Sylvia A. Earle, Sea Change: A Message of the Oceans (G. P. Putnam & Sons, New York, 1995). 361 pp. ISBN 0-399-14060-3.
The deep oceans seem to attract as distinguished a roster of female scientists as of male. Among the most familiar are Eugenie Clark (whom I always think of as "The Shark Lady" after watching films of her cavorting with sharks); Diane R. Nelson, whom I most recently heard at the National Association of Biology Teachers 1996 Convention; and the author of the volume under review, Sylvia Earle.
Ms. Earle has had a long and distinguished career as marine biologist, with special reference to marine plants, and as an activist in developing technology for access and research in the deep ocean. A listing of the boards and organizations she belongs to, the publications she has authored, the diving records she has established during more than six thousand hours of diving, the degrees she has earned and the honorary doctorates awarded would fill more than a column of this Newsletter, not to mention the honors and awards that have been showered upon her, not just from the United States but from foreign countries as well. During the course of this career she has emerged as an ardent advocate of the protection of living marine ecosystems and the establishment of marine parks and sanctuaries. There are more than 1200 of these worldwide, all established in the last 25 years. Many of these she was influential in advocating and an appendix to her book lists regions where there are protected marine areas, starting with Region 1 (Antarctica) and ending with Region 18 (Australia and New Zealand). The largest number of protected areas, 260, is in the Australia/New Zealand region. Also listed in the appendix are the U.S. National Marine Sanctuaries, of which there are 14. The first, the Monitor, designated in 1975, protects the area surrounding the site of the wreck of that ship. The last one listed is the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary, designated in 1994. There may be others since then.
It is impossible to write a complete review of this extensive book within the space available, starting with Earle's first experiences as a 16-year old in her first underwater dive and continuing with her activities in the design and manufacture of submersibles -- Deep Ocean Technology, later Deep Ocean Engineering. The Deep Rover submersible that resulted was used both for industrial applications and research dives.
One of Earle's continuing themes is wonderment -- or should I say chagrin -- at the fact that billions have been spent in the exploration of space and so comparatively little in the exploration of the oceans, which make life on earth possible.
One of the most interesting passages in the book deals with the development of underwater habitats so active in the 1960s. The Man-in-the-Sea Project allowed her to visit a submarine habitat for an hour and a half. She says, "imagine trekking anywhere else on Earth . . . with life or death limits on how far (125 feet) or how long (20 minutes) you can go. All this while five months pregnant!
Earle describes the work of the Tektite aquanauts, 50 feet under water offshore St. Johns in the Virgin Islands. She wound up heading an all-woman aquanaut team for nearly three weeks in 1970 under the sponsorship of NASA. When they emerged they found a new agency, NOAA, had been formed embracing all elements of Federal sea and air enterprises. Placed under the Department of Commerce instead of being an independent agency, it has gradually languished. Despite the fact that she was later appointed Chief Scientist of NOAA, she evidently laments the change and decribes herself as "a lonely voice in support of what remained of the concept for a vigorous national underwater research program."
Her experiences in the Tektite habitat and the enormous public fanfare that greeted the women's return to the surface changed her attitude toward communication and the media and she decided to try to articulate for everyone, not just for her learned ivory tower colleagues, the results and importance of scientific inquiry in the sea. Numerous "popular" articles from National Geographic to Redbook as well as numerous TV and radio interviews followed.
Here are just a few of the highlights of Earle's accounts: first, a marvelous description of her diving among whales, when a close encounter with a pregnant humpback whale showed her that she was as observed as observing. This was part of a study which eventually would extend to encompass much of the eastern Pacific from Alaska through Hawaii to Mexico. It was soon obvious that the humpbacks could outmaneuver, outswim, and outdistance the observers. She gives a moving account of what it is like to be next to humpbacks who are "singing their song!"
She details the vicissitudes of starting up a company dedicated to the manufacture of Deep Rover submersibles, which proved their value in industrial as well as research applications in the ocean. This segued logically into building one-person submersibles untethered to the surface. Deep Flight, they were called. The endeavor is made more noteworthy by the growing realization that the deep sea is a dynamic place, home to complex ecosystems and a biological diversity that rivals even incredibly rich terrestrial systems.
Approximately the last third of the book is devoted to an informed and impassioned discussion of the despoiling and degradation of oceans by the activities of humans. It is all there, and too long and detailed to attempt to summarize here. The leakage of fuel from the sunken Japanese warships in Truk. The effects of oil spills from Torrey Canyon, Amoco Cadiz and the Ixtoc I oil well, through the Exxon Valdez, to the obscene insult to the environment in the Persian Gulf and Kuwait during the Gulf War=2E Overfishing, which is now becoming more clearly a threat, to the extent that Canadian fisheries have been closed and New England ones severely restricted. Earle argues for the establishment of conservation policies -- on a small personal as well as a broad public scale -- policies which will enable us to protect and maintain planetary health, especially the viability of oceans. Actions must be taken before ecosystems are futher traumatized or destroyed. Before, as she puts it, the arrival of the "point of no return." Her final admonition is somber -- "if we fail, through inability to resolve thorny issues, or by default born of indiffference, greed, or lack of knowledge, our kind might well be a passing short-term phenomenon, a mere three or four million-year blip in the ancient and ongoning saga of life on earth." A sobering view.
- Irma S. Jarcho
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