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With Knowledge Comes Responsibility: A Conversation with Sylvia Earle on the Ocean
›“Having a planet that is suitable for us has taken a very long time, like four and a half billion years,” said Sylvia Earle, Explorer in Residence at the National Geographic Society, in a podcast interview with Ambassador David Balton before a recent Wilson Center event on marine protected areas. “It’s taken us about four and a half decades to significantly unravel, deplete, [and] modify those precious systems that really have little margin of error.”
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Concerns Rise Over Governance Gap in Arctic
›“We’re attempting to do something that’s never been done before in world history,” said Senator Angus King (I-ME). “The peaceful development of a major new physical asset.” He spoke of the Arctic Ocean at the 8th Symposium on the Impacts of an Ice-Diminishing Arctic on Naval and Maritime Operations. The symposium was hosted by the Wilson Center’s Polar Institute, in partnership with the U.S. Arctic Research Commission, U.S. National Ice Center, Arctic Domain Awareness Center, Patuxent Partnership, St. Mary’s College of Maryland, and the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center.
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How Protecting the Antarctic Marine Life Could Help Save the Blue Planet
›“We are stripping the life away from the blue planet,” said oceanographer, explorer, and author, Sylvia A. Earle. She keynoted a recent event on marine protected areas in Antarctica and the high seas co-hosted by the Wilson Center and The Pew Charitable Trusts with support from the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation. “Do we want a planet like Mars?” she said. “Most people would say, ‘I don’t think so. I like to breathe. I like water that falls magically out of the sky. I like having a living planet.’”
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A Warmer Arctic Presents Challenges and Opportunities
›As Arctic ice melts, we can physically see glaciers retreating. But what we can’t yet see is the exact effect climate change will have on the environment, humans, economies, and national security. Less ice for longer periods each year will likely bring opportunities and related challenges as Arctic and non-Arctic states jockey for position.
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America Must Act on the North and South Poles
›The two poles of our planet—the Arctic and Antarctica—demand greater attention right now. For decades, the United States has played a leadership role in both regions, a responsibility that it must continue to fulfill as a warming climate and other drivers of change are creating new challenges and opportunities. Regrettably, the Trump Administration has not devoted the resources or high-level attention necessary to maintaining American leadership position on these critical matters.
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Alaska’s Lieutenant Governor: “Climate Change Is Already Impacting Us”
›“Alaska is a place in which climate change is already impacting us in very observable ways,” says Byron Mallott, the Lieutenant Governor of Alaska, in a video interview with Wilson Center NOW. “We have erosion from sea ice leaving the coast. We have patterns of weather change. We have, in the North Pacific Ocean, ocean water change [and] temperature changes taking place. We have ocean acidification moving further north. We have had impact on fisheries already—economic impact.”
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China’s Ready to Cash In on a Melting Arctic
›Put simply, “the damn thing melted,” Navy Secretary Richard Spencer explained in recent testimony, referring to Arctic ice melt as the trigger for the new U.S. Navy Arctic Strategy that is to be released this summer. What the Navy planned as a 16-year road map is in need of updates after only four years, in part due to receding polar ice caps, which are “opening new trade routes, exposing new resources, and redrawing continental maps,” but also in part due to the rise of China as an “Arctic stakeholder” and increasing important player in the region.
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“The Damn Thing Melted”: Arctic Security in the Blue-Water Era
›When Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer told the media last week that “the damn thing melted,” he wasn’t talking about an ice cream cone. As the Arctic faces unprecedented levels of open water, Spencer and other naval leaders recently testified to Congress about the U.S. Navy’s strategy, which is changing as quickly as the Arctic itself.
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