Author: Derrick Lester

The High Seas Treaty was surprisingly quiet for something that took almost two decades to negotiate. In September, four nations—Sri Lanka, Sierra Leone, Morocco, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines—deposited their ratification documents at the UN, subtly raising the total to sixty. That was the cutoff point. The agreement officially went into effect on January 17, 2026. There is no fanfare, no headlines that compete with market panics or election cycles. This is merely a procedural milestone that, if successful, might change how people treat two-thirds of the planet. The BBNJ Agreement is the first legally binding agreement created to…

A research ship slows to a crawl somewhere between Guam and the Solomon Islands. Barely a drift at two knots. A cylindrical robot is lowered into the nearly artificially blue water as the crew assembles close to the stern. No fanfare is present. There was no press release. After a few pictures and the gentle mechanical clunk of equipment, the float disappears below the surface, starting a journey that will last longer than the actual expedition. This is how ocean science is undergoing a quiet revolution. slowly. without any headlines. One float at a time. The robots in question are…

The northeast Pacific’s surface quietly did something it had never done before at some point in early September of last year. The average temperature of the water was about 69 degrees Fahrenheit, which sounds almost pleasant if you’re thinking of a swimming pool. However, it was almost half a degree warmer than any previous measurement recorded for that section of chilly ocean. Since May of last year, NOAA has been monitoring the heatwave, which is known by the dry abbreviation NEP25A, which is only used by government scientists. When it peaked on September 10, 2025, it covered an area of…

A research ship dropped a steel box into water so deep that sunlight stopped existing thousands of meters above it somewhere between Honolulu and the middle of nowhere. The crew bided their time. Manganese nodules, those odd, potato-shaped rocks that have become the focus of a small, well-funded industry that is betting on the seafloor as the next great frontier for cobalt, nickel, and copper, were supposed to be inside the box when it came back up. The box was filled with sediment instead. Only sediment. Not the haul that everyone had secretly hoped for. The goal of that late-2025…

Belém is located on a peculiar yet stunning edge of the globe, where the Amazon slowly and brownly empties into the Atlantic. It was an almost too obvious choice for a climate summit. The rainforest, Indigenous rights, and the timelines for fossil fuels, which always seem to move forward by five years, were among the topics discussed by the delegates. During COP30, the word “deep” was frequently used to describe deep divisions, deep disappointment, and deep concern. But the actual deep sea hardly emerged at all. It is worthwhile to sit with that absence. Roughly 90% of the ocean is…

The stereotype of Elly Vadseth as a working artist is not entirely accurate. She doesn’t spend her days setting up canvases by the window in a peaceful studio in Trondheim or Oslo. She spends them on small boats, in underwater video archives, with anthropologists and deep-sea archaeologists, and sometimes in a costume designed to resemble a creature that hardly anyone has ever seen. Even by the standards of contemporary art, what the Tufts SMFA graduate brought back from her year-long immersion with a group of deep-sea researchers in Norway is unique. Visualizing the Deep Sea in the Age of Climate…

There is an odd sort of dress rehearsal going on somewhere in a flooded quarry in Gloucestershire. A British company called Deep is getting ready for something that, until recently, remained firmly in the realm of science fiction. Engineers lower test modules into the murky green water, and divers circle them. They hope to have a permanent human presence on the ocean floor by 2027. Not a quick visit. Not a joke. a home. Ten years ago, this kind of ambition would have prompted courteous eye-rolls. However, the discourse surrounding extreme environments has changed. The seabed has quietly and unexpectedly…

An agreement was signed earlier this year somewhere south of Starkville, beyond the long stretch of pine and farm road that characterizes this region of Mississippi. On paper, it appeared to be the kind of bureaucratic handshake that most people would never bother reading about. A cooperative research and development agreement between a university and a naval command. It was a modest press release. The vocabulary was technical. However, if you sit with it for a while, you get the impression that something bigger is being quietly constructed here in a state more frequently associated with cotton and catfish than…

The deep sea, a location that most of us will never see and seldom consider, has an odd quiet that makes it simple to forget what is at risk. Nevertheless, a struggle is taking place somewhere in the hallways of Kingston, Jamaica, where the International Seabed Authority convenes, over who has the authority to determine what occurs four kilometers below the ocean’s surface. Now that eight UN human rights experts have voiced their opinions, their message is remarkably direct. They contend that the existing framework is insufficient. They maintain that international law must serve as the foundation for ocean governance…

On a serene August morning, drive south on US-1 past Key Largo, and the water appears incredibly pure. Glassy turquoise is the color that appears on postcards. You wouldn’t believe that one of the planet’s oldest living structures is being destroyed by something slower and more bizarre than a heatwave. For the past ten years, the reefs off the southeast coast of Florida have been held accountable for climate change, and with good reason. Beneath that one, however, is a more subdued tale that has less to do with the sky and more to do with what we flush, drain,…