The power of the stories we tell about the ocean

[MUSIC PLAYING] FLORA LICHTMAN: Hey, it’s Flora, and you’re listening to Science Friday. There’s been wave after wave of bad news about the ocean. Warming temperatures, overfishing, acidification, coral bleaching– the list goes on. But in the last few years, there’s also been some big wins for the big blue and a kind of narrative shift in which the ocean itself has almost become its own larger-than-life character in conservation conversations. So how should we think about the future of the seas? And how do the stories we tell about the ocean shape how we think about it?

Dr. Helen Scales is a marine biologist and author of What the Wild Sea Can Be– The Future of the World’s Ocean, which is Science Friday’s book club pick of the month. Helen, thanks for being here.

HELEN SCALES: Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited to join you guys. Thanks.

FLORA LICHTMAN: We’re so excited to have you. Let me start with this one. Helen, the oceans, how cooked are they?

HELEN SCALES: [LAUGHS] Well, on a scale of raw to done, well, it’s–

FLORA LICHTMAN: It’s a flambé.

HELEN SCALES: –it’s a good question. Yeah, there we go. Yeah, to a brulée. They’re not there yet. I think that’s a really important message to get across. We’re not done. I was reading just today a piece in the Australian press talking about, oh, the Great Barrier Reef is not dead yet. We never said that it’s dying in that all-or-nothing way. What we’re talking about is really big changes that are happening across the ocean. But it’s not like, and we’re done, and that’s it. We’re still in this kind of mid ground, I would say, of understanding what’s going on and seeing those effects play out.

FLORA LICHTMAN: On the subject of understanding where we are, I mean, I think on this show, we’ve talked about some of the issues a lot– climate change, plastic pollution, acidification. But is there anything else I need to add to my worry list?

HELEN SCALES: Well, I’d hate to add that to your anxiety because I know that is also such a big part of how we deal with the news these days is like, oh, great, another thing to worry about. But yeah, I mean, I really see that the ocean threats do come in those main categories, which I think you’ve touched on– so overfishing, pollution, and climate change. And there are nuances within that.

So we could talk about deep sea mining, for instance, which isn’t happening yet, but it’s a big threat that’s coming up. So I say, yeah, that is something to pay attention to because, also, we have a chance to push back on that. And that would bring pollution. It would bring habitat destruction. It would bring species extinction. It would really cover many of those bigger issues, if we did, indeed, begin opening up, basically, one of the last great wildernesses on our planet to industrial extraction and exploitation.

So, yeah, I worry about that. I definitely worry that deep sea mining could go ahead. And I think there’s always– yeah, there’s always new things within those bigger pictures. But I would say, on the whole, those are the ways in which humans are affecting the seas in a really profound way. It’s what we’re taking out, and it’s what we’re putting back in. And yeah, new things might come along, but essentially, it’s that same story of this kind of assumption that the ocean is so big, we can’t break it. And it’s also so big that we can’t fix it. And neither of those things are true.

FLORA LICHTMAN: I mean, well, is it resilient as a system? Or does it break or bend in the same way as ecosystems on land? Or is it a sort of a different beast?

HELEN SCALES: It is a bit of a different beast. I think you have hit on something, this idea that there are different things going on in the ocean. There are different processes whereby recolonization and recovery can take place. Just, for instance, look at the way that sea creatures reproduce themselves. Sure, plants scatter their seeds to the wind, and that’s great.

But animals on land don’t tend to do that so much, whereas it’s really normal in the ocean for, essentially, most things to have eggs and larvae, which can– they get sent out into the ocean. And they can move to a greater or lesser distance away from the parents. And that, I think, gives us that ability to say, well, look, if we protect this piece of ocean, this other bit further away will benefit from that in a really clear way. And we’re seeing that happen.

So I think there is a different way of thinking about how the ocean is protected, how it works, how it can help itself to recover because of that fluidity, I think. It’s kind of obvious the ocean is fluid, but it really does affect how things live and how they reproduce and how ecosystems can keep going if someone, somewhere out there, is doing OK.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Can you give me an example of a comeback that gives you hope?

HELEN SCALES: Oh, for sure. I mean, my mind– when people ask me, where does the hope come from, I often drift to some of the really big, iconic species in the ocean that are amazingly doing better things, like the great whales. They were an industrial resource only a few decades ago. On the whole, they were considered to be something to use. They were just– yeah, they were just big bags of oil, basically, swimming around the ocean that could be used.

And industrial whaling was huge. Middle of the 20th century, it was enormous. But they shifted. I think the thing– the story of the whales that gives me hope on two grounds, really, for two reasons. One is that people, humanity, in a very general sense, changed their minds about whales.

And it was thanks to the campaigns, the save the whale campaigns, the conservationists who really hit this home, this message that whales are incredible, beautiful, complex animals that sing to each other and raise their babies. And we can really relate to them as animals and see them as treasured wildlife and not just as something to use. And that campaign really worked. So for me–

FLORA LICHTMAN: And that’s storytelling, right? That’s just–

HELEN SCALES: Right.

