Giving Compass' Take:

• It's no surprise that the warming of the ocean caused by climate change is impacting the seafood industry, and crab fishermen in California are taking a stand. The lawsuit filed by The Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations is the first legal action by a private industry group seeking to hold the fossil fuel companies responsible for major losses attributed to global warming.

• How is global warming affecting other seafood industries and vice versa? Will this be a successful push for large oil corporations to take climate change seriously?

• Learn more about how climate change and the seafood industry are intertwined.

For the fourth-generation crab fisherman John Beardon, the warming of Pacific waters off the coast of California has meant toxic crabs, shortened fishing seasons and a near decimation of his livelihood as a crab boat captain. Now he would like to see the industry he says is responsible pay for the damage.

On Wednesday, associations representing California crab fishermen like Beardon filed suit against 30 fossil fuel companies seeking to make the companies pay for the harm global warming has caused to California’s fisheries. The suit demands that petroleum interests finance the changes that will be needed to sustain the crab fishing industry in the future.

“We just about can’t make a living fishing crabs any more,” said Beardon, who has seen the earnings he can make with his 35ft crab boat, Stormy II, cut in half in recent years because of the effects of ocean warming. “I’d like to see the industry that caused this take responsibility for that.”

Read the full article on global warming and the seafood industry by Erin McCormick at The Guardian.