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.
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.
Over-fishing and ocean acidification from carbon emissions threaten the marine eco systems.
More than 90 percent of the excess heat from greenhouse gas emissions has been absorbed into the oceans, where that energy can fuel larger and more intense hurricanes and contributes to sea level rise as warming seawater expands.
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 and seas (UNEP)
- The oceans are ‘warmer than ever’ in recorded history (2020)
- Oceans (WRI)
- World’s Oceans Are Warming Faster, Studies Show, Fueling Storms and Sea Rise (2019)
- Record-Warm Oceans: How Worried Should We Be? (2019)
- Ocean Heat Waves Are Killing Underwater Life, Threatening Biodiversity (2019)
- Ocean Heat Wave Intensifies in Pacific, with Risks for Wildlife and Wildfires (2019)
- Multiple ocean stresses threaten ‘globally significant’ marine extinction, experts warn
- GRID-Arendal (2017) Climate change time lags in the ocean: What it means for coral reefs and our grandchildren (Oct 2017)
- Sylvia Earle: Save our oceans (TED)
- UN -The ocean compact
- 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
- Scientist Warns of Mass Marine Extinction
- Warming oceans (2018)
- The Oceans, which protect us against climate change, teeter on verge of collapse. (June 2018)
- Marine microbes: Small but mighty at capturing carbon. Researchers study how microscopic organisms, key to carbon sequestration, evolve in the ocean, and implications for a warming planet (Sep 2018)
Acidification and oxygen production
- Ocean acidification
- Spaceship Earth, Your Main Oxygen Systems Are Collapsing (Jan 2017)
- Oceans Losing Oxygen at Breathtaking Speeds (Jan 2018)
Overfishing
- Fishing and conservation
- Dark cloud over fisheries
- 90% of fish stocks are used up – fisheries subsidies must stop emptying the ocean
- Bottom trawling releases as much carbon as air travel, landmark study finds (2021)
- Where have all the cod gone?
- 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
- Plastic Threatens to Swamp the Planet
- 9 Shocking Facts About Plastics in Our Oceans
- On World Oceans Day, Attenborough Shares Serious But Hopeful Message (June 2018)
Coral reefs
- Protect the Coral reefs
- GRID-Arendal (2017) Climate change time lags in the ocean: What it means for coral reefs and our grandchildren (Oct 2017)
- 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)
- Severe Coral Reef Bleaching Now ‘Five Times More Frequent’ Than 40 Years Ago (Jan 2018)
Mangroves
- Mangrove Restoration Frustration
- A Burning Problem For Mangroves
- Green growth: the save-the-mangrove scheme reaping rewards for women in Kenya
- Spread the word — protecting mangroves has never been more important
- Conserving mangroves protects shorelines
- Why Mangroves – Starboard Blue (star-board.com)
Pollution
- 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)
- Toxic Algae Blooms Occurring More Often, May Be Caught in Climate Change Feedback Loop (May 2018)
- Toxic Red Tide Could Fuel a Blue Win in Florida (Sept 2018)
Oceans and ecosystems
- Blue Carbon – The Role of Healthy Oceans in Binding Carbon
- The otherworldly species threatened by deep-sea mining – in pictures (2021)
- Bioluminescent waves dazzle surfers in California: ‘Never seen anything like it’
- 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)
- 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)
- Oceans Losing Oxygen at Breathtaking Speeds (Jan 2018)
- NASA Video: Ocean circulation plays an important role in absorbing carbon from the atmosphere
- New Oceans Study Could Alter Climate Predictions (May 2018)
- Marine heatwaves are getting hotter, lasting longer and doing more damage (May 2018)
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 |
A Greener Future 