FLORA LICHTMAN: –really good storytelling.

HELEN SCALES: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, absolutely. And it worked. And that’s why I hold that quite close to my heart, to remind myself that we can change our minds about we– I mean, that in a very, very general sense. But humans can change their minds about things.

And then the other side of the story that also brings me hope with the whales is that yeah, they are recovering now. It’s taken a long time because these are really big, the biggest animals that exist. They take decades to reach maturity and to have their babies. And they only have one or maybe two at a time, or mostly one at a time, I think.

But scientists are seeing them coming back now. They’re hearing them coming back. Their songs are returning to the ocean. So I just– if we can bring the whales back, I think we can do the same with so many other species. And we are. I could talk about bluefin tuna. I could talk about mangroves regrowing. So these stories turn around, and that’s what gives me hope. Yeah.

FLORA LICHTMAN: I want to share this with you. We asked our listeners to call in with stories about the ocean. And as long as we’re talking about whales, so many listeners had these profound whale encounters. And I want to play you one of them. This is from Todd in Winsted, Connecticut, who was on a boat, and the captain saw a pod of whales nearby. And Todd will pick it up from here.

TODD: I grabbed a mask and jumped in. That’s when I had a fully grown right whale pass maybe 20 feet below me, swimming upside down, white belly facing me. Below the whale was blackness, void. It was absolutely unforgettable.

HELEN SCALES: Wow. Wow.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Why do you think these moments are so moving to us?

TODD: Oh, gosh. And I’ve had so many. My mind– initially, I was going to say, well, because whales are so big. And that is part of it, I think. They’re so big.

FLORA LICHTMAN: [LAUGHS] Yeah. No, it’s true. It’s like, it’s hard to believe.

HELEN SCALES: Yeah, I think there’s something about the human mind and what we can wrap our minds about in terms of scale and size. We can’t really imagine the tiny small very easily and, also, the really big. And I think whales are, obviously, on that just kind of huge beast side of things. But then I’ve had plenty of equally transformational encounters with really small things too. So I don’t think it’s just size.

I don’t know. Maybe it’s that feeling of, I am here, and you are here– that is, the animal, the whale– in this one moment. And we’ve come together. And it’s such a fleeting, unlikely encounter, but yet, here we are. And we’re sharing this moment. And to have that moment in the ocean with a creature that lives in such a different environment that’s so different to us air-breathing, land-walking humans is so– it just goes really deep to have that feeling of recognition. I love it.

FLORA LICHTMAN: And it’s not only just our connection with animals. The way that we’re thinking about the ocean as a whole is different. Tell us about the Scottish Association for Marine Science and what they just did.

HELEN SCALES: So this is really incredible. Just recently, the announcement came out that this long-standing institution in Scotland– it’s been around for more than a century. It’s a research institution. It’s got a really important educational role. They do huge amounts of research into the ocean. And the people in charge basically decided to appoint the ocean as one of their trustees. So now, every time any decision is made, somebody in the room is basically going to take the voice of the ocean and put forward the view that the ocean would have about these decisions that are being made.

And from what I’ve heard, it’s already really transforming conversations. And people are hearing discussions even just over coffee of, like, well, what would the ocean think? And, what would they say about what we’re thinking of doing? And I think it could really lead the way to more organizations, to more institutions, more commercial bodies as well, thinking, OK, maybe we could do something similar.

FLORA LICHTMAN: So these comebacks, appointing the oceans a voice, do you feel like the tide’s turning? Like, there’s an acceleration of ocean conservation initiatives happening now?

HELEN SCALES: Absolutely. Yeah, I really do, actually. I mean, I just have to look across my own lifespan of a few decades and see how different I, as an individual, feel now to when I was a kid at school, who I really felt like I was the only one. And as I’ve carried on being a marine biologist and writing and thinking about the ocean, I do really feel like there’s more and more people coming into this world and really identifying with this core feeling of being a human that belongs to an ocean planet. We are ocean people. We all belong– it’s a part of our lives, even if you live nowhere near the ocean. The ocean is there, making our planet livable.

And I do think there’s more people, more individuals, more organizations. There is a growing movement. I think we’re still on a path towards where we need to be in terms of things like getting the ocean recognized within discussions on the climate, but that is happening. And I think it’s thanks to, yeah, this growing club of people who are realizing just how amazing the ocean is, how important it is, and how relevant it is to the health of our entire planet.

FLORA LICHTMAN: I want to dip into some cool recent ocean discoveries after the break, so don’t swim away.

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FLORA LICHTMAN: One thing that amazes me is that we’re still making big discoveries in the ocean. I just saw news about dark oxygen. Please tell me about it.

HELEN SCALES: Oh, my gosh. This is so weird. It’s like, if I had read this in a sci-fi book, I’d be like, oh, sure, OK. That’s, uh-huh, fine.

