Veteran marine biologist Sylvia Earle reacts to the World Ocean Assessment

Brut America

"The ocean is hurting."   The latest report on ocean health is out. For World Oceans Day, here's what veteran marine biologist Sylvia Earle had to say ...   Thanks to United Nations and the UN Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea.

Transcript

00:00That is truly shocking. What are we doing?

00:03The ocean is hurting.

00:05What are we thinking to allow this to happen on our watch?

00:20Dead zones are areas in the ocean where oxygen levels are too low to sustain life.

00:24The World Ocean Assessment found that the number of dead zones has nearly doubled in the last decade.

00:29Evidence in the Second World Ocean Assessment is shocking.

00:34I can't think of a better word.

00:36When I began exploring the ocean in the 1950s, there was no such thing as a dead zone.

00:42And now, there are hundreds.

00:44Part of it is because of what we're allowing to flow into the ocean,

00:48the fertilizer, the chemical pollution that destabilizes the natural systems.

00:53That means we aren't doing enough.

00:55Carbon sinks are areas that absorb more carbon than they release.

00:58The largest ones are found in the ocean.

01:00The World Ocean Assessment has found that the majority of the ocean's carbon sinks are threatened.

01:05Here's the thing that many people don't appreciate about the nature of the ocean.

01:09The ocean drives climate and weather,

01:12generates most of the oxygen in the atmosphere,

01:15accepts much of the carbon dioxide.

01:17We didn't know this when I was a kid.

01:20Our existence depends on a stable, healthy ocean.

01:25By taking life out of the ocean on an industrial scale,

01:30by disrupting the carbon capture and sequestration units that we call mangroves,

01:36marshes, seagrass meadows, kelp forests,

01:39we're creating an economic catastrophe

01:43and basically a life support catastrophe as well.

01:49The World Ocean Assessment has found that the proportion of heat content in the ocean

01:53has more than doubled since the 1990s,

01:55but that number only expected to rise.

01:57The amount of heat has doubled since 1990?

02:02Think about it.

02:04How does the ocean regulate and govern planetary climate?

02:10Polar ice has a remarkable capacity

02:13to serve as what some call the air conditioning system for the planet.

02:18And most of life on Earth likes it cold.

02:20Think about all the other forms of life on Earth.

02:23They can't have air conditioning systems.

02:25They have to make do with what's there naturally.

02:29Increasingly, compounds like antibiotics, caffeine, anti-inflammatories,

02:33and cardiovascular drugs have been found in the ocean.

02:36When you think like an ocean, it should not be surprising,

02:40because it all connects.

02:42It all connects.

02:43People speak of oceans as if they're plural, but it's one ocean.

02:47Now, how do we extract those toxic materials out of the ocean?

02:54The best thing we can do right now is to stop putting them there.

02:56It doesn't go away.

02:59There is no away.

03:01I've lived underwater 10 times,

03:04and only a little more than a dozen people have been to the deepest part of the ocean.

03:08About the same number of people who have walked on the moon.

03:11This is the greatest era of exploration.

03:14The problem seems so vast.

03:16Everybody can do something.

03:19One person times two times ten times a hundred,

03:22and pretty soon you've got a movement, and a movement is underway.

03:25You can know and not care.

03:28But you can't care if you don't know.

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