Wednesday June 25, 2025
PhysOrg —
The ocean is a source of life and resilience—for people and cultures, for livelihoods, for climate stability.
But it’s under growing stress from overfishing, warming, pollution, acidification, deoxygenation, extreme climate events—all happening at once, and often interacting.
The ocean is hurtling toward catastrophic shifts with increasingly unpredictable and sudden effects.
As ocean scientists, we’ve documented these changes in detail and have been sounding the alarm for decades—but meaningful political action is still lagging.
To help close the gap between what humanity must do and what we are doing, we need to rethink our role as scientists—not only to contribute knowledge and ideas, but as active participants in change. This will require structural changes in how we work, how we’re funded and trained, and how we measure success.