Jim Cornall

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.