biological power over our planet.

So I hoisted myself into the tiny

aluminum chamber that was to carry me and the ship's electron-
ics engineer down to the ocean floor. The hatch clanged shut and
we lay side by side to fit. CHAPTER I

It is pitch black at the depth of a kilometre, and it is bitterly

cold. I was intently focused on the composition of the air in my THE LAST BEST PLACE ON EARTH
aluminum womb. It became a microcosm for the chemical changes
to the atmosphere and ocean that this whole book is about, to the
idea that a system has limits. Great Barrier Reef
I had an epiphany there. It had to do with the nature of hope.
And I rolled out of my watery cradle three hours later tremulous,
moved, triumphant, convinced that our species, with all its fail-
ings and trudgings, is ready for its toughest journey yet.

If all life on land were to vanish tomorrow, creatures in the ocean

would flourish. But if the opposite happened and the ocean's life
perished, then the creatures on land would die too. Life, if it went
on, would have to start over.
For the vast majority of the earth's 4.5-billion-year history,
the ocean was the only place in which there was life. The planet's
first creatures-bacteria-like organisms stewing in a primordial
soup-appeared in the ocean about 3.3 billion years ago. The first
life forms on land-plants such as ferns and mosses- weren't able
to exist until about 400 million years ago. Animals capable of
living on land came even later.
It's hard for humans to grasp. Throughout much of our short
time on the planet-perhaps 200,000 year in all-we have spun
stories that tell us that the world is ours to use as we see fit.
Biologically, though, humans are here on ufferance, at the
grace of the ocean. It both gives us life and keep us alive. 'l\vo
medical facts describe its metaphoric importance to humans:
early-stage foetuses depend on amniotic fluid that is a chemical

THELASTBESTPLACE ONEARTH ~
20 SEASICK
replica of the marine world, and the composition of our blood One of the best places on earth to see how the ocean should work is
plasma is astonishingly similar to the composition of sea water. the Great Barrier Reef, which runs down the east coast ofAustralia,
However, that is not how we've viewed the sea. Since we had and that's why I'm on a lurching catamaran with a few dozen sea-
our first glimpse of the ocean, we've tended to see it for the other sick tourists braving high winds and roiling waves to see it.
things it can give us: an endless supply of food and, later, a route To me this is the mother ecosystem, a modern proxy for where
to other places. We learned that the sea is useful, but we have not life must have begun, a piece of the ocean that is still gloriously
known until the last few generations that it is also our main life- intact. I have travelled around the world to savour it, as if it were
support system, controlling the planet's temperature, climate a watery Paradise before the Fall, the last best place on earth.
and key chemical cycles. Considered to be one of the seven natural wonders of the world,
Until very recently it hasn't mattered what humans think or the Great Barrier Reef is by far the largest coral reef in the world,
don't think or what stories we tell. We have been inconsequential an intertwined collection of more than 2900 smaller reefs, including
in the grand scheme of things. And what we do, or don't do, has some of the oldest coral colonies on the face of the planet. They make
also been insignificant, perhaps not for individual humans but a long, bony structure so substantial it can be seen from space.
for the planet as a whole and, certainly, for the global ocean. The It is a biological gold mine that is even more productive than
planet's resilience, its vastness, has compensated for whatever tropical rainforests, arguably the most important part of the
we were doing. most important medium of life on the planet. This massive reef
What we do and how we think does matter now, though, because is the marine equivalent of the biggest city in the world, a vast
finally the actions and belief systems of humans are damaging the maternity ward, the lushest, most productive and probably most
ocean. Our actions are dangerous to us and to millions of other complex part of the planet when you count the different types of
living things. We are altering not just bits of the sea with dreadful plants and animals that live here. It is an engine of evolution.
oil spills or eroding shores or vast extinctions of fish, but the whole, How does it work?
interconnected global system that is the ocean, the main medium The ocean is impossibly complicated, interconnected, turbu-
of life on earth. lent and nonlinear, and it touches every part of life. Humans can
As goes the ocean, so goes life. This is the axiom that, in our only understand it by trying to grasp far simpler proxies. Such
hubris, we have so far refused to see. We have been content to treat as: every tear you cry ends up back in the ocean system. Every
the ocean's mysteries as though they were immutable certainties. third molecule of carbon dioxide you exhale is absorbed into the
Now humans must understand how the ocean is supposed to ocean . Every second breath you take comes from the oxygen pro-
work so we can understand how our actions are damaging it. Then duced by plankton.
we'll be better equipped to stop the damage, to stand back and let Think of a jigsaw puzzle that works on five or six dimensions
the sea heal if it can. It is, as far as many scientists see, our only instead of just two. The pieces interconnect not in a single way,
hope for survival. but in many.
Take the fierce winds today off the coast of Australia as a
window into the complexity of this system. They are so strong

