World of Water: Why ocean health matters
[This was published in the Eastern Daily Press on the 9th April]
I went to the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts in Norwich to see the current exhibition that tells the story of the world’s oceans and the precarious future they face. I recommend a visit to enjoy the historic maps, Dutch and Norwich School paintings, and a range of contemporary art that opens insights into our local relationship with the seas and our planet’s future. It’s been curated by the SCVA’s curator of climate change, John Kenneth Paranada.
Their World of Water season asks a big question: ‘can the seas survive us?’ But what does this mean? The seas are growing in volume and power due to melting of Arctic and Antarctic ice so the water masses will survive. The question refers to the health of the seas and the diverse creatures that inhabit them. Typically, coverage of environmental harm focuses on risks to human safety, yet marine animals have a right to life too. We should try to feel empathy as they experience the impacts of overfishing, pollution, acidification and warming water. Art, films and exhibitions can help by showing life beneath the surface, revealing complex relationships between species and envisaging future changes.
We must also imagine the future of ocean plants. Phytoplankton are crucial because they form the base of the aquatic food web and produce oxygen through photosynthesis. This plant life helps the oceans generate 50% of the world’s oxygen, absorb 25% of CO2 emissions and capture 90% of excess heat caused by Greenhouse Gases. So the oceans are our lungs and our biggest carbon sink, a vital buffer against worsening climate impacts. However, the balance of carbon and oxygen that has enabled a stable climate for human civilisation is threatened and ocean health is tipping downwards. You can find evidence for this in the Ocean Health Index, and you may have seen images of the bleaching and death of Pacific coral reefs. How long before we see similar declines in North Norfolk’s ‘Great Chalk Reef’?
It’s not certain that life in the seas can survive the onslaught of harms to the biosphere. That leads me to flip the question, to ask: ‘can we survive the seas?’ When I suggest we empathise with marine creatures, I don’t mean we should care less about our fellow humans. Our fates are all tied up together. 3.6 billion people live in areas highly vulnerable to climate impacts and, while most live in the Global South, parts of East Anglia are also exposed. Moreover, in the UK, we depend on food grown in areas where climate impacts are reducing crop yields. Water is at the heart of this. The heat absorbed into oceans has disrupted currents and weather patterns. 97% of extreme weather incidents are caused by water in the wrong place, so there are chaotic swings between heavy rainfall or drought, and heavier storms.
I know that this information is upsetting and you may want to know what you can do. I find it helps to appreciate the magic of biodiverse species living well together. I do all I can to reduce my use of fossil fuels, I eat mostly plants and I support nature conservation efforts. Also, I get inspiration from learning about human ingenuity in the past. Dutch engineers helped make Norfolk’s land more productive by managing water and they are now world leaders in protecting land and people from rising sea levels. If people have collaborated between nations to make a safer world in the past, we can surely do this again, especially now that all our lives — human and otherwise, north and south, on land and sea — are so greatly at risk.
You can see more photos from my visit here.
