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there is a big push by scientists and
conservationists for a U.N. treaty
that would protect 30 percent of the
world’s ocean from human activity by
2030 (right now, only about two per-
cent is protected). The rise of aquacul-
ture gives hope that, if it’s done intelli-
gently, the ocean can become a steady source of
low-carbon, high-protein food. Matthew Moretti,
the 36-year-old CEO of Bangs Island Mussels in
Portland, Maine, grows 300,000 pounds of mus-
sels and 100,000 pounds of kelp each year on
seven acres of ocean. Mussels, which grow on
fuzzy ropes that hang down from the company’s
rafts in Casco Bay, filter the water, removing ni-
trogen and carbon. Kelp, a highly nutritious food
that is increasingly popular in everything from
pickled salads to animal feed, grows nearby,
sucking up carbon and de- acidifying the water
around the mussels. “Aquaculture is hope,” says
Moretti. “I see so much potential to do a lot of
good, to produce a lot of food for a lot of hun-Lubchenco. “Coral bleaching, gross plastic pol-
lution, ocean acidification, heat waves, collaps-
ing fisheries. It’s been one disaster after another.
But now a new narrative is beginning to emerge,
one that recognizes how central the oceans are
to mitigating climate change, to adapting to cli-
mate change, to providing food security, to so
many things that we care about. The new narra-
tive is far more hopeful, and it says the ocean is
too big to ignore.”
But we are in a race against time. Every ton
of coal and every barrel of oil we burn heats
up the atmosphere a little bit more, and that
heat makes its way into the ocean, changing cur-
rents in nearly imperceptible ways, bringing
new droughts and storms, shifting rainfall pat-
terns, melting ice, eroding coral reefs, spawn-
ing toxic algae blooms, and moving the ocean
a little closer to a world dominated by jellyfish
and slime. “The future of the ocean,” says ma-
rine biologist and ocean activist Ayana Elizabeth
Johnson, “is in our hands.”gry people. We can adapt to changes.
As the water warms, we can move. As
the ocean chemistry changes, we can
change our practices. Ocean farming
will produce the seafood of the future,
and it’s starting now.”
Former NOAA director Jane Lub-
chenco says it’s time to stop thinking of the
ocean as a victim of climate change and start
thinking of it as a powerful part of the solution.
A recent study that Lubchenco co-authored sug-
gests that by developing renewable energy from
the ocean, including tidal power and offshore
wind farms, as well as eating more fish and less
red meat and substituting kelp for traditional
feeds for farm animals, as much as one-fifth of
the carbon-emission reductions needed to hit
the 1.5 C target could be found in the ocean. To
Lubchenco, we have spent far too long focused
on the problems and not enough on the solu-
tions. “For the last few decades, the narrative
about the ocean is that it’s too big to fix,” saysA healthy reef in
Palmyra Atoll. “By
mid century, pretty
much every reef
will be eroding,” says
one scientist.KYDD POLLACK/ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CORAL REEF STUDIES