In Review: Grave Waters

Sea Sick: The Global Ocean in Crisis, Alanna Mitchell, Toronto: Emblem Editions, 2010, 248 pages. and Deep Blue Home: An Intimate Ecology of Our Wild Ocean, Julia Whitty, New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010, 256 pages.

One of the greatest limitations we face as a species is that we react to events as opposed to prepare for them. For example, a heart attack often leads to a complete change of lifestyle, but only after the fact. Collectively we are much the same, so it is a good thing that books come along that alert us to the fact that one of the Earth's essential organs, the ocean, is in trouble. And if the ocean is in trouble, so are we.

In Sea Sick, talented Canadian journalist Alanna Mitchell paints a vivid picture of the peril to planetary life if the seas fail. In her award-winning book, Mitchell successfully connects us to the mysterious hidden ocean in a way that works even for ordinary citizens who are preoccupied with simple survival in troubled times. Plankton, while unspectacular and often almost invisible to the naked eye, produce half of the world's oxygen, Mitchell notes. Then she drives the punch home: Ocean plankton supply every second breath we take. Mitchell admits that she is no scien- tist, but she is adroit in deploying stark, realistic and eminently understandable analogies. …

See also sidebar:
Black Ice