wiwith businesess down, yoyou k, considerabably, ss than 50%, it's almost at a break-even popoint for meme. i'm hanging in there. i'm still dodoing it. the economy is on everyone. you know, the gas stations, the markets, the hotels, state parks. cattonon: we've been susurveyine kelp foresest for the e last 20 years s now. we've seen n a seve decline of the kelp forest and severe impact to t the algal communities, and those are directly impacacting the abalone fishery because the abalone rely on the kelelp for food. so w w'e had 4 years of severe starvation conditions for abalone and other herbivores in the system, and we're seeing evidence of mass mortalitieies of the a abalone n the wild. so the kelp forest has declined dramatically, basically, because of this run of incredibly warm water we've had on the california coast. basically, you know, the warmest the california coast has gotten in recent history for the longest periodod of time. . so that is e first symptom of broader global change that we are expecting along the california coast. catton: ththis is what it lookos lilike to b

thatat many people on the west coast, if you're walking along a shore, they're the species that yoyou think k of as being sort off chararacteristically what t you would find on this shore. when an abalone or a clam is making its shell, it is essentially pulling components out of the water. it's pulling building blocks out of the water and making a hard part. and what ocean acidification does is it makes it harder for them to find those building blocks, so they expend more energy just trying to make a shell to protect themselves from a predator or a crashihing wave or whatever the oceaean is bringing. swezey: we're realizing that animals that build shells and hard parts take calcium and carbonate out of the water and build skeletons with it. the calcium carbonate is very sensitive to the ph of seawater, that it's less stable asas seawater becomomes more acacidi, and d we've begun to realalize t it's much hardeder for animals o build d their bodies in the firt place and kikind of maintain wht they already have, andnd that there's a bunch of sensitivities when they're very little. when they're k