Our changing oceans : from Ancient Waters to Modern Crisis

APECS Podcast -  Episode 1/3 

Welcome to the first episode from the Polar Times mini-series: “Our changing oceans: from ancient waters to modern crisis”.

This three-episode podcast series explores the complex relationship between humans and our polar environments. In the next episode, four guests from the British Antarctic Survey will discuss microplastics.

Technical details : 

Podcast host : Nastasia Freyria, Nadia Frontier, Nathalie Nickells, Emilie Pillon and  André Reis 

Editing : André Reis and Nadia Frontier

Mastering : Nadia Frontier and Emilie Pillon

Recorded on Monday 31st March 2025 with Riverside FM (thanks to BAS) 

Covert art : modified by Nastasia Freyria from original idea by Matthew Nelson, Nicholas Parlato, and Damien Ringeisen 

Music : "Scuba" by Metre, Nul Tiel Records, UK (unaltered) CC BY-NC-SA

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Nadia: Hello and welcome to another episode of Polar Times, bringing you science and stories from literally the coolest places on the planet! I am one of your co-hosts, Nadia Frontier, a masters student at the University of Glasgow and I used to work at the British Antarctic Survey where I was studying the fate of coastal seaweeds and invertebrate biology. In this episode I will be joined by four lovely people,

Emilie: Hi I’m Emilie Pillon PhD student in Anthropology from Paris Nanterre University. I’m exploring  the relationship between scientists and Antarctica.  

Natalie: Hi I’m Natalie Nickells, PhD student from the British Antarctic survey. I specialise in humpback and fin whale foraging ecology:basically, what kind of krill swarms do they like to eat? 

Nastasia: Hi I’m Nastasia Freyria postdoctoral researcher from McGill university in Montreal. My research focuses on the natural attenuation of Arctic microbial communities and the development of optimal bioremediation strategies for the remediation of potential oil spills on Arctic beaches.

André: Hello I’m André Torres Reis, I’m a marine arctic biologist and I am currently working as a cetacean wildlife guide and science communicator.

Natalie: We will start with an opening quote to introduce the theme of our episode about polar microplastics from Rachel Carson's Silent Spring Book written in 1962.

Natalie: “The most alarming of all man's assaults upon the environment is the contamination of air, earth, rivers, and sea with dangerous and even lethal materials. This pollution is for the most part irrecoverable; the chain of evil it initiates not only in the world that must support life but in living tissues is for the most part irreversible. In this now universal contamination of the environment, chemicals are the “sinister” and little-recognized partners of radiation in changing the very nature of the world--the very nature of its life.” (Carson, 1962: 6) Let’s reflect a little on that quote…

André:  Well, when hearing this passage from over 60 years ago now, it’s just only seems too unreal, to me, that we continue to remain plagued with the very nature of what Rachel “brought to light” so eloquently in her book- although, now, this has slightly shifted from major concerns around unknown ‘chemicals’ and radiation, to an increased concern around plastic pollution….What does that make you think Nadia.

Nadia:  When we think about plastic, we might conjure up the emotive images of plastic straws impacting turtles survivability which flooded social media after they were featured in Blue Planet 2’s final episode in 2017. This seemed to kick off public awareness of ocean plastic pollution, and individuals began to move towards reducing single use plastic in their daily lives in order to protect marine life. As scientists, we all are aware that what's visible is only the tip of the iceberg, see what we did there!, and that the causes and effects of environmental pollution are complex, multifactorial and deeply damaging to humans and the very ecosystem which supports us .           

 Emilie: In the first episode of Our Changing Oceans, we will discuss issues surrounding sources of pollution impacting polar oceans. 

Nastasia: Today, we're diving deep into how human activities have transformed our oceans, from ancient times to our modern crisis. We will be your guides through this journey of discovery and science facing our uncertain futures. In this first episode, we will briefly retrace how scientists and the general public first became aware of pollution facing our oceans and the extending reach into the most inhospitable places on earth… the polar regions. 

