How About Some Good Ocean News?

Too often, ocean news is bad news — stories of pollution, over-fishing, sea level rise, and the consequences of extreme weather — that added to comparable news regarding similar problems on land and in our political world does little to uplift our spirits or sense of optimism for the future. Following ocean news can frustrate, anger, depress and otherwise upset me, and why should I share such dark thoughts with you yet again?

So, here are some encouraging headlines taken from the March/April issue of ECO Magazine, a professional publication devoted to coastal and offshore environmental problems and technological response and exploring regulation, assessment, mitigation, and restoration of ocean conditions. Reading these headlines, I was suddenly struck by the positive aspect of so many of them, an aggregation of progressive engagement toward ocean solutions in the United States and around the world:

• Connecticut Issues Offshore Wind Request for Proposals
• New Jersey Governor Signs Order to Promote Offshore Wind Energy
• California Increases Penalty for Fishing in Protected Areas
• Comeback of Aquatic Grasses in Chesapeake Bay
• Opinion: Expand Efforts to Reduce Marine Plastic in Scotland
• New Map of Flood-Risk Area Around San Francisco Bay
• To Protect Arctic, US and Russia Propose Bering Strait Shipping Routes
• Self-driving Robots Create Snapshots of Ocean Microbes
• Scientists Pinpoint How Ocean Acidification Weakens Coral Skeletons
• X-Prize Ocean Discovery Finalists Announced: Accelerating Unmanned Ocean Exploration
• California Drought Cycles Drive Water Districts to be as Efficient as Possible
• Latest Practices Uses in Ocean and Coastal Citizen Science
• Simulation of Environmental Risk of Sanchi Oil Tanker Contamination
• Monitoring Coral Reef Disease in Caribbean Waters
• Tracking Mysterious Marine Mammals in the Arctic
• Teaching Science Communication to Children

When you read through this list you see a full spectrum of technological and academic response to very specific challenges to ocean species, habitats, and processes; examples of innovative applied engineering and artificial intelligence; global partnerships and international collaborations to share capacity, funds, and access; and a commitment to serious investigation toward the sustainability of the natural resources — plant, animal, and human — in the ocean environment.

This is all very good news. It provides hope through the expression of science, curiosity, and ingenuity to transcend the bad news of past indifference to and ignorance of the ocean world. That’s our purpose at the World Ocean Observatory: to foster optimism and to suggest solutions, and to share that news far and wide amongst all Citizens of the Ocean on earth.

PETER NEILL is founder and director of the World Ocean Observatory and is author of “The Once and Future Ocean: Notes Toward a New Hydraulic Society.” He is also the host of World Ocean Radio, a weekly podcast addressing ocean issues, upon which this blog is inspired.