The Ocean of Life: The Fate of Man and the Sea

The Ocean of Life: The Fate of Man and the Sea

by Callum Roberts
The Ocean of Life: The Fate of Man and the Sea

The Ocean of Life: The Fate of Man and the Sea

by Callum Roberts

Paperback(Reprint)

$19.00 
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Overview

Economist Book of the Year —Audubon Book of the Year —American Library Association Award winner – Royal Society Winton prize Finalist – Winner of the Rachel Carson award
 
A Silent Spring for oceans by “the Rachel Carson of the fish world” (The New York Times)  who appeared on the Imax film Wild Ocean and provided the scientific basis for the creation of the first high seas marine protected areas. For fans of Carl Safina and Elizabeth Kolbert.
 
“Immensely entertaining, although it chronicles a tragedy… No account of the cataclysm is more engaging.”
—Mark Kurlansky, The Washington Post

The sea feeds and sustains us, but everywhere we look marine life is under threat, from Caribbean reefs to arctic fisheries to the deepest regions of the sea. In this passionate paean to the sea and its creatures one of the world’s foremost marine conservation biologists tells the story of man and the sea, from the earliest traces of life on earth to the oceans as we know them today. He considers the impact of fishing and ocean acidification, rising tides and warming seas, plastics and shifting currents, and reveals what we must do now to preserve our precious oceans. The struggles of Turtles, Dolphins, Whales and Tuna are relatively well known, but few people appreciate just how much our seas have changed in the last fifty years and how many species are now under acute stress. At once passionate and persuasive, The Ocean of Life will appeal to readers of Four Fish and The Sixth Extinction –to those who care about environmental sustainability, and to anyone who loves the sea and its creatures.

“Excellent and engrossing… I hope a great many people read this book.”
—G. Bruce Knecht, Wall Street Journal

"Authoritative and furious, urgent and persuasive" 
Sunday Times

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780143123484
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date: 04/30/2013
Edition description: Reprint
Pages: 432
Sales rank: 203,767
Product dimensions: 5.40(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

Callum Roberts is the author of The Unnatural History of the Sea, a Washington Post Book of the Year and winner of the Rachel Carson Environment Book Award. A professor of marine conservation at the University of York, he consulted on the Blue Planet series and the IMAX film The Wild Ocean and is a frequent keynote speaker at environmental conferences (including Mission Blue, TED and the Skoll foundation). He advised and was featured in The End of the Line, a documentary on the global fishing crisis and appeared in the National Geographic documentary America Before Columbus. He is on the board of Seaweb and provided the scientific basis for the creation of the world’s first high seas protected network.

Table of Contents

Prologue 1

Part 1 Changing Seas

1 Four and a Half Billion Years 11

2 Food from the Sea 27

3 Fewer Fish in the Sea 42

4 Winds and Currents 58

5 Life on the Move 80

6 Rising Tides 90

7 Corrosive Seas 105

8 Dead Zones and the World's Great Rivers 119

9 Unwholesome Waters 132

10 The Age of Plastic 149

11 The Not So Silent World 165

12 Aliens, Invaders, and the Homogenization of Life 181

13 Pestilence and Plague 198

14 Mare Incognitum 213

15 Ecosystems at Your Service 229

Part 2 Changing Course

16 Farming the Sea 243

17 The Great Cleanup 263

18 Can We Cool Our Warming World? 273

19 A New Deal for the Oceans 287

20 Life Renewed 307

21 Saving the Giants of the Sea 319

22 Preparing for the Worst 334

Epilogue: The Sea Ahead 347

Appendix 1 Seafood with a Clear Conscience 351

Appendix 2 Conservation Charities Working to Protect Ocean Life 355

Notes 361

Acknowledgments 393

Index 395

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Those of us who worry about the future of our oceans could do a lot worse than take up this single refrain, ‘Listen to Callum Roberts!’ Shouted in the ears of the world’s leaders, it might just make a difference. Meanwhile we should all read The Ocean of Life, a thrilling narrative of oceanic natural history and a vital call to action.” —Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, chef and author of The River Cottage Cookbook

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