Oceanites — For Penguins, Science, and Climate Awareness

Founded in 1987, Oceanites, Inc. is a US-based §501(c)(3) nonprofit environmental and scientific organization focusing on climate change research and related education (www.oceanites.org).

Oceanites maintains the Antarctic continent-wide penguin database that everyone relies upon upon (http://www.penguinmap.com) and publishes annual State of Antarctic Penguins reports (https://oceanites.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/SOAP-2020.pdf).

The changes we’ve described in the vastly warmed Antarctic Peninsula are stark: Over more than six decades, this region has warmed by a harmful 3˚C (5˚F) year-round and in winter by a more frightening 5˚C (9˚F). In other words, the penguins we study are already enduring the damaging consequences of climate change that are quickly coming our way.

And therein lies our concern.

One species (the gentoo penguin) is thriving, increasing its numbers and expanding its breeding territory, while populations of two other species (the Adélie and chinstrap penguins) have drastically declined. Using our scientific findings and our understanding as a springboard, we therefore ask a remarkably simple question:

Are we going to successfully adapt and survive like the gentoo penguins, or will humanity and living plants and animals suffer and cease to be?

Today, too many people are disengaged from the reality that we are essentially no different than penguins. We breathe the same air. We have the same necessities of life. We are biological creatures, and we cannot sustain ourselves without food to eat, safe homes, a disease-free and healthy environment, and retaining the ability to produce kids and grandkids.

Oceanites’ unique science-based outreach complements and works hand-in-hand with other organizations by using our marquee, charismatic, study animals to engage more and more people in an informed-and fact-based climate policy debate about the painfully warm future that no-doubt lies ahead.

Climate change affects everything in our lives—our health, the air we breathe, the water we drink, energy, agriculture, construction, health care, manufacturing, and transportation. And it most deleteriously and disproportionally affects those of us who are less privileged and economically and socially disadvantaged and those people who live in substandard conditions or in vulnerable locations around the world.

Donations assist our data collection and enable a more substantial distribution of our children’s e-book about climate change, Ron Counts Penguins (https://oceanites.org/ron-counts-penguins/), advance our climate outreach via social media, and further the analyses we’ve begun to distinguish the direct and interactive effects of climate change vis-à-vis fishing, tourism, and other human activities on the fragile Antarctic ecosystem.