Over the past two years, a positive wave of ocean action has swept across the planet. Its momentum offers the most powerful opportunity in recent memory to improve humanity's relationship with the ocean. The ocean hosts 95% of the planet's life; it also absorbs 93% of the planet's excess heat and about 30% of the carbon dioxide produced by humans. The ocean produces more than half of the planet's oxygen. In fact, just one tiny photosynthetic creature in the ocean, Prochlorococcus , provides 20 % of oxygen in the Earth’s biosphere. Developing a sustainable ocean economy holds countless opportunities for climate change adaptation and mitigation. For example, by protecting and restoring blue carbon ecosystems such as mangrove forests, seagrass beds and coral reefs, we can protect our coasts and the livelihoods of the millions of people who live there; by supporting sustainable seafood, we can improve food security while keeping the carbon footprint of global protein production low. Meanwhile, developing offshore wind energy, along with projects to remove carbon dioxide from the sea, could put us back on track to meet the Paris Climate Agreement goal of keeping global temperature increases to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. And green shipping could help keep global trade growing in a carbon-neutral way. (PETER THOMSON, times.com)