BACKGROUND OF THE EMPTY SEA AUTHORS
Dr. Ilaria Perissi the co-author of The Empty Sea: The Future of the Blue Economy is a physical chemistry graduate, and mostly focuses on biophysical economics and climate change mitigation at the University of Florence where she is an assistant professor. She was also given the Marie Skodowska-Curie Actions fellowship for research and innovation. Her work on The Empty Sea is sure to create an impact within the community.
Ugo Bardi the co-author of The Empty Sea: The Future of the Blue Economy teaches physical chemistry at Florence’s School of Natural Sciences. He is an expert in resource exploitation and has had multiple publications on the topic, not only that he is also a journal editor, working on Biophysical Economics and Sustainability. His work alongside his Co-author on the Empty Sea is a call for change and sustainability.
Sea Exploitation
The human population on earth is nearing 8 billion, so as the number of humans on planet earth will grow the more mouths there will be to feed, meaning sustainability for the future is extremely uncertain. One of the biggest depletion of resources is within the sea, as overfishing and pollution are creating havoc for the sea life ecosystem.
Even though humans have overexploited lands far more than the seas, and yet our overuse has damaged the ecosystem and our needs and wants have gone above the level where oceans can sustain our appetites for consumption of its resources.
Our oceans are on the brink, and there is very little stopping the impending doom.
THE EMPTY SEA PREMISE
The Empty Sea: The Future of the Blue Economy by Ilaria Perissi and Ugo Bardi takes a deep dive into the inner workings of the businesses related to the sea. Most importantly though for the most part, The Empty Sea mainly focuses on marine life and the discoveries within it. It goes into great length about the natural beauty within the sea. It also discusses the importance of the sea in terms of what it is designed for and how it is used. The complete depletion of the sea is majorly related to how we consume its inhabitants and how our overabundance is causing massive damage. These changes will sooner rather than later will lead to as the book title suggests, an empty sea.
Empty sea tries to make sense of these trends by following people who came before us and how they made discoveries in the sea and how they made use of its resources. The authors also mention what many call ‘the fisherman’s curse’. It talks about why most fishermen have not been able to make a good living out of fishing revealing how as humans we tend to destroy the resources that are vital for our existence. They also give a very realistic point of view on the extraction of resources from the vast blue sea.
They also talk about the new age ideas such as “fishing down” for resources that are still undiscovered or untapped such as plankton. This will ultimately lead to the entire collapse of the entire marine ecosystem.
