Healthy oceans are key to sustaining life on the planet. The oceans are essential for world trade transport routes, and connect peoples and markets. The oceans provide much of the world’s food, moderate climates, sequester carbon and provide for many of nature’s most important habitats and biodiversity. Oceans recycle nutrients, give countless jobs and are crucial for tourism.
Atlantic ocean – Los Gigantes. Photo: Å. Bjørke
Life began in the oceans. Without living oceans, civilisation may not continue. Nevertheless, human greed and reckless profit-seeking activities have put the oceans under risk of irreversible damage.
Coral reefs are the most diverse and beautiful of all marine habitats. Large wave resistant structures have accumulated from the slow growth of corals. The development of these structures is aided by algae that are symbiotic with reef-building corals. Coralline algae, sponges, and other organisms, combined with a number of cementation processes also contribute to reef growth. Photo: Glenn Edney
Over-fishing and ocean acidification from carbon emissions threaten the marine eco systems.
Massive coral reef bleaching due to warmer climates, billions of tonnes of dumped plastic, micro-particles invading food chains, severe chemical pollution and unsustainable dumping of sewage and other nutrients imperil not just marine life, but put the health of millions of people in jeopardy.
Unsustainable coastal area development, impacts from resource extraction, enormous loss of biodiversity and damage to habitats and eco-systems are among the factors damaging the oceans and sustainable use of marine and coastal resources.
We treat the oceans as limitless garbage bins, but expect beaches and water to be clean and sparkling. We expect the oceans to provide unlimited amounts of free seafood.
A main ecological rule is that there is no free lunch. Do we now see the bills beginning to dump down on our table?
Read more
- Oceans Face Triple Threat Of Warming, Declining Oxygen And Acidification, Study Shows
- Multiple ocean stresses threaten ‘globally significant’ marine extinction, experts warn
- Sylvia Earle: Save our oceans (TED)
- The true value of our oceans
- UN -The ocean compact
- Ocean acidification
- Sea level rise
- Oceans
- Latest ocean warming review reveals extent of impacts on nature and humans (IUCN)
- Global warming could cause fishing to decline by millions of tons each year, study says
- Jean-François Frier (2016) Blue economy calls for blue diplomacy
Overfishing
- Fishing and conservation
- Dark cloud over fisheries
- Losing Nemo: short animated film about industrial overfishing
- Where have all the cod gone? (NYT Jan 2015)
- There Are Half as Many Fish in the World’s Oceans as There Were in 1970
- The world’s fisheries are in an even worse state than feared
- Overfishing causing global catches to fall three times faster than estimated (Jan 2016)
- Humanity driving ‘unprecedented’ marine extinction
Plastic pollution
- Plasticised
- Sailing past plastics
- Plastic Junk Litters our Oceans, Killing Sea Life — And it’s Getting Worse
- The ocean cleanup project
- Plastic microbeads to be banned by 2017, UK government pledges
Maldives Photo: J. Wellen
Coral reefs
- Protect the Coral reefs
- What good are Coral reefs?
- Coral reefs about to crash in a big way (jan 2015)
- Coral reefs can be resilient to warming
- Great Barrier Reef scientists confirm largest die-off of corals recorded (Nov 2016)
- https://embed.theguardian.com/embed/video/environment/video/2016/nov/07/naomi-klein-at-the-great-barrier-reef-under-the-surface” target=”_blank”>Naomi Klein at the Great barrier Reef: What have we left for our children?
- Great Barrier Reef Suffers Worst Coral Die-Off on Record
- World’s Reefs Caught Up in the Longest Global Coral Bleaching Event Ever Recorded
- Almost 75% of Japan’s biggest coral reef has died from bleaching, says report (Jan 2017)
- World’s Reefs Caught Up in the Longest Global Coral Bleaching Event Ever Recorded (Jan 2017)
- Nature (2017) Rapid emergence of climate change in environmental drivers of marine ecosystems
- Nature (March 2017) Global warming and recurrent mass bleaching of corals
- As coral reefs die, huge swaths of the seafloor are deteriorating along with them (April 2017)
Pollution
- Inside the Garbage of the World Documentary – crisis in our oceans video
- Toxic Algae Blooms: Fish Are Dying … Beaches Are Closing … People Are Getting Sick (July 2016)
- Toxic Algae Blooms Set Historic Records From Coast to Coast (Sept 2016)
Oceans and ecosystems
- Blue Carbon – The Role of Healthy Oceans in Binding Carbon
- Marine defaunation: Animal loss in the global ocean (Science, Jan 2015)
- Paul Watson: If the Ocean Dies, We Die!
- Incredible Infographic Shows How We Have Ruined Our Oceans — and Ourselves as a Result
- Study: Deep Ocean Waters Trapping Vast Store of Heat (Jan 2016)
- Protecting 30 percent of the ocean has many benefits, study suggests (University of York)
- Hope Spots: an actionable plan to save the ocean (National Geographic)
- Increasing marine protected area coverage for effective marine biodiversity conservation (IUCN)
- Ocean Warming Is ‘Greatest Hidden Challenge of Our Generation’
- Spaceship Earth, Your Main Oxygen Systems Are Collapsing (Jan 2017)
- Rate of Ocean Warming Quadrupled Since Late 20th Century, Study Reveals (March 2017)
- Improved estimates of ocean heat content from 1960 to 2015 (March 2017)
- Just 1°C of ocean warming can upend marine ecosystems (Science, Aug 2017)
Next
| Home | ||
| Chapter 3 | 3. Impacts | |
| Chapter 4 | 4. Ecosystems | |
| 4.1 Ecosystems and energy flow | ||
| 4.2 Forests | ||
| 4.3 Agricultural land | ||
| 4.4 Oceans | ||
| Chapter 5 | 5. Green economy |
