them said humans “significantly” contribute.
