One of the most hidden and potentially dangerous impacts of global warming is the impact on the oceans.  Life in the oceans can go on without terrestrial life, but without the oceans, life on land would be impossible.  Phytoplankton in the ocean are responsible for half of the planet’s oxygen. To survive, they depend on the pH of the ocean being the one they’ve adapted to.  Ocean pH has been about the same for more than 20 million years.

And we’re changing it — faster than the organisms in the ocean can adapt.

This is a key issue we talk about on our Coasts and Islands course, but is a hard topic to explain and teach about.  Here is a great  film out from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC.org) on ocean acidification and its impact on climate and life in the oceans.

ACID TEST, a film produced by NRDC, was made to raise awareness about the largely unknown problem of ocean acidification, which poses a fundamental challenge to life in the seas and the health of the entire planet. Like global warming, ocean acidification stems from the increase of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere since the start of the Industrial Revolution.

Highly recommended!  You can jump to their webpage for more information and background, including in-depth discussions of the science.

Good summary of the growing awareness of the issues surrounding oceans at worldchanging.org:

“Simply put, if the oceans crash, we crash, and the signs of impending collapse are everywhere. On the other hand, it’s becoming clearer that new solutions and policies may actually give us the capacity to understand and prevent that crash, if we have the will.”

So what is the future for the Chao Lay kids growing up in the islands?

Certainly we see this in Thailand.  In the years we’ve been going down to the Adang Archapeligo for our Islands Course, as well as the time in Trang with the Coastal Course, we’ve seen fish populations decline, average size of individual species go down, and an overall drop in the health of the reefs.  It can be pretty discouraging.  However, as Alex and Julia point out in their summary article, there is growing awareness of the oceans and their role not just in producing fish but also their role in regulating climate.  This is GREAT news, as while coastal communities have been aware of this, so many people are disconnected from the oceans.

In related news, Andy Revkin has a great post up on the dot.earth blog about how Google is opening up the oceans as it did the land.

“The new version of Google Earth allows users to mouse around under and over the seas, click on video clips of hydrothermal vents, read up on which seafoods are being harvested unsustainably, look at marine dead zones and sanctuaries and the like.”

While this isn’t as good as going out and living with a community dependent on fishing and the mangroves, getting wet and diving a reef, it opens up a whole new world that most people really don’t see or understand–hopefully leading people to care more about the reality of the oceans and their critical role in our future and the health of the planet.

WorldChanging: Oceans Are the New Atmosphere

DotEarth: Can Google’s Oceans Protect the Real Ones?

We’ve been focused on sea kayaking and skin diving on our two courses in the south of Thailand, but I wonder if we should see about getting a couple of these…

Pedal powered submarine

It may sound like a crazy stunt dreamed up by an adrenalin junkie, but the plan, dubbed the “Subhuman project”, has attracted serious attention from marine biologists. That’s because the sub, when it takes to the seas later this year, could for the first time allow them to explore the upper layers of the ocean silently and unobtrusively, revealing marine life as it has never been seen before.

Go here to read his blog, and catch up on their current plans.  The novelty aside, if they can pull this off the amount of scientific data about the oceans they would gather would be significant.