OCEAN 2.0
When I was born, in 1960, the ocean was still a mysterious and often frightening world, full of watery wildernesses few had seen because only a handful of scientists and adventurers had yet breathed underwater. The deepest spot in the ocean was plumbed that very year, but most of the vast depths remained unknown, and even on the surface sailors traveled thousands of miles without seeing a trace of humanity. As the space age dawned, many still scoffed at the idea that the ocean could be depleted of fish.
Those days are gone. The high seas are still a wilderness of sorts, as we realize when supertankers are hijacked and disappear seemingly into thin air. But the revolutions in technology that the space age ushered in have filled in nearly all the blank regions on the map. Many of us now have experienced the magic of the underwater world, some by scuba diving, the rest by pressing a remote-control button from the comfort of their couch. Robots prowl the deep-sea floor in search of rare metals. And fish can no longer hide from the military-inspired technology that routinely brings fresh seafood to our tables from the far corners of the globe. Dizzying advances in many fields of science have opened the ocean’s treasure chest and revealed its riches in more detail than was imaginable in the mid-twentieth century.
Most of us—more than seven in ten people on Earth—live within one hundred miles (160 kilometers) of a coast. But even in the continental interiors of Minneapolis and Mongolia, the unseen sea is central to human life and livelihoods. The ocean is one of Earth’s two lungs, its microscopic algae producing half the oxygen we breathe. In the process, these plants act as a biological pump, absorbing much of our combusted fossil carbon and sequestering it in the deep ocean. Similarly, we have the ocean to thank for taking the heat for us, absorbing 93 percent of the warming produced by our industrial metabolism and reducing climate change to a fraction of what it would otherwise be. Sea life is a key source of humanity’s protein, especially in the developing world—the average person on Earth eats twice as much fish as poultry and three times as much fish as beef. And the ocean connects us: sea shipping carries more than 90 percent of the trade generated by our appetites. If the ocean were a country, it would have the sixth-largest economy in the world.
But the ultimate sea change is now upon us. The signs are alarmingly familiar—declining fisheries, whirlpools of plastic debris, oxygen-starved dead zones, and more. So what are we going to do about it? Happily, there is light at the end of the tunnel, and if we can reach that source, it can guide us toward a soft landing in the brave new ocean. Finding and amplifying the bright spots will require deeper understanding both of the vast, interconnected ocean ecosystems that sustain us and of our own unique species, which now dominates their dynamics. In the past decade or so, the global community has recognized these challenges and risen to them with innovations in natural and social sciences, making progress on both fronts. Technological advances in particular have transformed environmental science and conservation in sometimes spectacular ways. One major impetus has been the satellite and geospatial technology that we now take for granted when navigating our cars to the soothing voice of Siri. Another is the flourishing of social media that allow scientists and members of the general public throughout the world to collaborate, advancing both innovation and democratic decision making. A striking example that unites these themes is the nonprofit SkyTruth’s online sharing of satellite imagery showing what’s happening in near-real time across the world’s oceans. By making this data publicly available, SkyTruth’s Global Fishing Watch program fosters crowdsourced identification of pirate fishing by illegal and disguised vessels—among the most pernicious threats to ocean life—and apprehension of the culprits. Crowdsourced satellite tracking has also shut down seismic surveys by a ship exploring for oil on the sensitive Mesoamerican Barrier Reef in violation of Belize law.
Satellites give us an unprecedented view of the ocean’s surface, but they can’t penetrate it. Many challenges still require boots on the ground—or fins in the water. Recognizing that there are too few professional marine biologists to cover the great expanses of the ocean, the Reef Life Survey program has engaged a large and enthusiastic community of recreational scuba divers, training them rigorously to census reef animals and habitats and logging surveys at more than four thousand sites worldwide to produce an unparalleled database on marine biodiversity. This coalition of scientist and citizen-scientist divers has gathered hard evidence documenting how marine ecosystems shift in response to climate change and showing that large reserves and enforced protection from fishing provide a major boost to ocean biodiversity.
The bright spots in ocean science and conservation are the result of purposeful actions, many of them necessitated by evidence of declining ecosystem services. But we can’t fix problems if we don’t see them in the first place. In our age of accelerating change, global real-time information is more important than ever to inform critical decisions. A special challenge is tracking the wildly diverse species and interactions that are the heart of functioning ecosystems. Building such a capacity requires innovations in both technology and the ways we interact with one another and the world around us. The Smithsonian’s Marine Global Earth Observatory (MarineGEO) program embodies that spirit, marshaling technological and social innovation together. It is building a networked community of scientists and volunteers around the world who combine next-generation DNA sequencing, drone-based habitat mapping, and other tools to create an open-access resource for understanding changing marine life and ecosystems.
Perhaps the brightest ray of hope for nature in the Anthropocene is that the current rapid pace of technological change is being paralleled by the rapid evolution of human attitudes in many areas—gender and race equality and animal welfare, among others. There are hints of a great acceleration in human awareness and engagement in safeguarding our planet. Environmental consciousness concerning the ocean took some time to awaken but has spread like wildfire in the age of social media. I am comforted by young people everywhere passionately wanting to change the world for the better and by the growing international agreement on climate action. Nearly one hundred countries have banned shark fishing or the sale of their fins, and many airlines now refuse to transport shark products. In 2015, more of Planet Earth was officially protected than in any other year in history, and most of that area—more than two million square miles (five million square kilometers)—was underwater.
Committing to a change in course that avoids massive disruption of human communities and economies is the central policy challenge of our era. Making that course correction will require harnessing and amplifying the passion and ingenuity already evident in current sustainability work. Although the Anthropocene ocean will be very different than the one we have known, there is still time to ensure that it will be healthy and productive. A fundamental transformation similar to that of the land surface has not yet happened in the sea, and the ocean’s big animals are mostly still with us. We need above all to transition to a carbon-neutral economy. And we must recognize that most of the ocean is no longer wilderness—it requires wise spatial planning, just like the land. That planning will depend on an intimate knowledge of how the ocean’s diverse and beautiful life-forms interact to create healthy ecosystems. We have a chance. But we don’t have time to waste.