Have you seen our ocean cry?

I’ve seen it once. Its tears integrated with countless drops of homogeneous water, falling into an extensive blueness. The sea-level was boosted by its silence. The ocean's pain had nowhere to go.

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This is a heavy story, composed of a mournful song that is punctuated by devout hope - an epic scene that I can never forget.

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The ocean has long been regarded as a mysterious abyss. Although society has developed and humans have already entered the unknown, there’s still mystery waiting to unfold. For example, did you know that we have a better map of the surface of the moon than the bottom of the ocean? Over 500 people have been to space but only three people have reached the bottom of the sea (Lange). Indeed, the more we’ve explored, the more we’ve realized how much we do not know. The power of nature is unfathomable, especially the ocean, which almost every creature on this planet relies on to live. It takes up 70% of our Earth’s surface and feeds us with its plentiful resources. It is the ocean's generosity that gives us a sense of complacence, yet we ignore that it is a scarce resource. A meteor crosses through the perpetual darkness in only a flash, but it takes time for those tiny, sparkling spots of its tails, left behind, to truly dissipate into nothingness. The pain our ocean has suffered, rendered by us humans, might take years to heal.

Nowadays, I believe many of us might have seen posters or documentaries chronicling the importance of protecting the ocean. Activists around the world have appealed to people about the threat of water-rising. These words seem familiar to even children in elementary schools, and our incumbent governments have also taken actions in order to ease the severe situation. It seems that people all over the world are starting to do something, yet the data shows nothing but the continuous reduction of our ice mass, the constant rising of the planet's average temperature, and the increase in sea levels. This contrast between our increasing awareness and reports from scientists demoralizes us. What we’ve done turns out to be still far less than enough, and there are still people who haven’t realized how closely connected we are with the ocean and how it makes life on Earth possible. Without a consensus, the speed of restoration can never compete with the speed of destruction we’ve made, and our planet will eventually lose its light, being overwhelmed by the rising water and becoming a nonliving mixture of stones fading away in time.

While I was young, the ocean was still alive. Layers of waves constantly rolled along at their own pace. The sand in offshore lands became softened by the touch of water, which rendered it a cradle that nourished the growth of life. The sea at that time seemed amenable, allowing even the dim light to reach its underworld. From above, the water shone ebulliently, a film of silvery blue under the sunshine. I remember how my siblings and I played scavenger hunts on the beach, picking up every shell we found and comparing the distinct patterns like they represented different lives. Each was specially imprinted by nature over time. I remember my grandpa showed me how to listen to the sound of the sea through a conch, a message I thought the sea carried to me by the ocean breeze. I remember seeing sleek black fins fly across the surface, exposing a series of blurred figures underneath, reflecting a picture of life and death. In those days, my parents taught me how to navigate and dive. I spent all day on the sea, watching the tides moving up and down, listening to this song of life. At night, I would lie down on that floating pillow, hearing the fishes whisper a duet while the waves composed a serene lullaby. I was covered by the starry sky, woven into a quilt of darkness and light, and tranquilly entered a dream with the people who I loved….

But as time can’t stop at a moment eternally, these memories can never remain as they were. In the past few years, the greenhouse effect, caused by an increase in carbon emissions, has eventually led to global warming. This threatens to turn our planet into a furnace. As water levels rise at a rate of 3.3 millimeters per year, global icebergs have collapsed in an average of 278Gt per year (NASA). Raging and roaring, they crash into the sea with intangible forces which become the rebuke sent toward the indifference of humans. Though the ocean seems to be the same as before, the crests that sweep over the uneven beaches are gently erasing the signs of human crimes. They carry the garbage and debris back to the deep, suffocating countless lives killed by these man-made weapons. However, this tolerance is still surpassed by humans’ ambitions. People somehow believe that they can evade the imminent revenge of nature. Watching the water levels rise at an incredible speed has led people to believe that things are getting out of control. Flooding now comes monthly, contaminating the farmlands; droughts arrive with famine, leaving starving people behind; and hurricanes crash into our homes, annihilating almost everything. The images from my youth are ruined by the desolate landscape and expose the barren coastline of reality. Under the impassive surface, the print of hatred we have left in the ocean has become its internal force, continuously driving it to grow stronger. It is our own actions and lack of care that have led to the rise of sea-levels. That’s when I truly see the ocean cry - its tears accumulate in the dark and they gradually feed the rising water, weeping over our human actions.

Not far off the shore, this rising cry from the deep drifts along the waves and breaks right into our hearts. It’s only then that we realize how closely our fates are related to the sea. We’ve long forgotten that while we were squandering the valuable resources the ocean provides, we consumed this beautiful planet at the expense of our own lives. I still remember the lively ecosystem it once contained - some bubbling creatures swam through gaps between those criss-crossing coral reefs. The twilight passed through fissures and cracks, reflecting bizarre and dynamic patterns on the seafloor. I remember the balance it maintained - animals gathered around a charismatic alpha while they foraged, and predators only hunted as much as they needed. The water-rising, however, shows that this stability is threatened. Alas, this core issue still hasn’t been fully recognized by many of us, and I guess that’s why, though it’s rising, the cry of our oceans is still ignored.

Many people in contemporary society are deceived by the illusion that they’ve done what they could to save this planet. They could list several entrepreneurs from different organizations who have committed themselves to green business and environmental protection. They would contend that there are thousands of protests regarding marine conservation that have been held within the past few years, which seems to indicate that people have already paid sufficient attention to the rising water. However, it only seems to be like that. While claiming to protect the ocean, what they actually use are just words in their lectures; they take others’ dedication for granted, creating the illusion that they’re all fighting for the same goal. In truth, except for people who are truly aware of the water-rising and ascribe the cause to humans themselves, the rest all watch with indifference. At first, no one realizes it does matter… and that’s how the story begins.

Every night, falling asleep with the rhythmic waves in the distance, I keep going back to the moment when I first heard that sound of crying. Hanging over me, it has never dissipated. Those tears, rolling down like drops of rain, merge into the ocean, slowly fading from our sight, but never gone. Taking years to deposit in the deep, they’ve become part of the ocean’s power, embodied by the rising sea-levels, which eventually proves that they have never disappeared.

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So why can’t people still see them rising?

It takes time for people to ruminate, reflect, and redress what they’ve missed. I believe, within our lifetime, we humans, carrying the faults we made in the past, will be trying to offer this question an ultimate answer.