Resistance Is Futile: Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Network Effect

There’s no getting around it, science is a social enterprise. Go ahead, try and do some by your lonesome. Oh, you may putter and dial-twirl and churn out some damn fine solo research. But you’ll undoubtedly rely upon the prior research of others to get anywhere (that whole “standing on the shoulders of giants” business). And if you have any hope of your research rippling further than your lab, you need to avail yourself of a peer review process that opens-up your work to global scrutiny and verification.

Yup, science is a group effort.

And so, it seems, is science blogging. This IS social media, after all!

I’ve had a pretty solid and satisfying solo run here at Malaria, Bedbugs, Sea Lice, and Sunsets… four years, nearly 1000 substantive posts, hundreds of thousands of visitors from 196 countries. Not too shabby for a mostly coral reef conservation-focused blog written with a decidedly queer agenda. But no man is an island. Not even an ocean blogging man.

I’m pleased as punch to now join the close-knit family of ocean science colleagues over at Deep Sea News. I’ve admired the writing, humor, and camaraderie on display there for years; I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t gushing with pride when Craig invited me to join the crew. And I truly love that the folks behind Deep Sea News know their audience and work hard to maintain a highly social and interactive platform.

Over the years, I’ve come to call Craig, Kevin, and Miriam dear friends. Yet while I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Kevin and Miriam in the flesh (hell, we’ve quaffed a goodly amount of booze and broken bread together on several occasions), I’ve somehow not managed to meet Craig yet. I suspect this will soon change. And I’m thrilled at the prospect of now collaborating with Holly as well. I just hope I do them all proud!

For my part, I’ll continue to provide my particular take on ocean science issues. Expect a heavy focus on coral reefs, marine biodiversity conservation, marine protected area science, and the politics and practicalities of ocean resource management (which is more about managing humans than managing the resource). And I’ll try to keep the snark to a minimum.

But please do your part too! Tell me what you like, don’t like, what piques your interest or spurs your thoughts along the way. This is a two-way conversation.

Enough with the overture. As the plebe around there I’ve got a lot of heads to scrub. Craig said that if I do a good job, I won’t have to use my own toothbrush.

Conservation Transformational

Conservation International, one of the largest (by budget and size) biodiversity conservation NGOs on the planet, has given itself a facelift. Gone is the familiar green rainforest silhouette (left) that has represented the organization for the past 23 years. In its place is a modern, minimalist expression of CI's new mission. A simple blue circle atop a green base represents, according to Peter Seligmann, Chairman and CEO of Conservation International, "A healthy blue planet supported by a green development path."

CI's new logo isn't merely cosmetic. The organization with marine and terrestrial projects in 31 countries has been transforming itself over the past two years to be the one-stop, all climate change all the time NGO for a new conservation reality. CI is now retooling its structure in order to safeguard all the ecosystem services (or what it's calling securities) we receive from nature.

All of CI's existing programmatic activities are being reviewed, evaluated, and retrofitted to fit within the identified global priority areas of climate change, food security, freshwater security, human health, cultural services and biodiversity protection. In some cases, longstanding focus areas, such as CI's Center for Environmental Leadership in Business Travel and Leisure Division--which in part hoped to steer cruise ships towards environmentally sustainable practices--are being reduced in capacity or phased-out entirely.

It's hard to argue the rationale for CI's shift in focus, particularly considering my own area of conservation focus. Human exacerbated climate change is responsible for some of the largest scale coral reef destruction currently threatening the existence of an entire marine ecosystem. As a result of bleaching events correlated to elevated sea surface temperatures, live coral cover in the Caribbean has declined by 80 percent and throughout the Indo-Pacific by 50 percent. And the creeping threat of acidified oceans as a result of CO2-saturated seawater portends the literal dissolution of reefs before our very eyes.

But I've got to wonder at what cost transformation. The logo, the redesign of existing work groups, the future of some long-standing conservation investments, and the air transportation back-and-forth of global field staff and senior staff over the past two years as CI re-imagined itself. And considering that CI has faced strong criticism in the past on big budgets-big PR-small outcomes, I would hope this metamorphosis is not just about capitalizing on a shifting conservation funding landscape that seem to be favoring a shovel-ready climate change focus.

For the moment, I'll harbor hope in the bold risk-taking.

Non-Normative Ocean Conceptions Week At Southern Fried Science

Okay, that's quite the mouthful. What I meant to say was OoPS, as in Ocean of Pseudoscience Week.

The hillbillies over at Southern Fried Science have cooked up more than just beer in a coffee pot this time. To quote Andrew:

Over the next week we'll be tackling our favorite ocean myths, challenging conventional (yet strangely unsupported) wisdom about effective marine management and policy, smacking down some bad ocean science, blatant greenwashing, and straight up bull.

We'll also be counting down our favorite sea monsters all week long.

This could get ugly real fast, folks. So I'm planning on grabbing front row seats to the freak show.

I just hope they don't burst my bubble on that old chestnut, "The ocean is blue because it reflects the color of the sky." For mercy's sake, leave me something to hold on to!

