Are our oceans in danger?

By Julian Sudre

A fresh new report was published showcasing the devastating impact of human-related activities around the globe. The map is the first to combine information on how different human influences are affecting the oceans. The ineradicable prediction confirms once again the chronic greed and implacable desire to push our societies to extremes that eventually tolls the death knell of another era.

So when scientists concurred at the beginning of the month that the human impact on the world had been so comprehensive and ushered in a new geological epoch which they called the Anthropocene era, it could have sounded like another instance of alarmist climate porn. For auld lang syne, it was suggested by geologist not only this new era had started since the start of the Industrial Revolution but also they remarked a transformation in erosion and sedimentation patterns, ocean acidification and changes to the cycle carbon.

The map on marine ecosystem has revealed that almost half of the oceans have been polluted and some of the worst-affected marine areas are found around the British Isles. The South and East China seas alongside the East coast of North America, the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, The Gulf and the Berring Sea and several parts of the west Pacific have menacing traits of ecological tragedy. The fact of the matter lies in conserving an ecological balance by avoiding depletion of natural resources such as the detruction of the cold-water corals off the Atlantic Shelf. Fleets of ocean trawlers gouge scars 2.5 miles long through the coral; seabeds have been despoiled and the Norwegians think they've lost 50 per cent of their coral. Certainly those trawlers are not vandals but their actions amount to plain ignorance.

The fundamental root cause of the problem is a combination of greed and ignorance that will undoubtedly lead to a complete "revamping" of our thinking and will open the way for pondering over simple decicions. When in 1999, a London court ruled that the UK government broke EU rules on wildlife protection by giving oil companies permission to explore the North east Atlantic.

One element pervades highly in our society which is the signal of a watershed that we have passed in the past year. The message is conspicuously sonourous, vivid with alarming innuendos. Much is debated whether in the media or in governments, but despite meetings, conference and UN resolutions virtually nothing has been achieved. Global warming PR companies are laughing all the way to the bank and the populace expects leaders and nabobs to set the example. Perhaps, it is high time we instilled into young and families that charity begins at home; it is for them to become eco-warriors than to be eco-worriers on behalf of their government leaders.

The sands of time are running out but we still are in control to reverse this all. One thing for sure, we won't get a second chance if we turn our nose up at it and inevitably it will be an ill waiting for dead men's shoes.