EKOS Communications, Inc.

I just finished reading Alanna Mitchell's newest book "Sea Sick" published by McClelland & Stewart. What a powerful piece of writing! Subtitled "The Global Ocean in Crisis", the book pulls no punches, starting with the Prologue in which she recounts an ocen-side conversation with Tim Flannery. "He told me that I was documenting the last days of a system," Mitchell confides.

Grim stuff. With lots more following it. All backed up by extensive research and interviews with some of the leading oceanographers of our time.

As an instructor of ecology for undergraduates and graduates, I really appreciated how well Mitchell understands and is able to convey in clear, easy-to-follow complex ecological concepts, such as positive feedback loops, resilence, and switches (or tipping points). These ideas, she elegantly weaves together with case studies and examples from around the globe to prove how vitally important the ocean is to sustaining life on the planet and how badly we humans are treating it.

In case you are thinking: "Oh wow, just what I need, more doom and gloom", let me assure you that the book is not all about despair. There are glimmers of hope here and there, but particularly in the last chapter.

The book is the best primer for ocean literacy I've ever come across and if I had my way, it would be required reading for every Canadian.

Here are a few of my favourite quotes:

"Every third molecule of carbon dioxide you exhale is absorbed in the ocean. Every second breath you take comes from the oxygen produced by plankton."

"Like the blood in your body, the ocean waters are constantly on the move. You have no blood that is only of the brain or only of the thumb. There is no sea water that is only of the Pacific or of the Indian Ocean. There is only one ocean and it is a single system, chemically, physically, and biologically."

"We are creating a new future on an unprecedented scale. That part is incontroversible. The unknown is what future we will choose to create."

"...we are in an era that holds out the potential for magnificent regeneration. We could, if enough of us wanted to, form a new relationship with our planet. We could become the gentle symbionts we were meant to be instead of the planetary parasites we have unwittedly become. Perhaps this is the system switch that will be in the offing. Instead of the ocean lurching further into an irrevocably altered state, maybe humans will irrevocably alter our relationship to it and understand that we must keep it healthy if we are to save ourselves."

Read the book!