André: It was in 1962, when Rachel Carson first published Silent Spring. A book, a journey where she unveils the impacts and damages of chemical products on bird populations with wide reaching and complex cascading effects  across entire ecosystems. Rachel focuses especially on DDT, an acronym shortened for dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane which was originally believed to be a ‘miracle pesticide’ that could effectively eliminate insect infestations on crops. The book is, today, not only a huge success, raising awareness about the use of chemicals and their long lasting effects in our environment, but is considered to be the pivotal moment, the true core of the environmental movement itself. 

Emilie: The polar regions were a pristine word that seemed untouchable until 2005 when Marla Cone introduced  the concept of “Arctic Paradox”.  In her book ‘Silent snow: The slow poisoning of the Arctic’ she described the impact of the pollutants on Arctic communities. The Arctic paradox is the fact that the ecosystem and the society that are the most impacted by pollutants are the one that are furthest away from the contaminant source. Indeed  As early as 1966, Sladen and co-authors found evidence of DDT in Adelie Penguin and crabeater seals. Natalie, did they find how the penguins were contaminated ?

Natalie: Sources of contamination increasingly began to come to light and extended to the other pole- to Antarctica. In the early 60s, the scientific occupation of Antarctica was in its infancy. Faecal matter from bases and other scientific operations had been, and in many cases continues to be, discarded into the ocean. This was one possible source of pollutants. Another source could be air contamination, or, as per Sladen and co-authors: “It is also possible that DDT might have been carried into Antarctic waters by ocean currents. The penguins and seals feed in the Antarctic surface current, which, moving northwards, sinks below through warmer sub-Antarctic water at the Antarctic Convergence.” (Sladen and al, 1966 : 672) 

Nastasia: The scandal of DDT was well known but high-profile pollution events continued to unfold amongst increasing evidence of ocean pollution. The presence of plastic litter in the oceans was documented back in the 70’s by researchers such as Carpenter and co-authors (Carpenter et al, 1972; Rochman, 2020 : 60) . In 1996, the discovery of the Great Pacific Garbage patch was termed a floating beast or a new continent drifting in the Pacific ocean. At the time, we didn’t fully understand how the oceans functioned from the complexity of food chains to incredible marine mammal migration patterns. Our society didn’t understand the impact of pollutants in the vast ocean- they were out of sight and out of mind. 

Emilie:  What kind of pollutant are we finding in our ocean - and in the polar region ? Why is monitoring and studying the effect of en-vi-ron-mental pollution in the polar region important today ? In 2019,  460 Tonnes of plastic were produced, a 13 fold increase compared to nineteen seventy. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OCDE) estimated that zero point five percent of Plastic ends up in the ocean.  That could represent an equivalent of  one point seven million tons of plastic…can you imagine that ?

André:  Plastic pollution can be commonly classified as either macroplastic, so plastic we can clearly see with the naked eye, or microplastic, plastics smaller than 5 mm in size and that can also be seen as small strands and really small pieces need to be viewed under the microscope.  

Nastasia: In Antarctica, microplastic pollution has led to the creation of a working group, a network of scientists from all around the world working on the subject. The Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research Plastic states that “Recent estimates suggest there will be more plastic than fish in the sea by 2050. Because of the persistence and longevity of plastics, it is likely that the problem will only get worse. While there has been a great deal of research in the more populated regions of the world, little is known about plastic pollution in Polar Regions. The Plastic-Expert Groups aims to assess the current state of the problem, share knowledge and expertise and propose solutions to the problems of plastic pollution in Polar ecosystems” As such, they are involved in science to policy events.

Nadia: In November 2024, the ‘Inter governmental Negotiating Committee’ on the Plastic Treaty met to develop an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the oceans. However, no agreement was achieved, stressing the need for further research to understand the interconnection between the different anthropogenic