Life-giving oceans facing a tsunami of destruction

Saturday, June 02, 2012

Callum Roberts warns we are destroying our seas and need to urgently change our ways. Val Cummins argues that we should heed his warnings

Ocean of Life: How Our Seas Are Changing
Callum Roberts
Allen Lane, £25.00

CALLUM ROBERTS’ Ocean of Life is a tour de force of the issues and challenges we face with respect to maintaining one of Earth’s most critical ecosystems — our oceans.

The narrative style makes the book an appealing read to anyone with an interest in the future of our planet. Callum is a renowned academic with a unique ability to communicate in a language that is both universally accessible and compelling. He is professor of marine conservation at the University of York, where his research focuses on threats to, and the management of, marine ecosystems. His depth of knowledge on the subject of ocean life shines throughout the book, which is subtly delivered in two halves. The first section of the book deals with the physical, chemical and biological context that shapes the ocean environment of today.

The story starts by tracing 4.5bn years of geological formations that gave rise to the 360m of square kilometres of oceans that cover the planet. Callum is skilled at putting often-incomprehensible numbers into perspective. For example, he explains that at the scale of the planet, the oceans form a layer only as thick as the skin of an apple. This gives the reader a sense of the fragility of the system of circulation, water quality and food chains upon which we depend.

Roberts describes human influences like a green wave, “scarcely perceptible at first, but slowly lifting and steepening over the centuries to burst across the globe in the last 60 years”. Planetary remodelling did not stop at the shore, but came to impact on the sea. There is no precedent for the speed and variety of changes underway today, save perhaps the asteroid impact that ended the reign of dinosaurs 65m years ago.

The author takes the reader by the hand to describe the complex system of inter-relations between the natural functions of the oceans, which have evolved over billions of years, and anthropogenic, or man-made, impacts. Callum covers the breadth of human impacts over the last century which are having a transformative effect on the oceans, including over-fishing, sea-level rise, ocean acidification, pollution, marine debris, marine noise, invasive species and viruses. He peppers each chapter with references to a myriad of case studies from around the world. For example, he discusses the implications of the melting of the Greenland ice sheets on low-lying coasts and cities, the depletion of salmon in the Puget Sound, red tides in Florida, the loss of coral reefs in the Great Barrier Reef, upwelling off the coast of Namibia, Baltic Sea dead zones, and alien species in San Francisco Bay.

Climate change sceptics or converts alike will find many parts of the book a sobering read. There is still so much that we don’t know about how the oceans work, which make the management of the oceans all the more challenging.

Despite widespread awareness across society of problems about rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the problem of ocean acidification only came to light as recently as 2003 in a study in Nature by American scientists. The chapter on corrosive seas looks at various scenarios where increasing volumes of carbon dioxide are dissolved in the sea, making the sea more acidic, and causing as of yet unknown problems for marine life. According to Roberts, ocean acidification is en route to becoming one of humankind’s most serious impacts on the sea.

In addition to his scientific activities, Callum is very much the embodiment of a practitioner. He has been actively engaged in campaigning for the creation of Marine Protected Areas to conserve sensitive marine habitats. His first-hand experience of working at this level provides him with a pragmatic view of how society should respond to ocean management issues.

The second part of the book is focused on the types of institutional arrangements that should perhaps take precedence to provide solutions to what are increasingly global ocean problems. This is far from a dry thesis on governance. Again, Callum succeeds in engaging with the reader through the provision of multiple examples of what does, or doesn’t work, as he makes a strong effort to present two sides of every story.

Roberts points towards nature’s resilience in surviving planetary upheavals. Organisms have adapted to extreme conditions in the past. For example, shrimp and other forms of marine life live in extreme conditions, under extreme pressure, temperature and in complete darkness along the hydrothermal vents in the deep ocean. Life has endured through ice ages, through parched desert environments, and when the atmosphere has been choked with carbon dioxide and methane gases.

However, he observes that the ability of plants and animals to adapt to environmental changes is an evolutionary response that occurs over generations. The difference now is that evolution can’t keep pace with the breakneck rate of change induced by modern human activities.

The question then is that, if our world as we know it is set on a course of destruction, why aren’t we altering our path? Roberts provides some depth on this issue, and points to reasons other than conspiracy theories about the “bleeding heart greenies or scientists who have drunk too deeply from the cup of environmentalism” suggested by climate sceptics.

The environmentalists’ paradox helps to explain why we ignore some of the stark warning coming from the planet. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, a comprehensive review of the state of the world environment, showed that indicators of human well-being, such as childhood mortality, access to education and gender equality, have improved globally, while environmental deterioration prevails around us.

While our exposure to natural disasters has increased, (remember Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans), our ability to plan, manage and respond to such incidents has improved. As a result, the risk of death from natural catastrophe has gone down globally. Secondly, technological innovation increases our ability to cope. For example, if food production falters in a region, we can ship supplies from other regions of the world in our open global economy.

It is human ingenuity and technological innovation that Roberts presents as a reason to believe humankind can deal with the full wrath of the planetary response to centuries of exploitation when the full extent of nature’s payback comes our way. The latter part of the book focuses on why there is good reason for hope about the future. Roberts comes across as an optimistic, pragmatic realist. These characteristics strongly influence his approach.

In his telling of the story, he doesn’t shy away from describing the severity of our impact on natural resources or the seriousness of our on-going neglect of nature’s warning signs.

However, he appears at pains to present a balanced viewpoint, and his optimistic nature helps him to deliver a book that interprets the harsh reality of the science, while not shying away from presenting a reassuring viewpoint about our ability to cope, if we act now.

For the sake of our oceans and our planet, we should hope that this expert’s outlook is right!

* Dr Valerie Cummins is an Eisenhower Fellow 2012 and IMERC Director at the National Maritime College of Ireland.

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