22 SEASICK THE LAST BEST PLACE ON EARTH 23

that they have kept every single tourist boat along the reef at Like the blood in your body, the ocean waters are constantly
dock today-except this one, because it is a massive and fast cata- on the move. You have no blood that is only of the brain or only of
maran, more powerful than other tourist craft. the thumb. There is no sea water that is only of the Pacific or the
To humans these high winds are an annoyance or a danger. Indian Ocean. There is only one ocean and it is a single system,
As we boarded this morning, for example, the crew issued stem chemically, physically and biologically.
warnings about how rough the seas were and insisted that every- While different latitudes of the ocean have different tempera-
one take seasickness pills-either Dramamine or ginger tablets- tures at the surface, and therefore support different types of life,
for the hour-long journey. each collection of life still supports all the others. For example,
One woman is crying as the catamaran heaves; she is clutch- and in simplified terms, plant plankton like the cold waters of
ing a white paper bag in case she throws up. Now a young man the high latitudes. They reproduce more abundantly there. But
vanishes to the rear of the ship to peer at the horizon, a slight the creatures they feed, such as larger zooplankton or animal
sweat on his upper lip. Looking at the horizon i$ supposed to calm plankton, are food for krill and other little crustaceans, and they
a seasick stomach, but for many passengers on this boat, that trick are food for little fish which, in turn, nourish the long-distance
is decidedly not working. The crew members are sighing deeply swimmers of the ocean such as tuna and marlin and sharks.
and trying to remain cheerful. Moreover, while the surface of the ocean and the floor are dif-
ferent temperatures and support different creatures, again, they
are joined by the winds. The very fierce winds-including hurri-
Throughout the ocean, the winds drive currents on the sw:face. In canes-help mix water in the surface layer with water further
turn, the air and water currents move the sun's energy-or heat- down. Deep water contains nutrients and chemicals that crea-
from the waters of the equator to land and water further toward tures at the surface, particularly plankton, need. Without wind
the poles, making the planet habitable. Some of that heat moves those nutrients would stay in the deep and the plankton wouldn't
in great, snaking submarine rivers through the ocean basins. When be able to grow. That inability of the layers of water to mix unaided
the warm water, heavy with its sali, loses enough of its heat is known as stratification.
close to the poles, it descends to the abyss, depositing its heat, and Without plankton, the food web of the ocean would collapse.
then meanders back toward the Antarctic along the sea floor in All the larger creatures in the sea depend on plankton. either as
a massive hemispheric conveyor belt. This is a main way that the their own food or as food for the creatures they like to eat.
s un's energy-the source of all life-is distributed throughout Plankton may be at the bottom of the food chrun in the ocean,
the planet. but they are at the top of the biogeochemical system of the
So for every bucket of water you might collect at the seashore, planet, meaning that they help control its carbon and oxygen
individual molecules that make it up could have originated near cycles. They are the key to how these elements move through
the South Pole-where the planet's deep, cold waters arc mixed living creatures and through their non-living surroundings so
as if in a huge bowl-at the equator, or in any other part of the that they can be used again by the living.
ocean system. The winds also help foster the exchange that occur when the