The Game Is Afoot!

What looks like my blog posts here at MBSL&S, walks like my blog posts here at MBSL&S, and quacks like my blog posts here at MBSL&S, yet ISN'T MBSL&S?

I'm So Blue

Amongst my many reasons for resuscitating MBSL&S, most proximate is that I'm spending the weekend in Monterey, CA, where I'm attending BLUE: the global oceans film and conservation festival.

On one level, I'm representing my organization (and incidentally, our new PSAs won honorable mention here at the festival!). But mostly I'm here to rub elbows with friends, colleagues, and other ocean geeks. I've already bumped into Sylvia Earle, Jean Michel Cousteau, David Doubilet, Wallace Nichols, Carl Safina, Julie Packard, colleagues from Indonesia and Africa, and that's just the first day!

At the registration tables, some group was giving away red Cousteau beanies, and it wasn't long before schools of red-capped ocean nerds were seen aggregating in the streets and at the film venues. I'm old enough to realize the iconic impact in the Cousteau beanie. But I can't help but feel my irony rising as I prefer to now think of them as Zissou caps.

Tonight's keynote speaker was Julie Packard, founder and executive director of The Monterey Bay Aquarium. Her key message seemed to be that after factoring-in the impact of educational venues such as the aquarium, and after decades of environmental education, we haven't really moved the ball significantly on public perceptions of the importance of the ocean. Nor does the general public seem to position environmental issues (let alone ocean environmental issues) as a high priority in their lives. Packard listed numerous statistics from public polling compiled by The Ocean Project.

Packard certainly chose the right audience for her pitch to find more effective ways of reaching the public. The auditorium was standing room only with film makers, media, ocean environmental communication experts, and conservationists. If anyone should be able to move the ball on registering awareness, it's the combined talent in this room! The room was jam-packed with incredibly talented videographers, directors, writers, story-tellers, and photographers. The halls of the Portola Hotel (the festival's home base) were festooned with sumptuous ocean imagery. Sharks, waves, deep sea life, sea birds, seaweed, whales, storms, ships... some in high-def color, others in somber black and white. Video monitors were screening trailers of films to be shown this weekend. And throngs of festival attendees were ogling the visual bounty.

Indeed, we have done an incredibly effective job at capturing the public's attention and interest in the ocean. The public can't seem to get enough. But there's a disconnect. They seem to love the otherworldly strangeness of ocean life and the stories that are told by film makers. Hell, Shark Week is big business and big money--perhaps the biggest annual draw for attention focused on the ocean. But the public doesn't seem to care enough to do something to protect it.

The old chestnut that we only protect what we care about seems to be true. The challenge which Packard laid down for the room tonight hinged on that critical tension. How do we make people care. The Monterey Bay Aquarium is a vehicle for generating that empathy. But it's a tightrope walk, having to balance education and concern with entertainment and fun.

I'm curious to see if anyone tonight cares enough to pick up Packard's challenge and taker her call to action to heart. After all, the heart seems to be where all of this needs to start.

Just When I Thought I Was Out... They Pull Me Back In!

It was either that header or, "I'm baaaack!"

A confluence of really juicy events (some past, some present, and some on the horizon) have brought me out of my bloggy torpor. As I wipe the moss and mildew from my screen, chisel the keyboard and mouse from their surrounding matrix of sedimentary rock, and brush my tooth, know that Malaria, Bedbugs, Sea Lice & Sunsets is lumbering towards you once again in search of fresh brains.

Can I mix more metaphors in this post?!

While you no doubt wait at the edge of your seats for the gold I'm about to spin, satisfy your ocean blogging jones over at Southern Fried Science where my pal Andrew is punishing entertaining us all with a new, year-long series called Finding Melville's Whale: a discussion of the classic, Moby Dick, from a (mostly) marine biologist perspective.

More soon!

Back To The Blueprint?

What's 635 pages long, fully illustrated, weighs 5.4 pounds, cost millions of taxpayer dollars to produce, was written and signed by a blue-ribbon, cross-sectoral panel of ocean scientists, military, DC legislators, and business leaders, and endorsed by an august and prestigious science advisory panel? It's An Ocean Blueprint for the 21st Century, the final report by the US Commission on Ocean Policy published in 2004.

This isn't the first time I've called reader's attention to the Ocean Blueprint. Last time I did it was with some skepticism over whether the Bush Administration would take seriously any of the recommendations for action that were outlined in the 2007 IPCC Report on climate change (that just so happened to echo and reinforce similar recommendations outlined in the Ocean Blueprint three years earlier). Sadly, my skepticism was justified.

So here I am once again returning to the Ocean Blueprint curious to see what it had to say regarding a scenario that now unfolds as a result of the BP Gulf Oil disaster.

