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The Sweet Spot
Fifty years ago, we could not see limits to what we could put
into the ocean or what we could take out. Fifty years into
the future, it will be too late to do what is possible right now.
We are in a “sweet spot” in time. Never again will there be a
better time to take actions that can ensure an enduring place
for ourselves within the living systems that sustain us. We
are at an unprecedented, pivotal point in history in which the
decisions we make in the next 10 years will determine the
direction of the next 10,000.
“If I could be anywhere in time, it would be now. If I could
be anywhere it would be here,” croons singer-songwriter
Jackson Browne in a lilting tune he composed in 2010. Why
here? Why now? Where would you choose, given the power
slip into the future or glide back decades, centuries or even
millions or billions of years from our “here” on Earth and our
21st-century “now.”
Some might say, “anywhere but here and now.” Wars
rage around today’s world, and poverty and hunger
haunt hundreds of millions. The global economy is deeply
troubled, and diseases are rampant. The natural fabric of
life on Earth is in tatters — with consequences that threaten
our own existence.
Earthlings take for granted that the world is blue,
embraced by an ocean that harbors most of the life on the
planet, contains 97 percent of the water, drives weather and
climate, stabilizes temperature, generates most of the oxygen
in the atmosphere, absorbs much of the carbon dioxide and
otherwise tends to hold the planet steady. It makes our world
a friendly place in a universe of inhospitable options.
Owing to more than 2 billion years of microbial
photosynthetic activity in the sea and several hundred
million years of photosynthesis on land, Earth’s atmosphere
now is just right for humans: roughly 21 percent oxygen, 79
percent nitrogen and trace gases that include just enough
carbon dioxide to drive photosynthesis and, thus, the
continuous production of oxygen and food. One group of
inconspicuous but enormously abundant sea-dwelling, blue-
green bacteria, Prochlorococcus, churns out 20 percent of
the oxygen in the atmosphere, supplying one of every five
breaths we take. With other planktonic species as well as
seagrasses, mangroves, kelps and thousands of other kinds of
algae, ocean organisms do the heavy lifting in terms of taking
up carbon dioxide and water via photosynthesis, producing
sugar that drives ocean food chains and yielding atmospheric
oxygen in the process. As much as 70 percent of the air we
breathe is produced by creatures of the sea.
Two of my friends, Nancy Knowlton, Ph.D., and Jeremy
Jackson, Ph.D., both highly respected marine scientists, are
affectionately known as the Doctors Doom and Gloom —
and for good reasons. Keen observers, they have witnessed
and documented a swift, sharp decline in the world’s ocean
ecosystems. Some once-common species will likely be
extinct soon no matter what we do. Hundreds of “dead
zones,” which result in large part from recent land-based
pollution, plague coastal regions globally. Enormous “garbage
patches” of plastic blight the sea, some sinking into the
depths, some cast ashore in great windrows and all destined
to be permanent evidence of our carelessness.
There are plenty of reasons for despair, but I see it another
way: Half the planet’s coral reefs are still in good shape. Ten
percent of the sharks, swordfish, bluefin tuna, groupers,
snappers, halibut and wild salmon are still swimming. Best of
all, there is widespread awareness that protection of nature
is not a luxury. Rather, it is the key to all past, present and
future prosperity. We may be the planet’s worst nightmare,
but we are also its best hope.
Making Peace with Nature
Early in the 20th century, President Theodore Roosevelt was
among those who led a movement to protect natural areas,
watersheds, landscapes and places of cultural and historic
interest as National Parks — a concept that Ken Burns called
“America’s best idea.” Other nations followed suit, nearly all
adopting the concept, and protected areas now encompass
about 14 percent of the planet’s total land area. At present,
less than 2 percent of the ocean is protected, but that may
soon change.
In the past, the ocean did not require specific policies
to protect it from human actions. Polar regions and the
deep ocean were protected by their inaccessibility, and
returning to the same place in the sea was more art than
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STEPHEN FRINK
Drawing by Henry W. Elliott