24 SEASICK THE LAST BEST PLACE ON EARTH 25

top layer of the ocean's surface meets with the bottom layer of reefs, which once thrived in the warm, shallow waters that circle
the atmo phere. That's where the main chemical transfer between the earth to the north and south of the equator. Now coral reefs
air and water takes place. This molecules-thin layer is a vast entry as a whole are considered critically endangered across the globe.
point where carbon and oxygen, heat and cold, and gassy water Over the past twenty years, living coral around the world has
move between sea and air. been destroyed five times more quickly than tropical rainforests.
This whole system works within an astonishingly narrow set The pace of destruction has doubled in the past decade and some
of limits and norms that have been unchanged, in some cases, for corals in the waters of Galapagos are near extinction. More
millions of years. than a quarter of the world's reefs have already been killed off
For example, the ocean acid-base balance (the pH), which is and another 50 per cent are in severe trouble. In the Caribbean,
intimately connected with the concentration of carbon dioxide in which was a coral wonderland just three decades ago, 80 per
the atmosphere, has been about the same for more than twenty cent of the reefs have died, reduced to limestone rubble and
million years. In the open ocean it has historically registered 8.2 algal slime.
on the pH scale, meaning that the ocean is slightly basic (neutral This level of destruction of the reefs is unprecedented in
is 7, below 7 is acidic). recent times. We'd have to look far back in the fossil record to see
At the coasts, where freshwater runs into the ocean and the a similar coral death rate. In some of the earlier cases of whole-
assemblage of living creatures is attuned to a different pH, the sale die-off, it took millions of years for the coral to come back,
water is more acidic, sometimes hovering in the range of 7.5 until seeded from handfuls of hardy remnants able to survive until
it mixes with the rest of the ocean. conditions improved again.
Outside of that range of acidity, the biological and chemical Unfortunately, further south on the Great Barrier Reef things
functions of the ocean don't work as well, at least not for all of the are not quite so splendid, either. The worldwide decay of coral
different types of creatures that are needed for the ocean system reefs-caused by pollution from land, too much fishing, nasty
to do what it has done over time. practices to capture wild fish for the aquarium trade and waters
that are too hot because of global climate change-has already
started to take its toll.
We arrive at the outer fringe of the northern Great Barrier Reef; However, Turtle Bay, part of the Agincourt Reef on the outer
just beyond us, toward the open ocean, the continental shelf edge of the Great Barrier, is a world of wonder. The waters are
plunges straight down for more than 1000 metres. In parts of emerald green, shot through with brilliant blue. The bottom,
the frigid waters of the abyss much further away, a new ocean visible among masses of corals, is white sand and only several
floor is constantly being made by the molten mantle that seeps metres below the surface.
through the rifts. The boat's crew is talking up the lazy turtles we can expect to
This particular part of the northern Great Barrier is also just see, the Volkswagen-sized clams that take two hours to shut
about as pristine as it could be, which is a rare quality in the their mouths, the shoals of brilliantly coloured tropical fish. For
modern world's ecosystems and especially uncommon for coral me, though, it's all about the corals, those ancient, primitive

