The Forgotten Oceans Of Earth

Both Etzioni and marine biologist Sylvia Earle, the ocean explorer-in-residence at the National Geographic Society (who happens to hold the world’s record for untethered undersea exploration), suggest that the world’s oceans are the most obvious, and promising, scientific target. They have barely been explored. New potential marine sources of energy and medicine, as well as knowledge about climate and origins of life on Earth 4 billion years ago, remain largely unexamined.

The primary agency for ocean research, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), receives about $3.2 billion annually, compared with NASA’s $15.5 billion. In his 2005 budget, President Bush wants to cut 8.4% from NOAA’s budget while boosting NASA’s by 5.6%. The annual budget of the National Institutes of Health–the government’s premier biomedical research arm–has been doubled over the past several years to about $27 billion. But that money is spread among 27 divisions, from cancer to Alzheimer’s to drug addiction.

“I don’t want to cut a penny from space,” says Earle. “But the resources going into the investigation of our own planet and its oceans are trivial compared to investment looking for water elsewhere in the universe.”

Earle argues that remote marine studies have found that life (including ours) is not guaranteed as the oceans decline. Most of the seas’ big fish have been depleted. Half of the coral reefs are dead or dying. Runoff pollution has created more than 50 “dead zones” in coastal waters around the world. Sea levels are rising and the oceans’ role in the planet’s changing climate is poorly known. Real oceans need scientific attention more than the dried-up remnants on Mars, Earle contends.

“Every time I jump into the ocean I see things I’ve never seen before,” she said. “We have better maps of Mars than our own ocean floor. That’s just not right.”