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An odd book. Much like the Blue Machine Czerski describes, the heart of this book is powerful and enigmatic. Unfortunately, like the Blue Machine Czerski describes, this book also has a bunch of junk floating in it.

I know that science non-fiction on this scale is always going to involve some gonzo journalism and the author's personal relationship with whatever's being described is going to be central to the narrative but I can't say I enjoy it much. I don't really need to know how Czerski's hobby of paddling a Hawaiian canoe connects her to the ocean, I have my own personal connection with it. What I want from Czerski is what the subtitle of her book promises me; How The Oceean Shapes Our World, where she sticks to that promise the book is a great read. Some of the rather irrelevant side narratives are also interesting but not really driving the main thesis, then there's just a bunch of junk floating in the sea of words that should have been sifted out by a diligent editor. Czerski has a PHD in bubbles, so fair enough bubbles are going to be really important to her story. That's fine. Write what you know. But the rest of it?

I'm also so sick of the final chapter of these books about our planet and its fragile environment where the author says they've tried to spare us the gloom of climate change in the main text, but here you go, here it all is in a single dump. And then there's this imploring speech about it's not enough just to know it, we have to care, but it's not enough just to care, we have to act. What that action might be always remains largely mysterious. And so the book inevitably, despite its final feeble efforts, leaves you feeling absolutely powerless and even more certain that there's a big problem you really can't do anything about.

Czerski says we can vote for the right politicians but frankly I live in a country that is "girt by sea". Yep girt by it. We're so girt, it's in the national anthem. And not once have I ever heard an Australian politician talk about the health of the ocean that girts us. Let alone run their political campaign on protecting it. Ok yes, there's a few platitudes towards the Great Barrier Reef but the actual ocean itself never merits a mention. The old hip pocket is how people vote, that and what their online tribe tells them to. So yes the ocean shapes our world but it really is an impossible task getting anyone to care.