26 SEA SICK THELASTBESTPLACE ONEARTH 27

animals whose ancestors have been on the planet for about 450 like the limbs of trees. I can see fields upon fields of Acropora
million years. species, like the antlers of elk and deer, some of which are neon
I zip myself into my diving skin, shove my feet into the flippers blue. I've seen beds of Acropora in the Caribbean that were
I've carried halfway around the world, spit into my mask to nothing but skeletons rotting in the saltwater. This richness is
prevent it from fogging up and plunge under the fierce waves. breathtaking by contrast.
It is stunning. And sheer calm after the messy voyage to get Some of the other corals here are slow-growing massive types
here. Katharina Fabricius, the coral scientist from the Australian that build the foundation of the reef. They have nooks and slits,
Institute of Marine Science in Townsville-and my tutor and host caves and secret crevices running along the metres-high structure,
on this tri:ir-has given me a primer on what to look for. A few each filled with other species, a riot of colour. They are like under-
days ago at her house on Magnetic Island, she ran me through a water coral gardens, some so close to the surface that I have to be
slew of underwater photographs she'd taken. It's what she calls careful not to kick them with my flippers as I snorkel over the top.
her 'good reef/bad reef presentation and she's been using it since These bony shapes are necessary in order for a reef to be a
2001 to explain to politicians and others some of the problems home and protector and on-demand food market to the sea's crea-
with today's reefs. tures. All told, about a quarter of the creatures that humans catch
A good reef has lots of structure, she says, high coral cover, commercially spend some part of their life cycle on a coral reef
lots of different types of coral, lots of baby corals and lots of other Once you've got the structure, as Fabricius says, the soft
marine organisms seeking shelter. A bad reef has little struc- corals come, and the fish and the worms, the mammals and bac-
ture. It's flatter and has fewer types of corals, some dead corals, teria and reptiles, the birds above and all the other creatures
empty patches, few fish and baby corals smothered in mud. Go to that lay their eggs and rear their young and use the reef to
Agincourt Reef, she advises me. It's still in great shape. survive.
She's right: Turtle Bay is an excellent reef. If you set down a The Great Barrier Reef is home to so many plants and animals
picture frame, every square centimetre would be full of corals that a full count has never been made, not even of the corals
and there would be masses of different shapes, colours and sizes. themselves. Many are still unknown to science and unnamed.
There are no patchy, thin., crumbling spots as there are on so While the reef is critical to the survival of so many other
many other coral reefs, including those I have seen in the species, though, it is also totally dependent on plants for its own
Caribbean and Asia. No dead corals, nor the suffocating slick of survival. The coral animals that build the reef cannot exist with-
big, indigestible algae. out the brightly colomed micro-algae, called zooxanthellae, that
Here are dozens of different types of hard coral, each of which live within their very cells. Like other plants, the micro copic
has built up a substantial bony structure by cleverly using the cal- algae convert energy from the sun into food through a chain of
cium and carbon stored in the ocean. These limestone shapes will chemical reactions. The food feeds the coral animals as well as the
keep growing for as long as the coral animal- a thin membrane algae. Without them, the corals starve and lose the brilliant colour
of flesh attached to the surface of the limestone-stays alive. the algae give them. Without the corals for protection, the algae
Some are the faster-growing branching corals, making shapes die. It is the canonical example of a symbiotic relationship.

28 SEA SICK THELASTBESTPLACEONEARTH 29

 How well can the planet's other creatures get along without and honeymoon getaways. This is the busiest weekend of the year
corals? What would happen to the physical, chemical and biological on the island. Every hotel room is packed and the beaches are
structures of the ocean if the reefs die? The answers are unknown. thronged with holiday-makers.
As I snorkel here, marvelling at the virtuoso display of biolog- Fabricius and her partner, Glenn De'ath-also an eminent
ical creativity, I wonder whether humans have become symbionts ocean scientist-dislike doors and windows and walls. Geckos,
who have lost the knowledge that we depend on other creatures spiders, possums and the occasional snake wander in and out at
for the basics of life support. In terms of pure self-interest, this is will. Breezes sweep through the house. In a high corner of the
a problem. If we depend on corals, algae, plankton and millions porch where they eat their meals, the couple has built a shelter
of other species, and if we are killing them off, how will we for tree frogs so they won't be picked off by predators. The night
survive? I arrived, awakened by thumps on the floor, drunk with jet-lag, I
The textbook definition of a parasite is this: a species that bolted from my room with a wavery flashlight to see that a scatter
thrives while its host dies. Except the host in humans' case is not of the fat, neon-green frogs had jumped from the ceiling onto the
a single creature but, rather, all sorts of other species and even floor of the open kitchen.
whole ecosystems. In biological terms killing the host, or the host The plain fact, as Fabricius explains, is that the Great Barrier
systems, is a risky strategy for the parasite. That is, unless there Reef is in mortal danger.
are other systems or hosts to move on to. It's not just from all the obvious, localised threats that have
I wonder whether these simple, ancient animals, which do not affected so many other reefs around the world. Australia has taken
even have brains, can remind humans about the ground rules of a hard line against many time-honoured coral-killing practices.
symbiosis and the perils of ignoring them. What if the great These include catching too many fish, trawling, long-line fishing,
lesson from the Great Barrier Reef is not just that it is a vision and using cyanide poisoning and dynamite on the reefs t-0 catch
of the unspoiled past but that it also forecasts the parable of tropical fish for the marine aquarium trade.
future destruction? In fact, the Great Barrier Reef is designated an Australian
In her home on Magnetic Island, Katharina Fabricius has National Park, protected by heavily enforced laws against those
been explaining some of what this great reef can teach humans. destructive practices. Fully a third of this reef is a no-take zone,
The reef is, in fact, where all of the pressing threats to the ocean meaning that no commercial activity can take place at all and
intersect, a microcosm of the problems and also of the hopes. that other activities are controlled. However, the biggest threats
A slight, athletic woman with the fine features of a runway will come from what Australian law alone cannot prevent: global
model, Fabricius has picked me up after a long trans-Pacific flight climate change.
and offered me a bed on the floor of her spare room over an Easter Climate change has three direct effects on corals that scien-
weekend. tists have become aware of in recent years.
It was snowing when I left Toronto. On Magnetic Island the First, the high concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmo-
temperature is in the thirties and sweltering. Her house is in a sphere warms the ocean to the point that the corals' symbiotic
small thicket on this holiday island renowned for beaches, surfing algae die. That's known as coral bleaching, because when the

