Oceana: Our Endangered Oceans and What We Can Do to Save Them

I picked up this book after watching the film version "The End of the Line;" it too was narrated by Ted Danson. I am an ocean advocate, and both the film and movie offer a great deal to think about in a way that is very accessible. The book was done well, including great photos and easy to understand statistics.<br /><br />My problem with the book and the movie is the same as it was for Al Gore's, "An Inconvenient Truth." The creators of these films go through so much effort to fight overfishing and environmental destruction, but they never once suggest to people that they could simply stop consuming the products and bi-products of the animal trade. Al Gore never mentioned that factory farming is the greatest producer of greenhouse gases, etc. and Ted Danson never even hints at not eating fish, etc.<br /><br />Eating a vegan diet or even a vegetarian diet would have a huge impact on overfishing and the amount of ocean pollution. Using flax seed oil instead of cod fish (endangered) oil would have an impact as well. Sadly though, none of this is mentioned in the portion entitled, "Living Blue." Even vegans/vegetarians need to be mindful of how their sea plants are harvested, e.g. Nori.<br /><br />It may not be an overnight cure, but not killing fish for food is the best way to make sure they thrive and maintain a healthy ocean.

Homo sapiens really are mindless, greedy machines when it comes to consumption. Our ancestors hunted whales to the brink, species after species, and now we're taking down all the apex eaters in the oceans, destroying ecosystems and food chains, annihilating entire swaths of seafloor, and apparently wasting northwards of 50% of all sea life caught, trapped, hooked, and trawled. This is an ecological horror show, but Ted Danson and many other activists have hope: <br /><br />"I strongly believe that science and spirituality go hand in hand, and any conversation we have about the environment has to take both into account. Unless all our actions to save the oceans are based on science, we will end up doing more harm than good. And unless we acknowledge our spiritual connectedness to one another and to this planet we live on--unless we realize that almost everything each of us does has an impact on somebody else--we may never rise above our self-interests in order to gather the collective forces we need to face the environmental challenges that now surround us." <br /><br />Amen.<br /><br />I recently watched a wonderful film on Netflix called <i>Museum Hours</i>, in which a social-political-fine art term was used to define this era as "Late Capitalism," when paintings are seen as dollar amounts, and the oceans are viewed as gold mines to plunder. Things are changing, and they will continue to change, by blunt force, but we--the super consumers of the world--have raw power to change how industries behave. Just recently, Tim Zimmermann published an excellent article in Outside Magazine about seafood (<a target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow" href="http://www.outsideonline.com/1978326/piscivores-dilemma">http://www.outsideonline.com/1978326/...</a>). Armed with the Monterey Bay Aquarium's "Seafood Watch" app, we can make smart choices in seafood consumption. As a huge admirer of Japanese cuisine, from steaming bowls of udon with huge chunks of tuna on a wintry day, to takoyaki and those pregnant little fish fire-grilled on sticks around the corner from our place in Toyohashi on warm summer nights, I am now educated on best practices and will endeavor to spread the word. For as Kynes stated flatly in Frank Herbert's <i>Dune</i>:<br /><br />" . . . beyond a critical point within a finite space, freedom diminishes as numbers increase. This is as true of humans in the finite space of a planetary ecosystem as it is of gas molecules in a sealed flask. The human question is not how many can possibly survive within the system, but what kind of existence is possible for those who do survive."<br /><br />Live blue. Eat smart. Be an activist. Read this book. <br /><br />

Oceana is a very beautiful and informative book. I always knew things were bad in our oceans (the big plastic "island" in the pacific, coral bleaching, ocean warming, overfishing, etc), but I really didn't know how bad. The pollution issues aside, we're basically strip-mining our oceans, acting like they're a never ending source of resources. Not so much...<br /><br />The book is very plainly written and the facts are laid out well and free of most jargon. This is good... this book is easily accessible to most readers. There are lots of beautiful pictures as well as scary ones. The information is laid out in a very clean fashion with stuff like charts to help the average person understand the science / figures behind everything presented.<br /><br />I'd recommend this book for everyone who cares about the environment, the oceans, or just eating fish. Ted Danson does a good job in his advocacy and presents solutions for the average person to take on. I went through this book in days and often had a hard time putting it down.

