Callum Roberts On Hopelessness

Today I ran across this interview with marine conservationist Callum Roberts of the University of York (UK). Roberts has written two books, The Unnatural History of the Sea (2007) and Ocean of Life (2012), which was the subject of the interview. A few years back I quoted Roberts in Learning From The Aquacalypse (June 14, 2011), which was one of my early efforts to tell people the truth about things.

Here's part of the interview. I made a few comments.

Ocean Portal — Humans can do great damage to ocean life, to the point where recovery seems nearly hopeless. How do you strike an emotional balance between shock and hope when driving readers to action?

Callum Roberts — Hopelessness leads to paralysis. Without hope there can be no redemption, even if our hopes sometimes appear to verge on self-delusion.

A highly regarded coral reef scientist, Roger Bradbury, recently argued in the New York Times that coral reefs are doomed by climate change, ocean acidification and pollution, and we should stop pretending we can save them. I agree with him that reefs will be very different by 2100 regardless of what we do. Many of them are very different today from when I began my career 30 years ago, and some are already in the zombie state predicted by Roger for the century’s end.

I outline my own response to the crisis in The Ocean of Life. I think we do have a chance of sustaining reefs through the bad times ahead by protecting them much better than we do now. Although they might not reach 2100 with much of their coral intact, they might at least retain some of the vitality and productivity for which they are famed. I have seen highly degraded Caribbean reefs benefit from protection in marine reserves. Their fish stocks greatly increased so that they continued to support people dependent on fishing, and they were still attractive places to snorkel and scuba dive.

I agree with Roger that we need to concentrate on finding ways to keep the oceans in business and prevent species from disappearing altogether. Where I differ from him is that I think we have most of the answers already. We just need to act.

Hopelessness leads to paralysis, even if our hopes sometimes appear to verge on self-delusion.

Appear to? Verge on? Sorry, can't agree with Callum's use of these qualifiers. I know self-delusion when I see it.

We just need to act. The impossibility of spurring concerted action forms the very foundation of the hopelessness.

OP — What can someone do to help the ocean, even if they don't live on the coast or interact with it directly on a regular basis?

CR — There are many ways to help. Top of my list would be to learn more about the oceans and what we are doing to them and spread the word. Check out some of the great organisations dedicated to protecting life in the sea, like SeaWeb, Rare, WWF, Oceana, Greenpeace, Sea Shepherd, The Black Fish, Client Earth, Blue Ocean Institute and the Ocean Conservancy, among many others. Each has their own distinctive way of doing things, so with a little digging you can find a close match to your own interests and philosophy. Most depend on the generosity of philanthropists for support so if you can give even a little it will help. Alternatively, get involved by volunteering.

Make your voice heard. Write to the newspapers, blog and tweet about the sea. Write to local and national political representatives and put them on the spot. Ask them what they are doing to tackle climate change, end overfishing and increase protection for marine life. If you don’t like the answers, write back with some suggestions. Politicians will usually only act if they know their constituents are concerned.

Make your voice heard. Blog about the sea.

Did that. Nothing much happened of course. I'm sure I had an effect on some of you. Probably that effect was to establish the utter hopelessness of making your voice heard and blogging about the sea.

If you enjoy seafood, find out whether you are making the right choices to minimise the harm done in bringing the food to your plate. The Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program and Blue Ocean Institute have the answers.

I used to enjoy seafood. But I can't afford to buy it any more. When life in the sea gets scarce, most people (like me) get priced out of the market.

OP — What one thing do you want readers to walk away with after reading Ocean of Life?

CR — It is immensely important to protect ocean life, even if only for the most selfish of reasons. The oceans make up over 95% of the living space on this planet.

That means they are overwhelmingly important in keeping our world habitable. We ignore this simple fact at our peril.

No doubt about it. But saying it over and over again as I have had no effect whatsover, other than to cause me to see the hopelessness of those efforts, and to establish such hopelessness in the minds of some readers.

To be honest, what I actually established was my own invisibility.

But thanks for trying, Callum. Maybe some of us will get bonus points in the afterlife in so far as there is no reward on Earth for making the effort. And that's absurd.

And Callum, good luck with that hopelessness/self-delusion problem.

 

Comments

[Oliver]

Short Open Letter to Callum Roberts:

Dear Professor Roberts,

You are a scientist, therefore you will have the necessary training to tackle this scientific question:

If hopelessness leads to paralysis, what do you theorize that self-delusion leads to?

Corollary question:

Which of these two outcomes (hopelessness / self-delusion) do you predict is more endangering to the biosphere in general and to Homo sapiens in particular?

Your response will be acceptable on the back of a postcard from your Christmas holiday destination.

Thank you.

Your sincerely,

Oliver Twist