THE LAST BEST PLACE ON EARTH 31

30 SEASICK
algae die, their colour disappears and leaves the corals' flesh compounds such as oxygen and carbon dioxide with blood within
gho tly white. Unless the corals can attract new algae, they the body. As carbon dioxide gets stored in the atmosphere while
starve and the flesh covering the bony skeleton rips off in shreds. we bum fossilised carbon in the form of coal, oil and gas, it also
In turn the skeleton, devoid of animal cover, begins to decay. Even gets stored in the ocean. The ocean has absorbed about a third of
if they can attract new microalgae, the bleached corals' ability to the extra carbon that we have pumped into the atmosphere since
grow and reproduce is impaired while they heal. we started using fossil fuels, digging up grasslands and cutting
Coral bleaching-which only became known as a scientific phe- down forests.
nomenon a couple of decades ago-has been increasing all over the Today, the proportion of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is
world as climate change takes greater hold. about 387 parts per million by volume. Before the industrial era, it
On the Great Barrier Reef, waters have warmed on average less was 280. The latest intergovernmental panel report on climate
than half a degree Celsius since the end of the nineteenth century, change has predicted that once the level reaches 450-possibly by
yet bleaching has run far ahead of expectations. By the end of this mid-century-humans will have pushed roughly a quarter of the
century, ocean temperatures at the Reef are forecast to be between planet's creatu.r es into extinction. If it reaches 550-<>r about
one and three degrees Celsius higher than they are now, leading to double pre-industrial levels-we will have caused the genetic
a dramatic increase in bleaching. In fact the best predictions are extermination of up to 70 per cent of living things, a massive extinc-
that by 2050, severe bleaching will be a yearly event on the Reef tion spasm and one ofjust five others in the planet's history.
With no cooler intermediate years, the corals will not be able to heal In the atmosphere carbon dioxide is chemically inert, but it has
or grow back, or restore their ability to reproduce. a huge effect on climate. In the ocean carbon dioxide is chemically
Second, climate change holds out the potential of increasing active. It reacts with other compounds in the saltwater to make
the volume of the sea. As land-based ice sheets in Antarctica and the ocean more acidic.
Greenland melt in the warmer climate, extra water will pour into The changes so far are relatively small-about a tenth of a unit
the global ocean basin. It's not clear how much higher sea levels of pH on average across the global ocean. That sounds tiny, but the
will rise or how quickly-estimates vary from less than a metre pH scale is not straightforward. In mathematical terms it is loga-
to as much as 9 metres in the coming century-but odds are that rithmic rather than linear, meaning that, going up the scale, each
they will put many of the world's remaining healthy reefs so far unit is 10 times as much as the unit that came before it. This
underwater that the algae won't be able to catch enough of the means that small changes in the measurement mean enormous
sun's rays to photosynthesise. In effect, the corals will drown. changes in the actual chemistry. Thus a change of a tenth of a unit
Third, and even more serious, are the chemical changes occur- represents a 30 per cent increase in acidity.
ring in the ocean water itself. Scientists are calling this the big As more carbon dioxide enters the ocean, the water's acidity
gorilla in the comer. increases. At that stage it can absorb no more carbon. Depending
Atmosphere and ocean are ineluctably joined. In fact, some on how we continue in ow· use of fossil fuels, the pH will have
scientists consider them parts of the same system. They interact dropped by four- or five-tenths ofa unit by the end of this century-
with each other, similar to the way the lungs exchange chemical a historically massive amount.