[LAUGHTER]

But it’s not. It’s real. So what they are finding is, this is down in the deep sea. And it’s very relevant to these discussions about deep sea mining. What a lot of the mining companies are after are these rocks sitting around on the seabed on the abyssal plains. They look kind of like lumps of coal, if you’ve ever seen such an outdated thing as a lump of black coal.

But they formed over millions of years from chemicals in the water. They begin maybe as a shark tooth millions of years ago dropped to the seabed. And it creates a gumball, like one of those sweets in layers. And it takes out millions of years for these things to form. And they’re full of metals. And that’s why the mining companies are interested in them, and some of those critical metals that we’re talking about so much right now.

But what these scientists just found out, just within the last year or so, is that these things are not inert. They’re not just sitting there on the seabed. They actually seem to be acting like little batteries, creating, producing oxygen and putting it into the water. And this is a crazy discovery.

FLORA LICHTMAN: This is kind of a big deal, right?

HELEN SCALES: It’s a huge deal. Because up until that point, it was always– the big assumption was oxygen comes from plants. It comes from photosynthesis. And that’s the only way nature makes oxygen, all the oxygen we breathe. And yet, here we are– well, actually, maybe that’s not the case. Life, we think, may well have started in the deep ocean. There’s various ideas of where that could have happened. But if there’s oxygen production in these abyssal plains, maybe that played a part in it. We just don’t know.

So at this point, it just feels even more important to me that we look after this part of the planet that we are only just beginning to understand. And such big things are coming out of this scientific research that it’s definitely not the time to be going in there and scraping it all up and taking it away and removing it, basically, permanently. These things are not going to grow back, these nodules. It’s going to take millions of years. So we have to be really careful about what goes on down there. But yeah, crazy, big discoveries about life on earth that are still being made, and they’re being made in the ocean.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Yes. Well, speaking of discoveries, I want to play you another call. Here’s Becky from Boston.

BECKY: I got to see a deep sea turtle. He looked right at me. He was just a few feet away. And then he slowly raised his head up above the water, the whole time keeping this eye contact with me with these amazing, deep, enduring eyes. And I knew for a fact that I was a deep sea turtle in my past life.

And I know that sounds crazy, but my own life is very hectic and modern and technical. And ever since I saw that deep sea turtle, I have this place to go. I can go back and remember what it was like seeing his unbelievable green and blue body in the water and that eye contact as if he understood exactly who I was.

HELEN SCALES: Oh, man, I can totally identify with that. Again, the eye contact thing of feeling that they were looking at you– I love the idea of believing that you’re a turtle in a past life. I couldn’t tell you what I think I was in a past life. I could be all sorts of things. But carrying that moment with you, I could absolutely identify with that. I do that. I have a manta ray encounter that I go to when I’m feeling depressed and sad, basically.

Because I was on a dive in Palau a few years ago, and I had such an incred– it was such a beautiful place to be. The corals, the fish were big and old. And it was just– it felt like how the ocean, to me, should be, just full of life. But I had to go home. I didn’t live there. I don’t live there. So this was a visit. And I was sad to leave. And I was honestly just so grumpy. I was grumpy, I’m not going to lie. I was grumpy about being on this final dive in Palau.

And I literally sat on the sand, and I think I cried. I actually cried salty tears into my dive mask. I was so grumpy. And then I looked across, and there was this manta ray within what feels to me like it was an arm’s reach away, looking at me. I think it was looking at me. I don’t know if it knew I was sad, but it definitely saw me feeling sad. But those moments, hold on to them tightly.

FLORA LICHTMAN: I mean, these feel like very small moments, but do you feel like they have deeper significance or fit with the story that we’re trying– this conversation we’re having today about the future of the oceans?

HELEN SCALES: I think so. I mean, I feel like it is a huge privilege to be able to go to the ocean and spend time looking and being there yourself. And not everyone’s going to get to do that. But if you can, then, obviously, it does create this bond, I think, to the ocean that never really goes away, that doesn’t fade. Maybe those connections, maybe they reach further. And I think they do. They reach out from that moment you had with that turtle, with that whale, and it ripples out from you.

We talked about how institutions are beginning to bring the ocean as an idea into their boardrooms and their discussions and decision-making. And I guess, we can all be those voices, too. We can tell our family and friends about these times we had. And hopefully, they can understand where that came from and, perhaps, feel themselves a little bit more connected.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Dr. Helen Scales is a marine biologist and author of several books, including What the Wild Sea Can Be– The Future of the World’s Ocean, which is Science Friday’s book club pick of the month. To read along with us, head to sciencefriday.com/bookclub. This episode was produced by Rasha Aridi. And to keep our little podcast afloat, please consider leaving us a rating and review on your podcast app of choice, but actually only if you love the show. Thank you for listening. I’m Flora Lichtman.

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