The Climate N Test

Photos: Courtesy Oceana 2011 (c)

News from  Moscow and St.Petersburg has it that the launch of the first Russian floating nuclear reactor in the Arctic is now approaching. 

Announcements have also now been made in Canada and China that these two countries also want to build and operate floating nuclear reactors, 

And now we know that the main reason to invest in this is to supply the energy needed to drill for oil and other minerals in the Arctic and other deep oceanic regions.

It would be good to know what the conventional nuclear industry thinks of this. We have all seen in the last two decades the nuclear industry putting itself forward as solution to climate change (notwithstanding unresolved issues of nuclear safety, radioactive waste management, non-proliferation, liability and other costs). But of course, using nuclear technology to extract oil from the deep ocean, including the Arctic, fatally undermines all nukes claims of climate-friendly credentials.

So, I think it'd be interesting to ask nuclear power plant operators like Electricité de France, Areva, Tepco (Japan, of Fukushima fame/shame), Electrabel,  Iberdrola, Endesa, or E.On (to only name a few), and nuclear technology suppliers like Siemens, Toshiba, Mitsubishi, Suez, or Bouygues (to only name a few, again) what they think of that floating reactors business; and to challenge them to say all with one voice: "we don't like that oil drilling and seabed mining business; the global climate system cannot afford Arctic oil drilling; it's a recipe for disaster; the risks are too high; we won't put our fingers in it; we ask our colleagues from the nuclear sector in Russia, Canada and China to drop it".

Paris, the centre of climate policy this year (and also to a large extent the nerve centre of the nuclear industry worldwide -- 80% of the electricity consumed in France comes from nuclear reactors) could be a good place to launch this Climate N Test.

Seal pup on the sand

When I decided to spend a few days this month in Samos, the Greek island in the Agean Sea closest to the coast of Turkey, I knew that it was one of the very last Mediterranean monk seal breeding grounds, but I was not expecting to see any.

I knew a few basic things about the Mediterranean monk seal: it is one of the most threatened marine and European mammals; there are only about 50 of them left in the Agean Sea (and there are very few left in the rest of the Mediterranean); and they stay away from humans, spend their days in underwater caves and go out for fish only at sunset. So, to expect a seal sighting in Samos was like planning a holiday in the Pyrenees and expect to encounter a bear, or to go to a fiesta in Andalucia and hope to run into a lynx. The odds were so slim, it was not even within my plans.

I had been marginally associated in the late 1970s in advocacy to protect the Mediterranean monk seals, but to say the truth, nearly fourty years later when we arrived in Samos by boat a week ago, I was not even quite sure whether decades of conservation efforts had borne fruit and whether there were any seals left in Samos.

So, when a local gave me a tip and told me that a seal pup had been sighted and reported as staying for several months not far from where I was staying, my mind was blown away. Although the explanation was vague, I decided to try and check it out for myself.

After getting lost a bit on the road, I made it and ran into the seal pup. Under the protection of Paulos Teka, a volunteer from Finland who works for the Archipielago Institute of Marine Conservation, a Greek NGO that works for biodiversity and ocean protection in the Greek islands, the orphan female seal pup has been spending most of her days on the same small beach since the month of March. Her behaviour is almost unheard of. What's most likely to have happened, Paulos explained, is that the calf's mother got caught as by-catch in a fishnet, and maybe it's a miracle the seal pup survived. So far.

With Paulos Teka (seal pup on the bottom right)

The future of the seal pup is uncertain. At first sight, one can see that she may be developing a skin desease (sunburns?). An Israeli vet has been able to examin her hearing functions, Paulos told me. But little can be done because the priority is to prevent interference from humans. So, during the summer months Paulos and his colleagues have fenced part of the beach area and, under a beach umbrella, their job is to maintain tourists at a distance.

Paulos confirms that normally Monk seals stay away and hide from humans. But now the Archipielago Institute is concerned that the pup is becoming used to the presence of humans. She even seems to look for it, and that can be a problem when (if) she grows up. Tourists brought by cruise liners take the sun and swim, most of them not knowing that it is a unique nature wonder they have alongside. "It's better this way", says Paulos, "we don't want the seal to become a sightseeing spot". Of course, and that's why I'm not giving details on where the pup is to be found.

Click here to support and donate to the Archipielgo Institute of marine Science.

One ocean

Today is June 8 - World Oceans Day on the United Nations calendar. A perfect day to revive my blog which I've kept sleeping for eight months.

My message to the UN on this day is "change the name". Today should be called World Ocean Day, not oceans. The ocean supplies the oxygen in every second breath we take; billions of us rely on it for food, fresh water, energy, medicine, transport and trade; it covers 70% of the Earth's surface and supports all life on Earth. If we want people to protect it and use it wisely, we've got to stop managing the ocean on a sectoral basis and modernize ocean governance to meet contemporary and emerging challenges. And this won't happen if we do not look at the ocean as one single interconnected system.

The main reason why I've been very lazy with my blog in the last eighteen months, and completely silent for eight months has been my current responsibility as Deputy Executive Secretary of the Global Ocean Commission. In that capacity, I had to write extensively with incredibly tight deadlines, first taking the lead to prepare the Commission's Policy Options Papers and other documents, and since the month of March preparing the Commission report which will be made public in New York on 24 June. So much to do, I completely ran out of steam for the blog. On Friday we were able to put the report to rest, which goes tomorrow to the printer and translators.

The adjective "global" in Global Ocean Commission does not only refer to the widespread geographical representation of the commissioners. A key message we're trying to convey is that there's only one "global ocean".

If you think that talking of  "one ocean" will cost you a bit at the beginning, a very practical thing you can do is update your spell check programme, so that it automatically removes the s in the ocean.