A Silent Collapse in Our Oceans
In the style of Van Gogh's painting "Starry Night," massive congregations of greenish phytoplankton swirl in the dark water around Gotland, a Swedish island in the Baltic Sea. We talk a lot about climate change – rising temperatures, melting glaciers, extreme weather events. But there’s a critical, often overlooked, component of our planet's life support system quietly collapsing beneath the waves, and its demise could spell disaster for us all. I'm talking about phytoplankton, the microscopic drifters that form the very foundation of our marine food web and, astonishingly, generate up to 80% of the oxygen we breathe. Yet, despite their monumental importance, phytoplankton are consistently sidelined in climate discussions. We're so focused on terrestrial concerns that we neglect the vast, crucial world beneath the ocean's surface. This oversight is a profound mistake, one that directly jeopardizes the air in our ...