There is a canyon off the California coast deeper than the Grand Canyon is tall. Most Americans have never heard of it.
Monterey Canyon begins just offshore and drops over two miles into darkness, past the reach of sunlight into a world of glowing life, hidden habitats, and natural systems that shape the chemistry of the planet itself. Much of it remains unexplored. Species are still being discovered there. So are clues about how the ocean stores carbon, regulates climate, and sustains life far beyond its depths.
In another era, Americans would have recognized a place like this for what it is: a frontier of discovery with consequences for our future.
The Ocean is National Infrastructure, Not a Backdrop
Today, we tend to think of the ocean as backdrop—a place we vacation, fish, or sail across—rather than one of the systems shaping the 21st century. This is a mistake.
The ocean is changing quickly, and decisions about its future are accelerating. The United States should treat the systems that help us understand and govern the ocean — from scientific research and long-term monitoring to international cooperation — as essential national infrastructure, not discretionary environmental projects. Decisions about offshore development, fisheries, conservation, coastal resilience, and climate risk should be guided by science and ongoing monitoring before crises narrow our future options.
The ocean is not peripheral to American prosperity, safety, or resilience. It is foundational to all three.
How the United States responds to a rapidly changing ocean — and to the choices now being made about its use and protection — will show whether we still believe in scientific leadership, stewardship, and long-term investment as sources of public benefit.
America is an Ocean Nation
The United States is one of the world’s great ocean nations. Our waters extend from the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic Oceans to the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea. The ocean area under U.S. stewardship is larger than our landmass. American scientists and engineers pioneered many of the technologies that now define modern ocean exploration, from remotely operated vehicles to autonomous underwater systems and tools that can identify life from genetic material in seawater. American leadership has also helped shape the international rules, scientific standards, and cooperative institutions that guide how nations understand and protect the global ocean.
For decades, American oceanographic institutions, including pioneering research centers along the California coast, have pushed those capabilities forward. They treated the deep ocean not as an empty void, but as a living system worthy of sustained exploration and public investment. That work transformed our understanding of the sea and revealed how much is now at risk.
The ocean absorbs nearly a quarter of human-produced carbon dioxide and more than 90 percent of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gases. It supports food systems, transportation networks, and weather patterns that affect communities far beyond the shoreline. Yet the scientific systems that help us understand these changes are still too often treated as discretionary, rather than as infrastructure essential to national resilience.
Our Understanding of Ocean Science has Outpaced Our Will to Act
Our ability to understand the ocean has outpaced our willingness to act on that knowledge. The warning signs are already visible. The past decade has repeatedly set records for ocean heat. Arctic sea ice continues its long-term decline. Coral reefs that took centuries to form can bleach in weeks. These are not distant projections; they are measurable changes observed by the very scientific systems American innovation helped build.
Decisions about offshore development, fisheries, conservation, seabed minerals, shipping, and climate resilience still often move faster than the science needed to guide them. That gap is no longer only an environmental concern. It affects ports, fisheries, insurance markets, coastal economies, diplomacy, and national security. The United States should help close it by making ocean science a foundation for decisions before damage outpaces understanding.
Around the world, governments are building new frameworks for ocean governance and protection, recognizing that ecological stability, economic resilience, and security are increasingly connected. The High Seas Treaty, focused on protecting biodiversity beyond national waters, reflects a growing recognition that ocean health cannot be treated as someone else’s problem or deferred to future generations.
But treaties and targets alone will not protect the ocean. Without sustained scientific capacity, nations are forced to make decisions about increasingly complex ocean systems with incomplete information. They require scientific capacity, long-term investment, international cooperation, and the resolve to act while there is still time to understand what is at stake. This is where American leadership matters.
While representing the United States in international environmental and ocean discussions, I watched other governments calibrate their own ambition against ours. The ocean does not have borders, but American choices set expectations far beyond our own waters. When the United States leads with science, conservation, and cooperation, others notice. When we retreat, others notice that, too.
A Test of Long-Term American Strength
As the United States approaches its 250th year, we should remember that this country has often been strongest when it made long-term bets on institutions, scientific inquiry, and public purpose. The ocean requires that same long-term ambition now.
What is at stake is not simply conservation. It is whether the United States still sees discovery, stewardship, and scientific leadership as essential to public benefit and long-term strength. It is whether we can make responsible choices for systems whose consequences unfold across generations, not election cycles.
That means investing not only in ocean science and exploration, but in the institutions, partnerships, and international cooperation needed to make wise decisions before crises narrow our choices.
For us at the Packard Foundation, this means supporting partners who protect and restore vital ocean habitats, build more sustainable seafood systems, and advance responsible ocean-based climate solutions.
Future generations will inherit not only what we understood, but what we chose to protect while there was still time to understand it.
