Terrestrials are officially uncool. It’s a shame, because we have something pretty interesting going on up here. Tusked megafauna with phallus-like facial appendages roam mystic and ancient forests, whilst ferocious cats with impossibly glorious hair flourish in the untameable plains of Africa. The land has also given birth to humanity, along with culture, music, spirituality, coffee and MDMA.
Things seemed, for a time, to be going well.
But being above sea level is no longer on trend. Being factually responsible for the suffering of billions of lifeforms paints a fairly insufferable and heinous picture of the most ambitious land dwellers in the known universe.
Enter Homo Sapiens.
To be associated with the evils of the Anthropocene may seem unfair for the rest of planet Earth’s glorious terrestrial children, but if anyone knows how to single-handedly ruin a party for everyone else, it’s an over-confident, power-drunk white male with generational wealth.
Unfortunately, this category of human is sinfully overrepresented at almost every position of power. In 2021, The Guardian reported that white men make up 62% of officeholders in the United States, yet make up only 30% of the country’s population: a deeply lingering remnant of western colonialism and an acutely obvious defect of modern society.
A 2019 study revealed that when women are in positions of power, more good shit tends to happen. Woman-led decision-making typically results in more proactive climate change policies, better resource governance, a greater focus on health and education, and more equitable policies acting to empower women across the world.
Unfortunately, our global identity is still characterised by middle-aged and elderly men with a fetish for dominion and a complete disregard for collateral damage, human or otherwise. They walk amongst us as our politicians, our CEOs, the leaders of our militaries.
Corrective action is of critical urgency.
Last year was a big one for our planet. We experienced the hottest 12-month stretch on record, as well as the hottest 24-hour period in over 100,000 years. This prompted the world’s leading scientists from the IPCC to issue a ‘Final Warning’ to humanity, essentially stating that If we don’t change right now, we’re gonna fucking die.
Whilst this jovial little word of caution is appreciated, it has unsurprisingly done very little to change the behaviour of the powerful. The IPCC has been issuing similar warnings to humanity for over 30 years (yet another UN body whose advice those in power ignore), and the collective solution suggested by our trailblazing leaders is to recycle. Scrub the peanut butter from the jars and walk to work, lest we burn.
Bothersome. Very, very bothersome. We must look below for salvation.
The ocean is an anarchist. A radical critic of the modern age. Whilst those in charge of directing humanity remain mysteriously committed to doom, the ocean is a staunch advocate for life and freedom.
Comparatively speaking, the sea is seldom inhabited by the sardonic stench of our kind. It is too wild and raw. Too disobedient for permanent bipedal occupancy. If the land is where hope goes to die, then the ocean stands as a final vestige of buoyancy for the future of planet Earth. It is our greatest and most under-utilised weapon against global boiling.
For the sake of the argument, and because it’s less boring, let’s refer to greenhouse gases as morbid pancakes. As we all know, morbid pancakes are responsible for the sweltering clusterfuck we’ve been born into. Humanity first began releasing morbid pancakes into the atmosphere during the Industrial Revolution, which began a little over 250 years ago.
The ocean has since swallowed 93% of the excess heat produced as a result of our changing climate. Without this insatiable appetite, the world would have succumbed to Hades long ago. The generosity, though, does not end there. The sea also selflessly gifts us around 70% of the oxygen that we need for breathing. Trees and rainforests on land, comparatively, are responsible for just 28% of the same hallowed gas.
Really, rainforests? You are mystical, glorious, and possess unknowable secrets from deep time. But you are being out-photosynthesized by phytoplankton.
Beneath the ocean’s surface, the possibility of revolution is alive and well. Within the changing of a tide, the heralding of a wave, and the stubborn force of a current, an untapped energy source lays dormant. The ocean is capable of feeding humankind’s demand for energy 100 times over.
But you know what? Nah. Instead of exploring alternatives that might not result in the definitive annihilation of our species, we continue to burn fossilised plant matter and scour the planet for remnant oil reserves. By continuing our search for these archaic fuels, we write pages of permanence for our future offspring. There will be no freedom for them. No mystery, nothing left to chance, no possibility of finding love beneath a cloud of bong smog at 5am on a Sunday morning.
Where the fuck is your sense of romance, tycoons of capitalism? Pack up the poetry, the dance, the art and the song. Remember the laughter, the language, the games played and the stories shared. For our children, there will only be suffering, suffering, suffering.
But fret not, Earth dwellers. The cetaceans are in revolt.
Over the past year, a peculiar phenomenon has occurred across the global sea. In a series of strategic and coordinated strikes, orcas have been observed dismembering yachts by attacking the rudder of any vessel that dares cross their path. After rendering their victim’s vehicle useless, these aquatic renegades appear satisfied and disappear from the crime scene, leaving sailors stranded at sea.
This has happened on three separate occasions, in different locations, by completely unrelated orca pods. Whilst their motivation for sinking boats and inconveniencing rich people remains a satisfying mystery, one can only hope that this is merely the beginning of a unified and tenacious orca-lead rebellion amongst all aquatic lifeforms.
Orcas are fiercely carnivorous and would presumably salivate over our flaccid mammalian flesh, but there has yet to be a recorded orca-feasting-on-human event in the wild. It appears they would make dignified, courageous and unreasonably merciful leaders of the revolution. May Euro summer ’24 bring forth the reckoning.
Human ambition, regretfully, is an almighty force. Not only has our unrelenting quest for progress permanently stained the land, but we have actually managed to alter oceanic chemistry. No other species in the known history of the universe has managed such an improbable feat.
As it stands, our impressive resume as custodians of the sea is as follows:
Humans have increased the acidity of the entire ocean, warmed global water temperatures by at least 1 degree Celsius, and massacred ethereal coral reef systems that provide habitat for millions of weird, fascinating, and pointlessly exquisite sea creatures.
We have disrupted the migratory patterns of whales with deafening seismic blasts (this activity often separates mothers from calves, leaving them stranded in tragic isolation and unable to communicate their songs over the unrelenting noise pollution).
We have obliterated food chains and overfished species to extinction. We have hunted and pillaged. We have killed for fun, for sport and for money. We have spilled oil in pristine waters and gagged turtles with plastic. We have dumped our waste, taken our revenge on megafauna, and offloaded our problems into the sea. Out of sight, out of mind.
We have ignored the warnings, underestimated our own evil, and we have forsaken the very thing that grants us the gift of existence.
A remarkably tragic list of achievements authored by the flimsiest members of the great ape family.
The ocean has been wounded and warmed, but it will only tolerate humanity’s bullshit for so long. The sea is rising against us, and will soon pose more threats to the land than it does climate-defence mechanisms.
Think: an almighty attack on towns and cities that reside on the coastlines of the world, the complete engulfing of small island nations, and a magnitude of unimaginably destructive weather events unleashed from the shadowy underworld of the deep sea.
Our best shot at retaining a sliver of dignity may be to empower women into decision-making positions and to become allies to the ocean, before we leave it with no choice but to swallow us whole.