I refer to Chapter 24, Managing Offshore Energy and Other Mineral Resources, p. 357 (Rise in Deep-Water Oil Production):

Although production in the Gulf of Mexico's heavily leased shallow waters has been steadily declining, production in its deeper waters (more than 1,000 feet), which tend to produce more oil than natural gas, increased by over 500 percent between 1995 and 2002. In part, this growth was attributable to technological breakthroughs, the relative stabilization of crude oil prices, and the enactment of legislation in 1995 granting various levels of royalty relief to lessees willing to make the risky investment in the Gulf's deeper waters. Deep-water oil production now accounts for more than half of the Gulf's production. Additionally, the technology for ultra-deep-water development continues to advance with the drilling of a number of exploratory and production wells in water depths greater than 7,000 feet. Recently, a world record exploratory well was drilled in 10,000 feet of water.

Just for reference, BP's Deepwater Horizon blowout was a production well on the seafloor at a depth of 1,500 m (approximately 5,000 feet) of seawater, just shy of the boundary of what the Ocean Blueprint classifies as "ultra-deep-water" oil extraction.

Beginning on p. 361, the Ocean Blueprint outlines concerns regarding environmental safety related to offshore oil and gas production. While acknowledging that the US oil industry's environmental safety record has improved since the 1969 Santa Barbara blowout, numerous environmental issues associated with the development and production of oil and gas from the outer continental shelf (OCS) persist. Foremost among these are:

• Physical damage to coastal wetlands and other fragile areas by OCS-related onshore infrastructure and pipelines.
• Physical disruption of and damage to bottom-dwelling marine communities.
• Immediate and long-term ecological effects of large oil spills.
• Cumulative impacts on the marine, coastal, and human environments.

Continuing on p. 363, the Ocean Blueprint reiterates and emphasizes that,

OCS oil and gas exploratory activities in the Gulf of Mexico are now occurring in water depths approaching 10,000 feet with projections that the industry will achieve 15,000 feet drilling capabilities within the next decade. The technological ability to conduct oil and gas activities in even deeper waters on the OCS places a significant and important responsibility [my emphasis] on the Minerals Management Service (MMS) to collect the essential environmental deep-water data necessary for it and other agencies to make informed management and policy decisions on exploration and production activities at those depths [my emphasis]. Thus, as the knowledge base increases and the industry expands its activities further offshore and into deeper waters, new environmental issues are emerging that cannot all be adequately addressed under the current MMS Environmental Studies Program budget [my emphasis].

So what did the Ocean Blueprint authors recommend for action?

Recommendation 24-2, p. 364, states that the US Department of the Interior should expand the Minerals Management Service's Environmental Studies Program (ESP). Priorities for the enhanced ESP [and don't think that I'm not finding a sad irony in the ESP acronym in light of our current dilemma!] should include:

1) Conducting long-term environmental research and monitoring at appropriate outer Continental Shelf sites to better understand cumulative, low-level, and chronic impacts of OCS oil and gas activities on the natural and human environments; and,
2) Working with state environmental agencies and industry to evaluate the risks to the marine environment posed by aging offshore and onshore pipelines, particularly in the Gulf of Mexico.

'Aint hindsight a bitch?!

As we have learned, the Minerals Management Service was hardly the fierce watchdog of the People's interest that it was established to be. The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) has alleged that MMS has suffered from a systemic revolving door problem between the Department of Interior and the oil and gas industries. And MMS appears to have provided routine exemptions to oil interests from the National Environmental Policy Act's requirements of environmental risk analysis.

It wasn't until June 15, 2010, just hours before President Obama's Oval Office address to the nation on the Gulf spill, before the current Administration announced what they are calling "far-reaching changes" and funding necessary to "fix" the Minerals Management Service.

It's impossible to say how a serious consideration and implementation of the Ocean Blueprint's recommendations might have changed what we are dealing with today. We might still find ourselves mired in oily goo and facing the wholesale destruction of an ocean basin's ability to support life. But I continue to hope that someone in Washington will someday use the blueprint for more than just a doorstop. And Mr Obama, if you can't find your copy I'll be happy to loan you mine.

We're On A Mission And We're In A Hurry!

So sue me. I'm not above a little gratuitous self-promostion. In celebration of World Ocean(s) Day, the Coral Reef Alliance is debuting these new videos that help describe our work. Best of all, they feature the fabulous Dr Sylvia Earle as one of our supporters. Talk about street cred!

Hope you enjoy, feel inspired, and help support our mission!

Ripped From The Sea

It all started out nice enough. A Memorial Day outing to Half Moon Bay for some lunch, plenty of farm stands with early summer produce, and maybe some tidepooling at Princeton Beach. But that was all before my mood soured considerably on stumbling across this charming marine mortuary tucked away off Main street in downtown Half Moon Bay. Seascapes: Gifts of the Sea, calls itself A very special shop dedicated to everyone who loves the sea! Yeah. Everyone who loves the sea to death.

Dead snail remains, dead bivalves, dead sea stars, dead urchins, dead coral (LOTS of dead coral), dead sea fans, dead sea whips. Dead. Dead. Dead. And if you don't see something that piques your dead decorating or craft needs, the proprietors appear eager to locate any special dead request.

Appalled? Me too. Feel free to let them know.

It Wasn't Me

Absolutely pathetic.