“The ocean is the basis of life both at sea and on land!” DBU General Secretary Alexander Bonde opened this year’s Environmental Prize Symposium, “Choppy Seas: The Future of the Oceans”, which is traditionally held on the day before the awards ceremony. In her keynote speech, last year’s Environmental Prize winner, Prof. Dr. Antje Boetius, Director of the Alfred Wegener Institute’s Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, emphasized that this is a decisive moment for our future: “We and our civilisation have emerged in an era of relative stability in terms of the climate. We have now completely altered the climate situation, and everything else is changing along with it: all of the life in the oceans and all of the life on land as well. We humans are noticing this, and the rest of nature is noticing it as well.”
In terms of the rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere that result in global warming, a phenomenon that affects the polar regions in particular, the scientist said the following: “The polar ice caps, the things that keep our climate stable by reflecting the sunlight, are currently melting. As the ice melts, as soil enters into the ocean, the surface of the earth gets darker and absorbs more sunlight, which results in a positive feedback loop.”
The oceanographer closed her speech with a plea: “If there is one area we need to focus on and one goal that we have to put all of our effort into achieving, I truly believe that it is climate change.”
In the subsequent podium discussion, Boetius, Heike Vesper, Head of the WWF Centre for Ocean Conservation, Dr. Daniel Oesterwind from the Thünen Institute of Baltic Sea Fisheries, and Dr. Bernd Brügge, Vice President of the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency of Germany, debated next steps and possible actions. Vesper emphasized the role of every individual: “We have already established a number of good solutions and approaches and set a number of goals. The only thing missing is the will to put them into practice. And not just on the political level. Each and every one of us needs to take a good long look in the mirror as well.”
When asked about possible strategies, Oesterwind said: “One initial aspect, which is truly key, is that we need to educate people so that they can act conscientiously and do their part to protect our climate.” He continued: “I want to ask our society to change its demands. We might need to take a step back and say that we are willing to sacrifice some of our comfort for the sake of the environment.”
Brügge advocated for a “much better communication strategy in the political sphere” that confronts its citizens with “hard truths” without spreading fear and panic. It is important to set achievable goals: “We need to be able to demonstrate that adopting measures and actually implementing them results in success,” added Boetius. “Working with massive goals that we are unable to achieve results in a strange psychological situation in which people lose faith both in science and politics.” She also referred to successes that would be possible “given the right combination of the will of the people, politicians and the business world.” “If everyone pitches in then I know we can do it!”
The symposium was moderated by Ingolf Baur, a graduate physicist and science journalist at 3sat, SWR and Deutsche Welle.
You can find a link to the video recording of the symposium (in German) at https://www.dbu.de/umweltpreis.
