By Susan Rockefeller, Virgin Unite – My earliest memories are of the ocean. Summer days spent splashing around the eastern end of Long Island and sculpting sandcastles beneath a fading afternoon sun. As I dove into the Atlantic’s mighty waves and dug deep into the sand, my imagination would ebb and flow alongside the sea. Even then, as a young girl, I understood the power of these waters.
This love of the ocean remained strong into adulthood. When I began to fully understand the importance they held for human and planetary health, I moved from ocean lover to ocean advocate. My awakening came from Elizabeth Kolbert’s article ‘The Darkening Sea,’ in which she detailed how climate change causes ocean acidification and the disintegration of calcium-based shell life, a vital part of the ocean food web.
