Oceans in Crisis - Ocean Worlds: The Story of Seas on Earth and Other Planets - page 191

part of the ocean's current biological riches, not least some function-
ing coral reef systems. Let us hope so.
However, we should separate what we would like to see (a global
economy shifted to a pattern that can preserve the oceans in some-
thing like the form they are in) from what currently seems most likely.
In the business-as-usual political realities of our human economy
there currently seems not the faintest chance of stopping carbon
emissions over many decades, let alone overnight. Business is, indeed,
currently accelerating, as a population now exceeding 7 billion, and
heading for 9 billion by mid-century, strives to live as best it can.
The most likely end result is that the diverse, beautiful ecological
systems still dominated by reef corals and fish will be replaced by
'slime-rock' systems dominated by algal and microbial mats and
jellyfish. Indeed, the marine biologist Daniel Pauly has coined the
term 'Myxocene' (derived from the word for slime) for such a likely
future ocean state. Using other new terminology, it will be part of the
developing Anthropocene Epoch. 113
The oceans will become warmer, more oxygen-poor, and, over
most of its surface, more oxygen-starved. Warm-water species will,
over the coming centuries, expand out towards the poles. Food
webs will break down and reform into new, simpler, more species-
poor combinations. There will, more likely than not, be a mass
extinction event to perhaps rival some of the great catastrophes of
the geological past.
On a cosmic scale this is important, because the Earth is a cosmi-
cally rare jewel. On a cosmic scale too, the Earth will recover, as it
has done following the great perturbations of the past—once (or if )
humans and their unique planet-altering capacities have themselves
become extinct. The recovery process normally takes several million
years, but it will be a new ocean state (particularly biologically) that