32 SEA SICK THELASTBESTPLACEONEARTH 33

 Because of the way carbon and calcium interact in the ocean forms of life. The old system-or body-is gone forever and cannot
waters to form new compounds, calcium will be less available to be recovered.
creatures that need it to make bones and skeletal structures- In the case of the Great Barrier Reef, the system is striving to
like corals. That means corals are not able to make reefs as maintain its current health. When its corals bleach horribly, as
quickly and that over time, as the acidity increases, they will not they did in 1998 and in 2002, the reef sets about healing itseU:
be able to build their structures at all. preparing to grow again. But if the predicted miseries occur-
The changing chemistry of the ocean also means that once its acidity, death by bleaching, drowning, more intense cyclones and
pH reaches a certain point, the water will become acidic enough the systemic disturbances that will accompany them-then the
to corrode the healthy reefs that remain. Like the ancient pearl reef will move into a new mode. It will abandon the old balance.
Cleopatra famously dropped in a goblet of vinegar so she could Instead of trying to preserve the regime that exists now, it will
dazzle Antony with her decadent excess, the corals dissolve. begin to help a different one come into being.
Of course, once the corals are gone, the creatures that depend In the Caribbean, where 80 per cent of corals are dead, this is
on them are gone too. already happening. A new system has already taken over in which
These threats are years or even decades in the future. But they slimy algae are the main form of life and corals, fish and mammals
are real, and they will compound the problems that have already are relatively rare.
caused so much death on the world's reefs. It will be a spiral that Scientists believe that the corals won't be able to adapt to the
feeds on itseU: magnifying the negative effects, becoming greater onslaught of carbon dioxide if humans fail to curb emissions. The
than the sum of its parts. So corals face not just one imminent changes are happening far too quickly. Ocean chemistry, for
threat but several that combine, magnifying each other to join example, is shifting more quickly than it has for millions of years.
with the severe conditions that already exist. It has begun to change dramatically from decade to decade, just
Unless humans find a way to halt this scenario, it will become the blink of an eye in evolutionary terms. Most corals grow slowly,
what's known as a positive feedback system, set in motion in order reproduce with difficulty, evolve in minuscule increments.
to create a new system rather than preserve the old. It's a switch. Corals appear to have been unable to adapt quickly to changes
Here again, a medical metaphor: when the human body has a in ocean chemistry in earlier times of great disruption. The fossil
bacterial infection, it develops a fever to protect itself. The high record shows that when corals vanished they did so for millions
temperature makes it hard for the bacteria or viruses to survive. · of years at a time, coming back only because a few species held on
The goal of the fever is to kill the infectious agents and restore somewhere and eventually formed new populations after pains-
the body to health. But ifthe infection rages too far and the fever taking adaptation.
goes too high, then the body switches from fostering health to Even if corals could evolve quickly enough to adapt to the new
courting death. Fever takes over and the body dies. A new and environment, how would they know which new system to adapt to?
different system is bom-<lecay-which is designed to break the It's a moving target. To halt the coming damage to the reef and the
body up into its component chemicals and offer them up for new multitude of creatures that depend on it, humans would have to

