December 9, 2016 — LONG BRANCH, N.J. — For Tom Fote, of Toms River, the decline of the lobster industry in New Jersey is proof that ocean warming is having big environmental and economic effects.
“I manage lobsters, and we saw what happened in the last 20 years. We had a huge population of lobster that grew in the Mid-Atlantic. Now it’s starting to collapse,” said Fote, who is one of three New Jersey commissioners on the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.
He told panelists at the 12th Annual Future of the Ocean Symposium, focused on priorities for the Trump administration and Congress at Monmouth University on Wednesday, that the water off New Jersey has become too warm for lobsters.
Fishermen need help dealing with the effects of climate change on their industry, he said.
Panelists at the symposium included former New Jersey Governor and federal Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christine Todd Whitman and Donald E. Boesch, president of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science in Cambridge, Md.
“If I were to say one thing to the incoming administration and to the president-elect, it’s, ‘Listen to your daughter.’ Ivanka believes in climate change,” said Whitman of Donald Trump’s daughter and adviser. “It has real everyday implications to our lives, and to national safety. It is a national security issue.”