00:00That is truly shocking. What are we doing?
00:03The ocean is hurting.
00:05What are we thinking to allow this to happen on our watch?
00:20Dead zones are areas in the ocean where oxygen levels are too low to sustain life.
00:24The World Ocean Assessment found that the number of dead zones has nearly doubled in the last decade.
00:29Evidence in the Second World Ocean Assessment is shocking.
00:34I can't think of a better word.
00:36When I began exploring the ocean in the 1950s, there was no such thing as a dead zone.
00:42And now, there are hundreds.
00:44Part of it is because of what we're allowing to flow into the ocean,
00:48the fertilizer, the chemical pollution that destabilizes the natural systems.
00:53That means we aren't doing enough.
00:55Carbon sinks are areas that absorb more carbon than they release.
00:58The largest ones are found in the ocean.
01:00The World Ocean Assessment has found that the majority of the ocean's carbon sinks are threatened.
01:05Here's the thing that many people don't appreciate about the nature of the ocean.
01:09The ocean drives climate and weather,
01:12generates most of the oxygen in the atmosphere,
01:15accepts much of the carbon dioxide.
01:17We didn't know this when I was a kid.
01:20Our existence depends on a stable, healthy ocean.
01:25By taking life out of the ocean on an industrial scale,
01:30by disrupting the carbon capture and sequestration units that we call mangroves,
01:36marshes, seagrass meadows, kelp forests,
01:39we're creating an economic catastrophe
01:43and basically a life support catastrophe as well.
01:49The World Ocean Assessment has found that the proportion of heat content in the ocean
01:53has more than doubled since the 1990s,
01:55but that number only expected to rise.
01:57The amount of heat has doubled since 1990?
02:02Think about it.
02:04How does the ocean regulate and govern planetary climate?
02:10Polar ice has a remarkable capacity
02:13to serve as what some call the air conditioning system for the planet.
02:18And most of life on Earth likes it cold.
02:20Think about all the other forms of life on Earth.
02:23They can't have air conditioning systems.
02:25They have to make do with what's there naturally.
02:29Increasingly, compounds like antibiotics, caffeine, anti-inflammatories,
02:33and cardiovascular drugs have been found in the ocean.
02:36When you think like an ocean, it should not be surprising,
02:40because it all connects.
02:42It all connects.
02:43People speak of oceans as if they're plural, but it's one ocean.
02:47Now, how do we extract those toxic materials out of the ocean?
02:54The best thing we can do right now is to stop putting them there.
02:56It doesn't go away.
02:59There is no away.
03:01I've lived underwater 10 times,
03:04and only a little more than a dozen people have been to the deepest part of the ocean.
03:08About the same number of people who have walked on the moon.
03:11This is the greatest era of exploration.
03:14The problem seems so vast.
03:16Everybody can do something.
03:19One person times two times ten times a hundred,
03:22and pretty soon you've got a movement, and a movement is underway.
03:25You can know and not care.
03:28But you can't care if you don't know.
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