Reviews - Deep Water: The world in the ocean

There was a time in my life when reading was what I voraciously coveted, stingily spent, and hoarded deep. These days, everything is moving faster: work, world, "well" being, each an implicit argument to actually, do judge that book by its cover. And so I picked this up on my increasingly normal two hour library round trips: seduced by the darkly scintillating ocean life, but also somewhat curious, for the first time in a while, what all those write to publish scientist/scientist adjacent types had been up to the last quarter century, as well as mindful of the times. For as I write, the land to the south burns, the land to the north freezes, and my own square of turf eyes the floodline as the new year progresses, shepherded in by two years previous seasons in which the weather and the waters convulsed, the peninsula threatened to become an island, and I lost power for three days.

[T]he liberation of world markets, a process powered by the liberation of unprecedented amounts of fossil fuels from the earth, has dramatically sped up the same process that is liberating Arctic ice from existence.

-Naomi Klein, [b:This Changes Everything|21913812|This Changes Everything Capitalism vs. The Climate|Naomi Klein|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1418103804l/21913812._SY75_.jpg|41247321]

As the sociologist and theorist of time Barbara Adam has observed, abstract time is a 'central part of the deep structure of environmental damage wrought by the industrial way of life'.

Bradley takes up this time of Lear, sets it upon the waves, drives it forth and pins it down. Depending on your tempermaent, he may give you every intersectional science lesson you've ever wanted, or you'll eye the incoming Turtle Island "inauguration" with gratefulness that there will be even less barrier to the banning(/burning) of books. Me, I view the facts with interests and the scenarios with credibility, while I found the sociopolitical theories useful only when not myopically thrust or paradoxically cohabitation with calls for an even more 'roided international police force. True, my viewpoint is skewed, as it's difficult to dread the promised ten inches of sea rise by 2050 when I newly have an 80% chance of making it to 2040. Indeed, it was Bradley's closing out his narrative with his mother's passing from cancer that lost his exuberant castigation of the capital and imperial in the midst of his Plantationcene that fifth star (especially when such didn't preclude the usual pointed fingers at the ever guileful China, fresh as a newborn from historical context and ten times as slippery).

During the civil war in the 1990s, foreign fisheries swept in and pillaged Somalia's waters, driving fish populations to the brink of collapse and destroying the marine environment by trawling in sensitive areas. Unable to feed their families, some Somali fishers started pirating Indian fishing boats and quickly escalated to attacks on cargo and other vessels. 'So one of the contributing factors to that whole maritime security challenge was fishermen who could no longer feed their families or pay for their livelihoods.'

For all that, I say that this is a good book in terms of what it offers in terms of concrete facts, ongoing endeavors, measured predictions, and, yes: commitment in terms of responsibilities taken and intersectionalities acknowledged. As the frequency of slavery can be correlated to corporate devastation of Global South fishing territories, so to can the abuse of the ocean be correlated to the sickness of those funny vertically-spined types trawling its waters, and while it was shocking to witness just how choked off today's ecosystems are compared to a mere two centuries ago, it makes sense to me that the enslavement and genocide on land was more than mirrored by the devastation wrought beneath the waves. As Bradley says in one form or another, we are all but certainly past the point of no return.

In May 1942 [the Cocos Islands] were a backdrop to [...] when a group of Ceylonese soldiers mutinied and attempted to hand the islands over to the Japanese. Their leader, Gratien Fernando, a Sinhalese Marxist who had signed up to fight fascism, saw the action as a way of resisting British colonial power. [...] Fernando's final words were 'Loyalty to a country under the heel of a White man is disloyalty.

In some hour of some day of some year, the pristine beach that encompasses the pride and joy of my workplace's city will sink beneath the waters, and many a multi million dollar landholding will lose its insurance, then its property value, then its moorings. Where I will be then remains to be seen, but for all my health issues, I have more confidence in my work as a union steward than I do in that of mayor or a director or a council member. For if there's one thing this book proves, it's that climate change is matter of all, and to deny such is to drown. In that regard, Baldwin may have been off the mark in pronouncing the fire next time, but I have no doubt that, whatever comes, the world and its life will survive, one way or another. I'd prefer that humans be part of that equation, but that judgment is still pending on many an instance. For when the fires down south have run through and those who thought themselves inviolate pick through the smoldering embers, we will see if they run and hide from the make and measure of their reckoning, or at last join hands with others to face it.

It is not knowledge we lack. It is the courage to understand what we know and draw conclusions.

-Sven Lindqvist, [b:"Exterminate All the Brutes"|909011|"Exterminate All the Brutes" One Man's Odyssey into the Heart of Darkness and the Origins of European Genocide|Sven Lindqvist|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1328752407l/909011._SX50_.jpg|894148]

The imbalances and processes of capitalist accumulation that have driven the planet to its current predicament were not inevitable and are not unchangeable. And neither is the course from here.

georgiarybanks's review against another edition

4.5

challenging hopeful informative reflective sad medium-paced

Content Warnings

pssp's review against another edition

4.5

challenging dark emotional medium-paced

glad to have read this. this book starts our with the story of our universe's creation, goes to describe the little personal universes (the concept of umwelt), the soundscapes of the ocean, colonial violence and deep-sea science, ways of decarbonising our world, resources that have transformed our planet, overfishing and more. i liked picking this book up and reading it but it oftentimes made me sad. i think it's necessarily grim though.

"But perhaps the truth is not so elusive, perhaps this truth lies in a recognition of the forces that have brought us to this moment, and of the impossibility of moving forwards without a reckoning with them."

elise_dragon13's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous challenging dark informative sad medium-paced

tmah23's review against another edition

4.25

challenging emotional informative reflective medium-paced

This is a good book that covered a lot of content within 400 pages. James Bradley uses scientific, historical, and philosophical angles to explore human relationships with and impacts on Earth's oceans.

The throughline of the book is the pattern of human exploitation and unequal distribution of benefits from the ocean that begun with colonial expansion and persists today between wealthy and poorer nations. Bradley is clearly very passionate about this topic. By drawing attention to how the issue is concealed or ignored, he prompts serious reflection of what it means to be a beneficiary of these systems.

I doubt that the broader environmental issues covered in the book are new to most readers; we are all familiar with plastic pollution, overfishing, and melting sea ice. It is always difficult to capture the severity of these issues in writing, and at times I felt they remained abstract as Bradley described the near-incomprehensible figures of x million square km of sea ice lost, or x billion fish removed annually from marine ecosystems. However, it was refreshing to see climate change described not as a fast-approaching cliff, but as a snowballing process that is already occurring. Despite the fragments of hope and progress littered throughout the book, he is blunt about the truth that we've already exceeded several tipping points that will lead to catastrophic change no matter how well we curb emissions.

Bradley does not attempt to prescribe solutions. This is probably for the best, as confronting such widespread issues (especially at a consumer level) usually comes off as priviliged or preachy. Instead, he suggests that adaptation to current and future climate emergencies will require a reshaping of global supply chains. It's hard to be optimistic about this. Regardless, I'm sure some of the ideas from the book will stick with me both personally and professionally.

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