Our Changing Ocean Vast and powerful though the ocean is people
have changed it. It’s a different ocean now. The ocean’s
enduring surface beauty hides its plight. But the ocean today is
a diminished version of a much healthier ocean of not so long
ago. The ocean is the source of about half the oxygen we
breathe, much of the water we drink, and much of the food we
eat. (If you don’t eat fish, consider this: about a third of the
world fish catch gets made into feed for chickens, pigs, and
other livestock.) Changes to the ocean undermine the health and
well-being of people and wildlife worldwide. These changes
include depletion from overfishing, warming, ocean acidification
caused by the same carbon dioxide that is warming the atmosphere
and the upper sea, chemical pollution, plastic debris, loss of
wetlands, coastal mangrove forests, and coral reefs, and
invasive species. Each of these alone is serious. Can any
particular part of the oceans survive these things happening all
at once? The answer is: “it depends.