Media Appetite for Ocean Destruction Damaging Science

Western Australia Perth with a strong Ocean culture and Coastal Development

Are you sick of reading about islands of plastic floating in the ocean? Sick of reading about coral destruction and invasive species? Sick of panic ocean reports? Do you still believe that the oceans are an unexplored frontier which offer more benefits than drawbacks? Are you skeptic on just how bad the oceans are and believe that there is still much wild untouched out there and hope for the wide blues? If you are one of these guys then you are not only not alone but now have scientific papers that support your way of thinking.

Carlos Duarte, a marine biologist at the University of Western Australia in Perth, and his colleagues broke international headlines with a new paper which concluded that the “Ocean Calamities are Oversold!”.

Using controversy communication the team urges for more scepticism in marine research and presses the international media for more balanced reporting. Duarte believes that ocean science deserves more respect and therefore more research before reaching or jumping to conclusions. Duarte and his team analyzed recent breaking news on “Ocean Calamities” and concluded that most are unfounded.

“The media has an appetite for ocean destruction reports, and gloomy stories” Duarte and his colleagues stated.

On January 14th Nature reported that the “state of the world's seas is often painted as verging on catastrophe...but although some challenges are very real, others have been vastly overstated”.

Duarte and his colleagues after study concluded that scientists, journals and the media have fallen into a “mode of groupthink that can damage the credibility of the ocean sciences”. Unweaving and breaking down ocean story after ocean story breaking in the international massive media Duarte presented a full scientific report which focuses on the “communication fault lines which now exist in the marine-science community”.

Duarte report is not a minor paper of irrelevant value.. Scientific information and reports are the base foundations which international world leaders and decision makers utilize when taking final decisions. These decisions are also not minor, climate change, marine traffic, economics, global carbon emissions, fishery, development, conservation, marine protection, development, natural disasters, health, environmental and ecological services, these are just some of the many sectors which are affected daily by decision makers. Decisions makers -which rarely are “on the ground” or in this case “on the shores” or out in the ocean waters use what they have at hand to shape directions which have regional and sometimes global repercussions. Scientific reports and breaking international mass communication media are tools are of utter importance in this sense.

On the other hand, scientific ocean science -just now starting to scratch the surface of a unlimited realm demands international standards of the highest levels for its continual formation. In this sense, science per science is value enough. Finally considering the general public high standards of communications is what the final reader usually expects.

Wild theories, unbiased reports, fast jumped conclusions these are manifestations which rise from global communities when confronted with issues which are generally beyond comprehension. The unknown, the unexplored, the mysterious becomes material for the imagination and human imagination when set loose into the unknown has a tendency to the dark side.

Ocean Service NOAA responds the question; How much of the ocean have we explored? ”To date, we have explored less than five percent of the ocean!” NOAA concludes.

Historical proof of these ocean imagination manifestations used to depict fears of the the unknown are scared into our society. Ancient maps with giant turtles or elephants holding the end of a flat world, massive marine ocean creatures which swallow vessels, legends of mysterious creatures roaming the oceans, songs of the ancient sailors which today have evolved. Today the mysteries are others, the frontiers are different, the explored realms have been pushed. Media reports on mysterious islands of global garbage that float in the oceans, new strange species -monsters of the depths, islands being formed from nowhere to later disappear, entire archaeological mystical cities submerged, massive extinction of ocean species, and so on.

Duarte recognizes the importance of climate change and also the importance of fishery impacts but frowns and grims when confronted with “Gloomy media reports about ocean issues such as invasive species and coral die-offs”. These are according to Duarte “not always based on actual observations”.

“It is not just journalists who are to blame,: the marine research community may not have remained sufficiently sceptical on the topic,” Duarte searches for allies in diverse sectors.

Whether Duarte’s paper is correct or completely unfounded is an issue which requires further investigation however the core philosophy behind the report, the central issue of scepticism is the main column of science itself. Science concludes upon evidence.

The Duarte team dared to enter the “Established Climate Change Lion Cage” to confront it to the face. Climate change is taken for granted today globally. Putting the issue on the doubt table forces us to find evidence and new proof. This forces us to research, rethink issues, think creatively, and above all think by ourselves, to always have doubts and new questions. Questioning everything in science is the best way to go.

Among the "excessive media headlines" Duarte cited CNN, Nature, New York Times, and other communication giants.

The paper of Duarte was published on December 31st in BioScience. Duarte and his team looked into overfishing, jellyfish blooms, invasive species and the impact of ocean acidification on organisms such as corals.

“The appetite of the media for particular headlines can influence the contents of top scientific journals,” Duarte ends it.

Ocean Life News in Brief

Ocean Level Increase Dropping Oceans Floor: International Press reported on December 5 on the findings of new research which assures that due to ocean level increase the ocean floor is sinking. The study published online in Geophysical Research Levels used mathematical equations to accurately measure the Ocean's floor impact driven by the increased of water volume weight. Using data from 1993 to 2014 researchers found that ocean level increase is causing the Ocean floor to drop globally by the milimeters. Ocean Dead Zones Up By Four: On January 8 New York Daily reported that Ocean Dead Zones have quadrupled.Researchers warned in a new study that oxygen-starved ocean dead zones, where animals and plants are struggling to survive, have increased fourfold and it may not be reversible. The new study was published in the Journal Science. The increase of Dead Zones was linked to climate change. La Niña´s Polar Wave Hitting Hard the US -Freezing Oceans: International Press reported on the Polar Wave hitting hard the US. The event is linked by experts to the influence of La Niña. “For the past couple of weeks, parts of North America have been chilling down to record temperatures, with massive snowfall and icy cold conditions putting life at a standstill for many,” media reported. The US East Coast has been particularly badly hit with the likes of Boston down to Philadelphia reaching bone-chilling lows of near 0°F , with icy winds making it feel closer to around -10°F to -20°F. Officially 18 were dead and 100 million affected. Government of Bali Declares a Garbage Emergency: On January 5 Ocean Conservancy reported on a New Waste Management Emergency in Bali. Massive amounts of ocean debri are affecting the island. The situation has reached its peak as the Government of Bali declared a “Garbage Emergency”. Clean up works have began. “Ivory Coast Village Swallowed by Ocean Increase,” Aljazeera Reports: On January 8 Al Jazeera reported that ocean increase levels are affecting infrastructure in the Ivory Coast. “Rising tides and more frequent, devastating storms are slowly destroying what is left of Lahou-Kpanda, the offshoot of what was once a major colonial town near the mouth of the Bandama River, the longest river in Ivory Coast,” Al Jazeera reported. Arctic Ocean Radioactive Levels on the Rise: IFL Science reported on January 3 on the findings of new report which assures that radioactive levels in the Arctic Ocean are on the rise. “Concentrations of radioactive radium-228 in the Arctic Ocean increased between 2007 and 2015,” the report reads. While levels have not yet reached a mark of concern the trend is worries experts. Lauren Kipp of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution addressed the issue. New World Wide Ocean Turtle Study Says 90% of Plastic Pollution Cases Result in Death: Earth Sky Org reported on January 7 that hundreds of marine turtles die every year after getting tangled in trash in oceans and on beaches. A research published in the journal Endangered Species Research took on a World-Wide Survey covering the major oceans where turtles live. They discovered that 91 % of the entangled turtles were found dead. They also suffered serious wounds from entanglement, leading to maiming, amputation or choking. Double Whirlpools Discovered for First Time: December 4 Press reported that Double Eddies have been registered for the first time in History. Tangled up Double Eddies can travel great distances affecting ecology significantly. Eddies are a natural part of the ocean environment but double whirlpools had only been theorized by mathematicians.