December 11, 2013 — The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, representing nine states including Rhode Island, last week submitted comments in support of proposed carbon pollution rules for existing power plants to the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
The nine states have cut carbon dioxide emissions by 40 percent since 2005, and the states are encouraging EPA to view their success as a benchmark for national action.
Climate change can have a positive, negative or neutral effect on fish species with different tolerances.
URI Bay temperature studies confirm that the Bay has warmed 2 to 3 degrees, depending on time of year, over past 45 years.
In 2009, Professor Jeremy Collie of URI’s Graduate School of Oceanography said that the increase in temperature has created “big changes in the food web” of the Bay. Algae bloom that normally occurs in late winter and early spring has been delayed into the summer. As algae starts to die it uses oxygen in the water, and this combined with poor dissolved oxygen in portions of the Bay — particularly areas that do not get flushed regularly — has led to hypoxia (low water oxygen). Low or no oxygen has led to fewer fish in the area, and to fish kills which have occurred several times in the Bay.