THE SHELLFISH GROWERS CLIMATE COALITION: A BUSINESS PARTNERSHIP OF 100+ COMPANIES TAKING ACTION TO SECURE A LOW CARBON FUTURE FOR THE BENEFIT OF SHELLFISH AND THE ENVIRONMENTS THEY DEPEND UPON

The Shellfish Growers Climate Coalition is a partnership launched in April 2018 by business owners who grow, harvest, prepare, and serve shellfish, in collaboration with The Nature Conservancy. Member businesses recognize that climate change threatens their businesses and food production for a rapidly growing human population. As of April 2019, more than 100 shellfish growers, hatchery operators, wholesalers, retailers, and restaurants from twenty U.S. states and Canada have joined the Coalition. The Coalition is dedicated to engaging consumers and policy makers to secure a low carbon future for the benefit of shellfish and the environments they depend on.

Members of the Coalition recognize that human impact on the Earth's climate system is well-documented and it's happening right now. Carbon dioxide emissions are absorbed by the oceans, changing the chemical composition of the seawater. A decade ago the Pacific northwest shellfish industry experienced a crisis as production of oyster larvae failed in two of the major hatcheries and in the wild. Ocean chemistry altered by dissolved carbon dioxide (ocean acidification) was identified as the culprit. Acidification also impacted at least one hatchery in the Northeast at about the same time. Today, satisfactory larval production in these hatcheries depends on monitoring water chemistry and buffering the incoming seawater to ensure that the proper conditions exist for shellfish larvae to grow their shells. Some growers have shifted hatchery capacity to less impacted locations to avoid the effects of ocean acidification.

Other climate-related impacts on our industry include:

• Increasing global temperatures have been strongly linked to growth in Vibrio bacteria abundance, resulting in rising costs of control measures to ensure shellfish safety.
• Storm damage from heightened winds and flooding, and storm tides exacerbated by rising sea levels, have severely damaged hatcheries and nurseries and can disrupt the transportation  and sale of our products. Scientists increasingly can quantitatively attribute increased storm intensity to global warming.
• Increased stormwater runoff can mean lower pH water and costly harvest closures to ensure shellfish safety.
• Fluctuation in salinity levels can result in excessive shellfish mortality.

All these impacts on shellfish farms add up to the need to take action to address climate change. Therefore, m embers of the Coalition agree that:

• Human impact on the Earth's climate system is well documented, scientifically understood and profound.
• Taking action to address climate change is imperative to secure the viability of our businesses, our communities, and the natural resources they depend upon.
• Improving people's understanding of climate change and its impact on our businesses represents an important way to promote and enact climate policies that guide the U.S. to a low carbon future.
• Enacting policies that reduce carbon emissions and encourage low-carbon choices are crucial to a low-carbon future.

Based in these climate change impacts and agreed upon principles,  the Coalition has  taken actions with consumers and public policy makers to achieve its goal. These actions include educational events at food festivals, industry and scientific conferences, and online, and actively supporting policy measures at the state and federal level to address climate change.