by
Published by N Current
When you hear about how the Earth’s temperatures change and rise, what do you think of? The raging wildfires erupting on the West Coast that turn skies blazing orange and pollute people’s homes with suffocating smoke? Or do you think about how we see less and less snow here every year? Do you even remember the last time Nantucket had a good, proper snow that stuck for more than just a few hours?
Regardless of what you may conjure up in your head when you think of climate change and its effect on Nantucket, there’s no denying that its effect on this island has been growing with every passing moment, especially considering that we’re an island. Looking into the ocean that surrounds Nantucket, many can only imagine what’s bound to happen to the island in just a few decades–the sea level will rise, and in time, Nantucket will become a modern Atlantis. But what of the sea creatures that live in the surrounding waters? How will they be affected by our ever-changing climate?
I’ve had this question ever since I was a little younger than I am now, specifically, what would happen to the jellyfish that I was so fond of? Would they melt into the ocean? Of course, that isn’t what would really happen, but what would happen to those jellyfish? Surprisingly, I’d learned that they actually thrive even more, as they favor warmer waters. On top of this, even if there was less oxygen in the future oceans, it was discovered that jellyfish are remarkably resilient to low-oxygen environments, really driving home that jellyfish “go with the flow”. However, this only led me to yet another question, more so a thought: How could we learn from the jellyfish that seem so perfectly invulnerable to the worsening state of the environment?