Ocean (Adventures in the Anthroprocene)

Gaia Vince

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Ocean is a chapter in the book Adventures in the Anthroprocene by Gaia Vince.

It gives me a basic ground of how oceans occurred and of their history, how important they are for our civilization, and true stories of the human-changed oceans of the Anthropocene.

 

The chapter begins with the evolution of oceans, the scene when there was no water on our molten planet. Then, as the planet’s skin formed, the clouds were formed by volcanic steam that rose into cooler atmosphere. As earth cooled, for thousand of years it rained. The water filled low-lying land creating the first oceans.

 

The oceans, now, cover 70% of our planet are a critical player in driving the weather and climate patterns. It’s the clouds that are created through oceanic evaporation rain fresh water down on the planet. And it’s fresh water replenishment by rivers that maintain sea levels in balance, since more water evaporates from oceans than precipitates on to them. So, why are sea levels raising? Because humans are heating the ocean, glaciers are melting and pouring into the seas causing their expansion.

 

The oceans represented the edge of the world. Since they effectively separated lands so that human were unaware of each other’s existence, until mariners’ explorations that join together civilizations and begin the process of globalization. In the Antrhopocene, oceans are our food larder, transport passage, oil and gas resource, as a result oceans have become sewer for chemical and material waste. More acidic seas transform nutrient concentrations and upset marine ecosystems.

 

Gaia projects what is happening to the ocean of the Anthropocene, through real situations in, the world’s lowest land, Maldives. She visited Mohamed Nasheed, who became the country’s first democratically elected president. He stands for environmental policies, and is in a race against time and the human-changed oceans. Through her conversation with him and her visit to actual locations, she passes on true situations that this low-lying land is facing. The country is one of the most at risk of disappearing. Behind tourist paradise scene, the population is confronting with environmental impact, for instance, land erosion, acidifying water, temperatures and sea levels rise. Beautiful beaches rely on large pipes to retrieve sand, which is pumped on to the beach. Otherwise, there would be no beach. Many islands have already been abandoned.