Margot Cormier Splane Internationally Exhibited Artist

Pandora's Trojan Horse

2009 27 x 44" ~ 68 x 113 cm Acrylic on Canvas

This painting evolved from strong concerns I have about the implications of Ocean Change and Climate Change. Over many hundreds of millions of years, plants have photosynthesized giving off oxygen and absorbing carbon dioxide. These plants and animals then died and their remains fell to the ocean bottom or the forest floor, trapping the CO2 they had absorbed. Over hundreds of millions of years this decaying matter became the oil, gas, and coal deposits we rely on today. The problem is that when we burn fossil fuels, in a very short time, we release trapped CO2 that accumulated in these deposits over many, many, millions of years.

Rising CO2 levels have caused ocean warming and increased glacial melt. Eventually if this continues it will alter ocean currents, which will not only have a dramatic effect on the world’s climate, but it could cause oxygen poor water in the ocean’s depths to rise to the surface, which would devastate ocean food chains. About 1/3 of the CO2 we pump into the atmosphere gets absorbed by the oceans and in this process turns into carbonic acid. This all adds up to a three pronged attack on the earth’s lungs. Plankton which floats on the ocean surface creates about 2/3 of the oxygen needed for life on earth. Ocean warming, changing currents, and acidification, are all harmful to plankton, and its ability to produce the oxygen we breathe.

There are no independent scientists doing research in the field of climate study who do not rate this problem as alarming. As with the tobacco lobby, it is short sighted governments, and corporate lobbies which benefit greatly from the status quo, who work very hard to sow the seeds of doubt and confusion.

Humanity has already made a difference by taking steps to protect the ozone layer we were destroying. Ocean change and climate change is a far more complex problem, but we cannot afford to continue to ignore it. We have only one planet to pass on to our descendants, let’s do this responsibly.

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