Do we stand by and do nothing, or do we do something to preserve life as we like it?

Children Help Your Mother

In the beginning, there was slime.

Long before trees shaded Earth’s land or fish darted through coral reefs, this planet was a lifeless blue marble, bathed in sun and storm. Then came the cyanobacteria—the blue-green algae, though not truly algae at all. Ancient, resilient, and remarkably versatile, these microbial pioneers arrived to a barren blue planet and began the long work of transformation.

Cyanobacteria are not just photosynthesizers, not just primitive “plants.” They’re hybrid pioneers—capable of acting as both plants and animals. They breathe life into the world by producing oxygen, but also devour organic material when needed. It was their patient toil over billions of years that slowly sculpted Earth’s early seas from sterile brine into a churning, vibrant soup of life. They cyanoformed the planet.

Over evolutionary time, the cyanobacteria diversified. Some descendants leaned into their plant-like ways, evolving into chlorophytes—green algae, the cradle of ocean phytoplankton. Others embraced their predatory side, giving rise to protozoans and, much later, the whole marvelous bestiary of animal life. From slime, life bloomed into coral reefs, whale songs, and human minds.

But in an evolutionary nanosecond—just the past century—humanity has undone much of this slow-growing miracle. We’ve burned through hundreds of millions of years of ancient fossil carbon, releasing nearly two trillion tonnes of CO₂ into our atmosphere. And though the sky bears the brunt of our gaze, it’s the oceans—those great blue lungs of our planet—that have absorbed the true cost.

CO₂ dissolves into seawater and becomes carbonic acid. Just a slight acidification—not enough to burn skin or bleach bone—but in the microcosm of ocean life, it’s a biochemical earthquake. The delicate balance of carbonate ions that marine life depends on is unraveling. Phytoplankton, the chlorophyll-rich green plants of the sea, are dying back. In fact, studies show that global ocean primary productivity has declined by more than 40% in the last 75 years—a collapse so vast it escapes most headlines.

The Baltic Sea from space reveals a massive cyanobacter bloom

And as the chlorophytes retreat, the cyanobacteria, who never left, step back up to take charge again.

More resilient in acidic waters, unbothered by warming, adaptable in low-nutrient conditions, the cyanos are blooming. Not in elegant patterns of ecological diversity—but in mats, slicks, and blooms of blue-green slime. We are witnessing a reversion, not an evolution. The oceans are turning back to their first beautiful blue-green color.

As chlorophyll retreats and chloroplasts dim, it is the old microbial oligarchs—the cyanos—who are rising again, indifferent to our worries. They are not malevolent, nor merciful. They are life’s default setting, ready to restore a stable simplicity in the wake of our chaotic abundance.

The Cyanos May Be Speaking

And perhaps they are more than just life’s fallback plan. Recent discoveries in marine microbiology have revealed something astonishing—electrical signals pulsing through bacterial mats on the ocean floor. These pulses are strikingly similar to the brainwave patterns observed in higher animals, including humans.

It seems the ancient cyanos and their microbial kin may possess something akin to a planet-wide quantum intelligence—a sentient sea of life whose message, encoded in waves and whispers, has long gone unheard.

To those willing and able to listen, their signal sings: “Children, don’t hurt your Mother.”

Will We Reboot the Oceans to Life—Or Let Them Revert to Slime?

In essence, the cyanos are hitting CTRL-ALT-DEL on the evolutionary experiment. Not out of spite, but as a system reboot. Let the excess CO₂ rise. Let the shellfish falter. Let the reefs bleach. Let the seas lose all their fish and go green-blue again. They’ve done this before. They’ll do it again.

But we, the children of this great evolutionary tree, need not surrender to this ancient fallback. The cyanos are benevolent and they tell us there still remains time—not much, but enough—to act. To step forward not as passive witnesses to a cataclysm, but as stewards of restoration.

Ocean Pastures: A Blueprint for Rebirth

That’s why I’ve devoted my life to restoring what I call ocean pastures—the vast, drifting fields of plankton that once fed whales, birds, and billions of fish. The science is clear: a primary missing ingredient is iron, a vital micronutrient that once blew freely in dust across the oceans. As CO₂ has turned Asia’s deserts green with grass, that dust has diminished by more than 80%, and with it the vitality of our seas.

In 2012, working with native communities, I helped lead the Haida Salmon Restoration Project, the world’s first large-scale nature-based ocean replenishment and restoration project that used natural iron-rich mineral dust to ocean pastures. The result? The greatest salmon returns in Alaskan history the following year. Life, when given the means, rebounds with astonishing speed.

Replenishing and restoring our oceans doesn’t require the biggest of us, just 100 small villages will do the job for everyone. Click to read more

Now, we stand ready to scale this model through the 100 Village Ocean Restoration Action Plan—a cooperative network of coastal communities, scientists, mariners, and traditional stewards. Each village, equipped with the wisdom and technology to deliver what the late, great oceanographer John Martin called “half a shipload of iron,” can reignite the engines of life in our regional seas. It’s not about fertilizing, but about replenishing what nature has lost.

The Decision Is Ours

Without action, we face oceans devolving into slime, food chains collapsing, and the final, patient shrug of evolution’s eldest survivors. But with vision, courage, and the willingness to give back to the ocean what we’ve taken, we may yet preserve this miraculous interlude of complexity and beauty.

We do not have a billion years to see what new life might rise. We have only this moment to decide: will we be the species that rebooted the oceans toward life—or the ones that got deleted?

Read more at russgeorge.net and join the movement to restore ocean pastures and protect the Blue Planet we call home.