Ten Danson, I love you. This books is beautiful and informative. The images help bring you into this underwater world so much so that we want to learn even more about it once we are finished. Not for lack of information in this book but because we feel attached when it's over and we feel that we have to carry on the legacy this book will leave. I've always been a ocean lover, someone who takes pride in caring for them, but after this book I have a whole new responsibility for it. It's my baby, this ocean, and Ted Danson the Great Grandfather (not because of his age, but wisdom) that tells you all the stories that you need to hear to become the person you want to be. Can you tell I loved this book? Because I so did.

This book is a basic primer on problems facing the world’s oceans and the steps that ocean conservation groups are taking to correct these problems. It seems that listening to the audio book was a disadvantage because it did make it hard to follow who was speaking or being quoted. It is amusing to hear complete URLs given verbally, where they would not seem out of place in a print book. There is some good information on the world’s fisheries and how they are run, but it could have gone further. The book talked about ships breaking fishing laws, but no specifics on what laws exist or what laws are being broken or the consequences. I don’t think there was enough emphasis on the marine reserves that Oceana has helped win, and the wording was too much like a sales pitch. I support the work of Oceana and I hope this book is helpful, but I think it could have been more tightly organized and even more informative without becoming boring.

The premise of this book is a great idea, to distill a lot of science, policy, etc into a short, easy to read book. The execution comes off as SUPER preachy, though. It's clear he loves the ocean, but it's equally clear he's not a scientist, politician, etc. He tries to include those viewpoints in his book, but it just doesn't work correctly. <br /><br />The pictures, charts, maps, etc are gorgeous, though. I recommend just flipping through the book for the graphics and skipping most of the words in it. <br /><br />If you want a book about fishing, read <a href="https://goodreads.com/book/show/7347759.Four_Fish_The_Future_of_the_Last_Wild_Food" title="Four Fish The Future of the Last Wild Food by Paul Greenberg" rel="noopener">Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food</a> . If you want a book about the ocean, read anything Sylvia Earle/Jacques Cousteau has written.

This book is beautiful for an ocean lover and informative for anyone curious about what is happening to our oceans and why they're so special and need to be protected more than ever. It's an amazing book, but Earth shatteringly sad for those who have a bond with the ocean, like me. It is heartbreaking to read what we've done and see simple graphs showing how drastic the ocean has changed for the worse. I advise many to take a chance with this book and educate yourself on why the ocean is so incredibly important. Ted Danson is one of my most favorite people on this planet because of his desire to protect the ocean and the beautiful creatures within it. Definitely giving this one five stars!

Takeaways; we're in big trouble (standard in any planet/oceans/air/water books). We're running headlong to an ocean filled primarily of jellyfish. (That may not have been in the book, it is a strong opinion of mine.)<br /><br />Stop eating tuna or salmon, or slow down consumption to allow their number to catch up. Eat sardines or herring, they have less mercury and reproduce faster than larger fish.<br />Be thoughtful about any and all use of plastic. We've slowed way down on plastic wrap and reusable snack bags work great (quick rinse after use, or cycle in dishwasher).<br />Trawling may seem efficient to some, but it tears up ocean habitat and wrecks it for decades, at least.

This is a pretty good starting point for anybody concerned about the breadth of issues currently facing the health of our oceans. The book is beautifully laid out with some fantastic photography and doubles nicely as a coffee table book. However, it also reads like a bit of a brochure for Oceana, the conservation group that Ted Danson fronts. If you want something that offers more regarding these issues and is enjoyable to read, I would direct you to works from Carl Safina and Four Fish by Paul Greenberg.

Although this book takes a very serious look at everything involving the oceans, it is also designed beautifully. From pollution (oil spills) to fisheries, from global warming indicators to human habitats that depend solely on the ocean, and from monster trawlers to single fishermen, this book enlightened me on the dangers many of us choose to ignore. The best part of the book though, is the numerous (maybe 50+) suggestions on the small and large scale things we can do to stop hurting the ocean. I have definitely started to do many of these. :)