THELASTBESTPLACEONEARTH 35
34 SEA SICK
ensure that the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere We're being bounced along by the energy of the waves, too. I
rises little higher than it is now. That mtlans changing our sources have to learn to let myself go, to try not to fight against the water
of energy to those not based on carbon, or using them in ways that or control it. I cannot bend it to my will.
do not emit carbon into the atmosphere. Being here requires humility.
All of this is possible, Fabricius says. In fact, she ar gues that I've just spotted a green turtle swimming smoothly among
we have an ethical and moral responsibility to do what we can the gorgeous swathes of coral. It's fully a metre across, as big as
to prevent the death of the reef, with all its accompanying con- a dining room table. I swim beside it for a while, envious of its
sequences. But to do it would take rapid changes in our belief easy movement, the graceful paddle of its feet, the ballet it can
systems. We have to understand that our population and our use dance underwater.
of fossil energy cannot keep growing. She points across the water I'm careful not to swim above it. That can spook them and
to the mainland. Further inland are coal mines which send boat- sometimes they panic, dive deep and suffocate before they can get
loads of the carbon dioxide-spewing fuel to China. back to the surface.
She shakes her head. Australians glory in their powerful Like so many types of sea turtles, the greens are globally
economy, which is strong partly because it provides a climate- and endangered, often killed by long-line fishing techniques and by
ocean-altering fossil fuel to another country. We are holding onto people who crave their meat and eggs. One of its common names
a belief in growth that was born hundreds of years ago, she says. in French is tortue comestible, or the turtle that's good to eat.
But the climate and ocean system are changing in ways they have Only about 200,000 nesting females are still alive anywhere in the
not for millions of years. world.
Tradition, she believes, will trump reason on this issue, with Over here is a long, ribbon-thin neon yellow fish with a black
catastrophic results. We haven't learned how to take the long view. eye and a mouth like a flute. Here, a clutch of giant clams, some
with intensely blue lips. And everywhere, schools of fish in colours
that bring to mind candy shops and party frocks.
Back at Turtle Bay we're having a rough time snorkelling. The We're out of the water now. We've had to abort a snorkel
winds have whipped the heavy waves into a frenzy. Saltwater further down Agincourt Reef at a fish hot spot known as Castle
splashes through the breathing tube into the mouthpiece, forcing Rock. By now, at the end of the day, the waves are just too heavy,
us to surface quickly and frequently, and gulp desperately for air. the wind too strong.
Our umbilical cords to the surface are treacherous. I've peeled out of my diving suit and am in dry pants and a
I know that our own blood plasma is chemically a dead ringer shirt. Despite the heat of the day I am shivering in my warm
for sea water-a legacy of the fact that all creatures, including jacket. Being in the ocean for hours on end gives a chill to the
our ancestors, evolved in the ocean-but as I spit out another bone. My skin smells like salt and fish. Little abra ions I had
mouthful of salty water I am forcibly reminded that this is no before I went in are healed up as if they had never existed.
longer our medium of life. It is a foreign and a frightening place A photographer who has dived with us today and snapped
our pictures underwater is flogging DVDs, complete with
where humans have few defences.

