Award-Winning Author Puts Humorous Spin On Severe Situation

When scientific research reveals a dreadful situation that seems to be spiraling out of control, is it possible to approach the topic with anything other than a purely gloom and doom tone? Leave it to the clever and witty Alanna Mitchell and through a bit of humour, her own experiences, and a strong message of hope, the focus just doesn’t have to be about the planet going to hell in a handbasket. Mitchell, an award-winning Canadian author and journalist, came to Abbey North in Haliburton this past Sunday to speak to a crowd of close to 100 about her latest book Sea Sick: The Hidden Crisis in the Global Ocean. “With what has recently happened in the Gulf of Mexico, we’re all riveted towards what’s happening in the global oceans,” said Gerry Hogaboam, co-president of the Canadian Federation of University Women’s Club of Haliburton – the group responsible for getting Mitchell to do the talk. Raised in Saskatchewan, Mitchell was surrounded by science: her father was a biologist who challenged her to learn about the world around her. As a result, she developed an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and became a person who “needed to understand what was going on and communicate it to others.” “For me, it’s about democratizing information that’s out there that would help us make decisions as citizens,” said Mitchell, after mentioning that she was known as the ‘armageddon’ reporter during her time at The Globe and Mail for her revealing stories. To form her latest book (which has become an international best seller), Mitchell spent countless hours and days conducting research and took trips all over the globe to follow in the footsteps of scientists to figure out what’s going on with the most important life support system: the global oceans. “It turns out that the oceans contain what scientists call the ‘switch of life’. The way to put it is that if everything on land were to die tomorrow, everything in the ocean would be fine. If everything in the ocean were to die tomorrow, everything in land would also die,” said Mitchell. “We are fully dependant on life in the ocean for our own survival.” Although the hot topic right now is the disastrous oil spill that started in the Gulf of Mexico after a drilling rig exploded in April, it’s not the biggest threat the ocean system is facing, according to Mitchell. “Still now, the discourse around that is not about what the ocean means to life on the planet, it’s about that we’re fouling the ocean. That in itself is of course tragic, but that’s not the worst thing we’re doing to the ocean.” Through her book, Mitchell has aimed to explore the ocean system as a whole. And what she’s discovered is that mankind is damaging this precious system at more of a rapid rate now than ever before. The information she learned from scientists and research shocked her so much that she went into a state of depression for a period of time and lead her to question if she should even go ahead with writing the book. So, in what ways are we harming the oceans? Mitchell answered that question with several examples. Through the burning of fossil fuels, the concentration of carbon dioxide being spewed out into the air is higher now more than ever – and the oceans are absorbing one-third of this C02. This is changing the chemistry of the oceans and therefore is negatively impacting choral spawning. On one of her trips, Mitchell went out an expedition with a team of scientists to Panama’s Caribbean to experience an evening of spawning activity. In her words, the water was “alive” and going “sex crazy”. “We were really excited that this actually happened and that we were to witness it … the smell of this stuff was unbelievable and we were covered with choral ‘slick’,” laughed Mitchell along with the audience. After taking back choral embryos to the lab for further examination, the fun the team had that night was quickly overshadowed by what the results showed. “We realized that we witnessed something very impoverished. Only about half of the choral spawned that we expected to spawn. Of those only about half made it to the sixteen cell stage,” said Mitchell. Choral that make it to the sixteen-cell stage are expected to survive. To illustrate what the increased acidic quality of the water has done to life in the ocean, Mitchell said that 80 per cent of chorals in the Caribbean – that should be healthy – have died. “The oceans are more acidic now than they’ve been in the last 55 million years,” explained Mitchell, adding that this phenomenon was an unknown to scientists until about 10 years ago. The change in pH levels is placing more stress on creatures in the water, especially those that make shells or have a body that contains any calcium carbonate. “They can’t get access to the calcium when the pH is low,” said Mitchell. Other damaging effects to oceans come from fertilizers that run off into the water – particularly entering the Mississippi River and ending up in the Gulf of Mexico. This causes algae to overproduce, and as they die off, oxygen required by fish and other creatures to survive is used. The result is the creation of what is known as a “dead zone”. “We [scientists and I] would troll through the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico for fish and we got nothing – just jellyfish,” said Mitchell, pointing out that the area should be teaming with life. Despite the depressing truth that she uncovered on her trips, Mitchell managed to share a few laughs with the scientists she ventured into the waters with. One story in particular had the audience in hysterics. Mitchell, on one of her finally on-site adventures, had arranged to go in a submersible vessel for a frightful, three-and-a-half hour journey, 3,000- feet down in the abyss of the ocean. “I had decided that I wouldn’t read about the vessel or how safe it was before the trip,” recalled Mitchell. “The night before I was told that I would be going in first … I didn’t sleep all night. I didn’t call my husband to tell him that I was going down the next day. I was terrified.” Since the vessel was extremely small, it’s not equipped with a washroom on board. Mitchell followed all of her instructions, one of which advised not to drink anything on the day of the trip. After a heart racing descend into the water (at a rate of 100-feet per minute), Mitchell just had “to go”. She alerted the engineer, who resembled George Clooney (according to her) and was in the same tiny space as her, that her bladder couldn’t wait any longer. “He reached into a hidden cabinet in this aluminum chamber and he pulled out an enormous zip lock bag. It was filled with foam and instructions, and he said ‘here’s your solution,’” recounted Mitchell. “I said, ‘how am I supposed to use this?’” After a few laughs in her attempt to give in to the call of nature, Mitchell completely missed the bag she had been given and peed all over the inside of the vessel and engineer who was located right beneath her. It was after this memorable journey that Mitchell decided to believe in hope, and write a chapter in the book called “the call for wisdom”. In it she encourages the heroes to step forward, and challenges mankind to ask the right questions so that change can begin to occur. After the riveting talk and rather humorous talk, Mitchell took the time to answer audience questions and sign copies of her Sea Sick book. To learn more about Mitchell visit www.alannamitchell.com. Proceeds from ticket sales at Sunday’s talk will go towards the CFUW’s scholarship fund, which assists a female high school student heading into postsecondary studies.