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The blue planet: oceans in crisis.

Article Excerpt
The astronauts of Apollo 8, on the first mission around the moon in 1968, took a now famous photograph. Called "Earthrise," it shows the grey and lifeless horizon of the moon--and suspended above it, against the infinite blackness of space, is our bright and blue home planet.

Along with other images from space, that photograph has had a huge impact on humanity's collective consciousness. It offered an undeniable vision of our interdependence, proof that we all share a single home, with nowhere else to go should we irreparably damage this one.

The photograph also revealed another fact: the predominant color of our planet is blue. That's because, of course, more than 70 percent of its surface is covered by water. Oceans, not land, are the predominant feature of the earth, and sea creatures the predominant form of life.

Despite this fact, or perhaps because of it, land-dwelling humanity has by and large taken the world's oceans for granted. Viewed through a traditional mindset that held that their wealth was free for the taking, the oceans were long seen as a bottomless supply of fish, seafood and other natural resources --and also a nearly infinite waste dump.

It now appears that humanity's heedlessness may soon catch up with it.

A series of recent reports...

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