Sea Change

By Charlotte Du Cann, Charlotte Du Cann blog

What if we started again here, by the sea, where the memory of our physical happiness comes to us on a summer’s day? I always thought ground state meant you needed to have your feet planted on terra firma – but what if it means being at home in another state entirely? Something  more shifting and fluid. A state where we can remember our creaturehood, our place in the pod, the feeling we are beloved by the life that surrounds and holds us, its beauty and complexity?

Great Barrier Reef at ‘Unprecedented’ Risk of Collapse after Major Bleaching Event

By Daisy Dunne, Carbon Brief

The record-breaking marine heatwave in 2016 across the Great Barrier Reef has left much of the coral ecosystem at an “unprecedented” risk of collapse, research shows. A new study published in Nature finds that the surge in sea temperatures during the 2016 bleaching event led to an immediate and long-lasting die-off of coral.

A Ray of Hope for Underwater Life: Coral Gardening

By Richard Walker, Future Perfect

But how do you save a coral reef? Here’s one way: cultivate it, harvest it, regrow it. Garden it! Austin Bowden-Kerby is a coral gardener.

What Does the Paris Agreement Mean for the Oceans

By Jean-Pierre Gattuso, Alexandre K. Magnan, Carbon Brief

The world’s oceans absorb about a quarter of the CO2 and more than 90% of the heat that accumulates in the atmosphere because of human activity, modulating the climate changes we see at the surface. But they do so at huge cost.

The Race to Fish: How Fishing Subsidies are Emptying our Oceans

By Rashid Sumaila, The Conversation

Fish numbers are rapidly dwindling globally, and fishery subsidies are one of the key drivers behind this decline.

Why U.S. East Coast Should Stay Off-Limits to Oil Drilling

By Carl Safina, Yale Environment 360

It’s not just the potential for a catastrophic spill that makes President Obama’s proposal to open Atlantic Ocean waters to oil exploration such a bad idea. What’s worse is the cumulative impact on coastal ecosystems that an active oil industry would bring.