Ocean changes can spark water supply Zero Days
Dr. Sylvia Earle recently turned 90 years old. She is a world renowned oceanographer and explorer that has made a lifetime out of advocating for the ocean and everything in it. So much so that she long ago earned the nickname “Her Deepness.”
She still holds two records in the Guiness book for the deepest untethered sea walk by a female. She walked on the sea floor at a depth of 381 meters (1,250 feet) off Oahu in 1979. She also set a record for the deepest solo descent by submersible by a female in 1985, reaching 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) in the Deep Rover submersible.
I’ve never met Sylvia, but have been in awe of her accomplishments for decades now.
Earlier this week, she spoke as part of the Time 100 Leadership Forums 2025.
“Nobody had been to the moon when I was 10-years-old, for sure, nobody had been to the deepest part of the ocean,” she said. “We didn’t have the means to communicate knowledge. Now we do. There’s no excuse in the 21st century for denying that the climate is changing and that we’re the cause.”
Acknowledging the problem is the first step to taking action, she says. “Imagine if we did not know this, if we continued to take the last tree, to kill the last blue fin tuna. Imagine if we were still killing whales instead of protecting them.”
A couple years ago, a friend said she was a skeptic because she had never seen climactic changes. I told her I had. I’ve seen the ocean change in my brief 30 years as a diver in ways that startle me. I’ve written about it many times, but migrating fish populations are leaving fishing communities high and dry, weather patterns are changing, droughts and devastating fire seasons are becoming more common. That is all hard to deny unless you are willfully ignorant.
I’m proud of all of my novels. Some are lighter and more fun, some ended up being more serious. Water Crisis: Day Zero is one of the latter and while it is a work of fiction, I think the story should be troubling for everyone who reads it. The kind of book that you learn something from and that sticks with you
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Description
Dwindling freshwater resources around the world are causing unrest, riots and civil war. When photojournalist Mike Scott uncovers a Russian oligarch’s plans to throw the United States in turmoil by poisoning the groundwater, he is in for the fight of his life to stop it. It’s a race against time as Mike fights computer hackers, teams of assassins and robot drones to protect South Florida and the United States from its own Day Zero.
When I wrote it, Cape Town, South Africa was facing a Day Zero. Earlier this week, CNN ran a story about potential Day Zero droughts titled “Where ‘day-zero droughts’ could happen as soon as this decade.”
Cape Town is on the list, but so are locations in North America. It’s an alarming story that hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves.
Near the end of Sylvia’s interview, she said something that everyone should hear.
When you know that Earth is one system, what happens anywhere happens everywhere.
- Sylvia Earle
Maybe changes to the ocean should be the canary in the coal mine for what happens topside. And we should all be paying attention.
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