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The “blue machine�� is, of course, the ocean. But once physicist and oceanographer Helen Czerski has held your hand and your mind through her amazing book, The Blue Machine: How the Ocean Works, whatever prior notion and concept you had of the ocean will be transformed. As well as a machine, Czerski likens the ocean to an engine, and an engine is something that does work. The difference with the ocean is that there is no on/off switch: courtesy of the energy-giving sun, the ocean is working all the time.

The Blue Machine has a three-part structure: Part One answers the question What is the Blue Machine? in terms of its nature, shape, and anatomy (yes indeed, the ocean has shape and anatomy!); Part Two, Travelling the Blue Machine, introduces readers to messengers, passengers, and voyagers; and Part Three is about The Blue Machine and Us, containing a cautionary warning and a note of wishful optimism for the future.

As readers journey with Czerski through these sections of the book, they will be educated and enthralled with meticulous detail of how the ocean becomes an engine fueled by sunlight, which it converts to energy to create “movement and life and complexity.�� Wearing hats of physicist and oceanographer, Czerski will discuss the impact of common factors such as temperature, salinity, and gravity. But she is also versatile enough to don the hat of marine biologist, and introduce readers to a host of ocean creatures—large and small, common and unfamiliar—and their individual and collective roles as part of the blue machine.

And when there is a physicist in the vicinity, then there will be an abundance of equations—not mathematical ones, but logical explanations—showing how all of the above interact to keep everything, ideally, in stasis. Inevitably, what tends to throw things out of balance is human presence. It could be argued that, at one time, human ignorance fostered a practice of taking from our ocean planet whatever was necessary for survival and existence without concern for impact or consequence for the future.

That argument no longer holds. The pages of Czerski’s book alone illustrate the vast knowledge we have accumulated about our oceans—how they work, what they need to be sustained, and the unsolicited bounty they provide us. We also know with clarity what impact our irresponsible actions have on our oceans�� future. In what must be one of the most forgiving, benign, and euphemistic statements in her book, Czerski says: “But with a deeper knowledge of the ocean comes the responsibility to be good citizens of our ocean planet. The benefit of hindsight tells us that, for the most part, we have not been good citizens over the past two hundred years.��

Czerski and other writers on the subject would be well within their rights to use stronger, more forceful language to sound their warnings and their pleas, with words such as abuse, neglect, plunder, irresponsible, and self-interested. The Blue Machine is a wonderful book by a passionate scientist and an exceedingly competent writer, and it is required reading for all those aspiring to be good citizens of our ocean planet.