APRIL 2026

"For all at last return to the sea- to Oceanus, the ocean river, like the ever-flowing stream of time, the beginning and the end."
— Rachel Carson

Happy Earth Month! As we celebrate the Earth and everything on it, we are keeping close watch over our oceans, rivers, and coasts. Of course, as Rachel Carson herself put it, “in nature, nothing exists alone.” Our fate is intertwined with that of the sea, and so every change there is a change on land, as well. Like most months now, there is a mixed bag of news. New policy pushes the limits of what ecosystems can manage, while marine life continues to astound scientists and beachgoers alike.

Residents in communities across America are taking the fight to polluters and the government on what constitutes a safe living environment. In Mississippi, residents are fighting back against Drax Biomass, a foe RCC members will be familiar with. Their plant emits fine particulates around the community, one where the residents are determined to secure clean water, clean soil, and clean air. The Clean Water Act itself is under threat from the EPA, as the agency restricts what waterways it covers. The proposed change says the CWA will no longer cover standing wetlands or relatively permanent streams. California is suing the Trump Administration to prevent the reopening of a marine oil pipeline, claiming it is not needed on the “national security” grounds the Administration is claiming.

As people coast to coast are fighting against potential negative changes, we see marine life returning to the Eastern Seaboard. Multiple blue whales have been spotted off Southern New England, well south of their normal range in Canada at this time of year. Florida will see a less-welcome phenomenon of sargassum. The seaweed has covered Florida’s beaches in years passed and this year is set to potentially break the record.

In the Climate and Energy section, find an analysis of a changing Antarctic through the lens of the heroic journey of Ernest Shackleton. As a modern-day journey is coupled with a historical look at Shackleton’s epic across the South Atlantic in Oceanographic Magazine. In news closer to home for the RCC, a study out of Brown University has found that turbulence and currents in the oceans may be measurable off spinning ice sheets at the poles. On the energy side, oil drilling in a deepwater field in the Gulf is taking bidders, with the Shenandoah oil field being explored by different companies. This unfortunate development comes as oil continues to be a national security priority at the expense of marine and terrestrial ecosystems.

Data centers, while staying a scourge on many communities’ water supply, are becoming cleaner. While data centers draw down supplies from water mains, new constructions are trying to use water that can be treated onsite, reducing dependence on potable supplies. Also, by using closed-loop cooling systems, data centers can reduce overall demand. With water, the city of San Diego has reached a remarkable milestone, as instead of demanding water from the Colorado River or worrying about supplies, they have been able to sell water on to other areas from a desalination facility.

For events, Rock the Ocean is putting on a music festival in Fort Lauderdale with a focus on ocean conservation. At the festival, Kenny Chesney will receive the Ocean Legacy Award for his work protecting the seas. Other acts include Post Malone and Riley Green. If you are looking for a book, consider last year’s Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. The opinion urges readers to “look past” scarcity to a point where we can have abundant resources, including abundant clean energy. To do this, though, Klein and Thompson argue we must cut red tape to get projects moving, so there are drawbacks to the approach. With a critical read, the book stands to be quite interesting.

As April showers become May flowers and warm temperatures coax us towards the beach, remember our global oceans. Turbulence and currents mean that the water at your beach could have been sailed on by Ernest Shackleton, or there could be blue whales just over the horizon. With a spirit of adventure and curiosity coupled with a healthy skepticism of policy changes, a generation of ocean stewards support clear and sustainable change.

Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson Review –
Make America Build Again

Over-regulation has rendered progressive change impossible, argue the authors of this clear and rigorous book. But what about the tradeoffs?

Every political movement has an image of the past that motivates its view of the future. For conservatives, it might be the imaginary suburbia of a 1950s coffee commercial; for liberals, the solidarity of a New Deal-era Works Progress Administration poster. For Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, it is the techno-optimism of the 1964 New York World’s Fair “Futurama” exhibit: a vision of commuter flights to the moon, desalinisation turning deserts into farmland, hotels on the ocean floor. In their book, Abundance, they argue for a new politics that unlocks the potential of the remarkable technologies that already exist, as well as those yet to be invented.

But that future is behind schedule – and Abundance holds late 20th‑century liberalism responsible. (Klein and Thompson critique the right, too – they are themselves liberals – but this book speaks only to their co-partisans, with the downside of artificially telling just half the story). Liberals, Klein and Thompson say, nobly fought to redistribute what we have to those without, while losing sight of the goal of creating more to redistribute in the first place. Meanwhile, they sought to protect the public from the unchecked consequences of growth: the bulldozers of urban renewal and the pollution of industrialisation. They succeeded, but left the state too constrained to solve the challenges of today. When government rouses itself – as with the breakneck effort to invent, manufacture and deploy a Covid vaccine – it can perform miracles. Too often, it doesn’t. (Their focus is the US, but readers in other developed economies will quickly see analogies in infrastructure projects and opportunities for innovation stymied closer to home.) Read more  Purchase here

The April 2026 issue of RCC's Coasts and Ocean Observer was produced by Ross Feldner

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