THE LAST BEST PLACE ON EARTH 37

36 SEASICK
pictures from the Agincourt Reef that he and others took before There's also the fact that relatively few people live close to the
this trip. I notice that they're mainly of fish . The corals could be reef. The amount of chemical pollution and silt from industry and
so much wallpaper. farming is lower than it would be if Australia were as thickly
This tourist outfit, Quicksilver Group, is superb. It is renowned populated near its coast as, say, Indonesia or Florida.
in the scientific community for its help with marine research. Its Plus the Reef is fabulously rich in species, seeded from the
literature boasts that it has Australia's largest team of marine reefs of Papua New Guinea further north. Some coral reefs don't
biologists outside of government agencies. Yet there has been not start out with nearly this much. The more species there are, the
a single mention of the threats the reef faces, apart from adjura- greater the likelihood that some of them will survive.
tions not to touch it or cart any of it away because of the hefty One of the terms that keeps coming up in our conversation is
fines, as if tourists were the greatest danger. 'refugia'. It refers to little clusters of genetic coral material that
I think about the meeting I had yesterday with Paul Marshall will slip through the cracks of destruction and live to build
and Johanna Johnson in Townsville. They work for the Great another reef. Marshall and Johnson are counting on a few little
Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority assessing the effects of bits of reef being left somewhere.
climate change on the reef, part of a larger Australian team Still, they know that the Great Barrier Reef is in for some
working on the research on this topic. They have international severe changes in the coming years. It's locked in, as they put it.
reputations in their field. And they are frank about the fact that Already Australia's monsoon season has begun to fail. That means
they are buying time for the reef. That means limiting fishing, clouds are vanishing and the temperature of the air, the sand and
restricting shipping and other local forms of damage to the reef. the water is rising. There's also less wind to cool things down.
The theory is that if the stresses that can be controlled are They can already see changes in the system reflected in what's
kept to a minimum, the reef has a better chance to survive the happening with sea birds and sea turtles. In 2005, which was the
massive stresses still to come as the climate continues to change. hottest year on record on the Great Barrier Reef, baby birds died
The guiding principle is that if any reef in the world has a en masse. At first the scientists thought the chicks died of expo-
chance to survive what's coming, it's the Great Barrier Reef, and sure in the torrid heat. But it turned out that the problem was
these scientists and their park authority are going to give it every something quite different. The waters on the reef were so hot that
possible chance. the plankton moved to cooler places and the fish followed. So
Marshall lists all the natural advantages of the Great Barrier when the mother sea birds went foraging for food to feed the
Reef compared to other reefs, when it comes to outright survival. chicks, the little fish weren't there. The chicks died of starvation.
First, its sheer size means that bits of it might remain after For the sea turtles 2005 held a different, but equally grisly,
destruction, to start anew. fate. When scientists couldn't figure out where all the baby
Next, water circulation-and, therefore, the free movement of turtles were at Mon Repos beach, the largest mainland turtle
creatures-around the reef is high. There's always the chance that rookery in Australia, they began searching the nests. They found
if nothing there survives, a new reef could be seeded from some- cooked eggs. It had been so hot that the eggs had baked instead
thing that s urvived somewhere else. of hatching.

38 SEA SICK THE LAST BEST PLACE ON EARTH 39

 Marshall sees hope, though. Scientists have a huge role to play
in crafting programs to remove what stresses they can and in
pooling knowledge to find solutions for the problems of the Reef.
He likens it to a Darwinian age, an era of scientific discovery. CHAPTER2
'Even if we can make the difference between 5 per cent coral
cover and 15 per cent, it's well worth our while,' he says. READING THE VITAL SIGNS: OXYGEN
I look around me at these reef aficionados on the catamaran,
munching on their sweets and cheese. What would they do if they
knew all this?Would they be shocked? Would they make a ruckus, Gulf of Mexico: The line between life and death in
push for solutions? the blob
I have the absurd urge to get up and shout, 'Does anybody on
this catamaran know what's going on here or why it matters?'
Inst.ead, I vow to team up with a group of scientists who will be
examining parts of the Gulf of Mexico that have lost their oxygen
for more clues about how this complex ecosystem works. Those Not far from New Orleans, where the mighty length of the Missis-
parts are devoid of life. I will voyage from this Eden to a dead zone. sippi River goes off like a fire hose into the Gulf of Mexico, lies
Afternoon tea is ending. The crew is again handing out doses the blob.
of Dramamine and ginger for the rough trip back to the main- The blob is thick and dense, a shape-shifting layer of water
land. We will speed bravely, boldly, through the stiff waves over which is short on oxygen stuck under the surface of the Gulf. Parts
the corals, the turtles, fish, sharks and giant clams. It will be as of it have no oxygen at all, an astounding phenomenon for such an
though we were never here. energetic part of the.global ocean.
Already, many of the passengers are dozing. Conceptually, the blob is like those lava lamps from the 1960s.
When they were plugged in, heat from the lightbulb melted wax
which then formed funky three-dimensional'shapes inside a cone
of coloured liquid. The blob is like the wa..x, forming a different
size and shape each year. Right now it's massive, settled thickly
on 17,000 square kilometres of the Gulfs sea floor and in places
rising nearly to the surface in an unmixable mass.
I'm with a group of American scientists who have allowed me
to join them on a scientific expedition to examine the blob in detail
for the first lime. We'll be sampling meticulously mapped sections
of it, as well as water outside its edges, to measure the difference

40 SEA SICK READING THE VITAL SIGNS: OXYGEN 41