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I went to a talk by Jacques Cousteau at UCLA in the 1970s in which he predicted the oceans would be dead by the year 2000.

eesmith 2y ago
Imagine what the oceans would be like if we still kept dumping trash into them like was common in the 1970s, much less the nuclear waste dumping that Cousteau helped stop some 10 years previous. Surely some of the reasons for stronger protection came from people who had seen all those amazing underwater videos of life under the sea, narrated by the engaging French voice revealing his love and joy for the ocean. I can't find a prediction of his that the ocean would be dead. I did find this regarding coral reefs, from https://scitechdaily.com/jacques-cousteau-predicted-detrimental-change-in-coral-reefs/ https://scitechdaily.com/jacques-cousteau-predicted-detrimen... > Over dinner on R.V. Calypso while anchored on the lee side of Glover’s Reef in Belize, Jacques Cousteau told Phil Dustan that he suspected humans were having a negative impact on coral reefs. Dustan—a young ocean ecologist who had worked in the lush coral reefs of the Caribbean and Sinai Peninsula—found this difficult to believe. It was December 1974. > But Cousteau was right. During the following three-plus decades, Dustan, an ocean ecologist and biology professor at the University of Charleston in South Carolina, has witnessed widespread coral reef degradation and bleaching from up close. In the late 1970s Dustan helped build a handheld spectrometer, a tool to measure light given off by the coral. Using his spectrometer, Dustan could look at light reflected and made by the different organisms that comprised the living reefs. Since then, he has watched reefs deteriorate at an alarming rate. I quote now from https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/5-ways-jacques-cousteau-pushed-to-protect-the-planet https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/5-ways-ja... > Cousteau ultimately gathered nine million signatures from around the world, and in 1997 the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization made a declaration on the responsibilities of present generations toward future ones that included language about environmental preservation and the responsibility to “bequeath to future generations an Earth which will not one day be irreversibly damaged by human activity.” > Cousteau spoke on those obligations at the UN conference he had attended in 1992. “Future generations would not forgive us for having deliberately spoiled their last opportunity,” he said. “Let us stop this delayed-action genocide! Let us cease thinking only of ourselves and reasoning only in the short term....This is our responsibility, as we hold in our hands the future of tomorrow’s exacting generations.” But Cousteau was right.
- pmdulaney 2y ago
  "I can't find a prediction of his that the ocean would be dead." After seeing your post I tried to find some artifact on the web related to his talk, and I couldn't find anything. It does seem to me that Google search is becoming less and less effective as time goes on. I went to another talk, also at UCLA and also in the 1970s (but maybe 2 years later?), by David Kindersley (father of Peter Kindersley, co-founder of publishing house DK) in which he discussed his apprenticeship to the stonecutter and typographer Eric Gill. I couldn't find any reference to that talk either, but I did find a UCLA webpage that claimed that UCLA has more Eric Gill memorabilia than any other library in the world.
xnx 2y ago
Overfishing, drag nets, coral bleaching, ocean acidification. The situation is not great. We treat the oceans even worse than our air.

eesmith 2y ago

Imagine what the oceans would be like if we still kept dumping trash into them like was common in the 1970s, much less the nuclear waste dumping that Cousteau helped stop some 10 years previous. Surely some of the reasons for stronger protection came from people who had seen all those amazing underwater videos of life under the sea, narrated by the engaging French voice revealing his love and joy for the ocean. I can't find a prediction of his that the ocean would be dead. I did find this regarding coral reefs, from https://scitechdaily.com/jacques-cousteau-predicted-detrimental-change-in-coral-reefs/ https://scitechdaily.com/jacques-cousteau-predicted-detrimen... > Over dinner on R.V. Calypso while anchored on the lee side of Glover’s Reef in Belize, Jacques Cousteau told Phil Dustan that he suspected humans were having a negative impact on coral reefs. Dustan—a young ocean ecologist who had worked in the lush coral reefs of the Caribbean and Sinai Peninsula—found this difficult to believe. It was December 1974. > But Cousteau was right. During the following three-plus decades, Dustan, an ocean ecologist and biology professor at the University of Charleston in South Carolina, has witnessed widespread coral reef degradation and bleaching from up close. In the late 1970s Dustan helped build a handheld spectrometer, a tool to measure light given off by the coral. Using his spectrometer, Dustan could look at light reflected and made by the different organisms that comprised the living reefs. Since then, he has watched reefs deteriorate at an alarming rate. I quote now from https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/5-ways-jacques-cousteau-pushed-to-protect-the-planet https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/5-ways-ja... > Cousteau ultimately gathered nine million signatures from around the world, and in 1997 the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization made a declaration on the responsibilities of present generations toward future ones that included language about environmental preservation and the responsibility to “bequeath to future generations an Earth which will not one day be irreversibly damaged by human activity.” > Cousteau spoke on those obligations at the UN conference he had attended in 1992. “Future generations would not forgive us for having deliberately spoiled their last opportunity,” he said. “Let us stop this delayed-action genocide! Let us cease thinking only of ourselves and reasoning only in the short term....This is our responsibility, as we hold in our hands the future of tomorrow’s exacting generations.” But Cousteau was right.

pmdulaney 2y ago
"I can't find a prediction of his that the ocean would be dead." After seeing your post I tried to find some artifact on the web related to his talk, and I couldn't find anything. It does seem to me that Google search is becoming less and less effective as time goes on. I went to another talk, also at UCLA and also in the 1970s (but maybe 2 years later?), by David Kindersley (father of Peter Kindersley, co-founder of publishing house DK) in which he discussed his apprenticeship to the stonecutter and typographer Eric Gill. I couldn't find any reference to that talk either, but I did find a UCLA webpage that claimed that UCLA has more Eric Gill memorabilia than any other library in the world.

xnx 2y ago

Overfishing, drag nets, coral bleaching, ocean acidification. The situation is not great. We treat the oceans even worse than our air.