Tag: shifting baselines

  • Five things I didn’t know about the ocean

    My review of Professor Callum Roberts’ new book The Ocean of Life has just come out in Toronto’s Globe and Mail. This is the follow up to his first book An unnatural history of the sea (it was one of the Five Books I picked for the Browser) – it dives into the history of how we’ve stripped…

  • Reef Reminiscences: The way coral reefs were

    What was the world like back in the day? Are the fantastic stories all just legends? With the notable exception of Jacques Cousteau, few people were taking pictures of the undersea world a few decades ago, not only because the technology was more difficult and expensive and less available, but also because we tend to…

  • Florida: haven for illegal immigrants

    OK, so strictly speaking this has nothing to do with the Sea, except insofar as the Everglades are a semi-aquatic environment that drains at some remove into salt water. Still, it involves a large cold-blooded predator exhibiting a classic ecological interaction in a vivid and, well, somewhat appalling way. Which is good enough for me.…

  • Smackdown: bear meets squid

    Now, I have truly seen everything. We all know the inspiring images from nature shows of majestic bears whacking big salmon out of the water as they make their grueling and intrepid homing migrations upstream (the salmon, that is). But squid? Unlike the photo of the shark in the streets of Puerto Rico (mea culpa)…

  • Forum on the Future of the Oceans

    What do we really know about the current state of the world ocean, where it’s headed, and what can be done to keep it healthy in the long term? SeaMonster asked for answers from a diverse group of >60 distinguished experts at the frontlines of marine science, conservation, law, and policy at local to international…

  • The Silent World

    A few months ago I happened to pick up a copy of Jacques Cousteau’s classic first book, The Silent World, less from a burning desire to read it than for the mysterious and evocative cover photo, and out of a sense of comradely solidarity with this pioneer submariner. It gathered dust on my bedside table…

  • Ocean Symphony with Jack Black

    [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tC5P7mBu_XY[/youtube] Learn more about shifting baselines here