The blue frontier

摘要

As science-fiction author Arthur C. Clarke noted, it is "inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is quite clearly Ocean". Crucially important to the global environment, oceans are threat-ened by escalating pollution, population and coastal development on land. Global climate change is contributing to sea-level rise, warming and acidification. Marine biodiversity is falling, while occurrences of cyclones and storm surges are rising. Yet the oceans also offer tremendous promise for our future resource needs.