December 15, 2020

Hosting at least 365 stony coral species and more than 1000 species of fish along its entire coastline, the Red Sea is categorized as one of the most productive coral reef ecosystems in the world. Not only do marine organisms depend on the productivity of coral reefs but so do people. In fact, 28 million people living along its coastline throughout Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Djibouti, Eritrea, Sudan, Egypt, and Israel depend on the Red Sea’s vast ecosystem for food and as a source of livelihood.

Annual tourism revenues hover in the $12 billion range, and the yearly value of fisheries amounts to approximately $230 million for the region. Economics aside, the rich biodiversity the Red Sea contains also has the potential to yield new advancements in medicine as antiviral drugs and anticancer agents have already been developed using extracts of marine sponges from reefs in the Caribbean.

But on top of all of this, coral reefs serve a supremely important role in terms of regulating the amount of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere. Reef building corals, like ones located in the Red Sea, contain photosynthetic algae, known as zooxanthellae. Through photosynthesis, these algal organisms remove carbon dioxide from the water to make food in the form of carbohydrates that both the zooxanthellae and the coral polyps can consume. In a way, they act like underwater versions of rainforests, but like their terrestrial counterparts, coral reefs are under threat from a wide variety of stressors including ocean acidification, rising coastal urbanization, and overexploitation of marine resources.

But now, another threat is endangering the Red Sea and its diverse ecosystem; an impending catastrophe whose damage dwarfs the 1989 Exxon Valdez Oil Spill.

Another Giant Oil Spill

60 kilometers off the west coast of Yemen, a country currently experiencing a brutal civil war, lies the Safer Floating Storage and Offloading (FSO) tanker. Since its takeover by Houthi rebels in 2015, the FSO tanker has not undergone any maintenance to prevent its decay, which researchers now fear is nearing its final stages.

If the vessel does indeed decay to the point of leakage, the consequences would be devastating. The first thing to consider in this plausible scenario is the scale of the disaster by examining the infamous Exxon Valdez incident. 260,000 barrels of oil were spilled covering 1,300 miles of coastline and killing hundreds of thousands of marine wildlife animals in the process. Even 30 years later and intense clean-up efforts, certain areas of Alaska’s Prince William Sound still contain large traces of crude oil. By contrast, the Safer FSO tanker holds 1.148 million barrels worth of crude oil, more than four times the volume of Exxon Valdez. Plus, a massive spill any time in these winter months would be even more destructive as winter currents can more widely disperse oil.

“Coral reefs line almost all 4,000 kilometers of the Red Sea’s coastlines and also surround multiple islands within it, so the oil that spills in any part of the Sea threatens these valuable ecosystems,” says Prof. Maoz Fine of Bar-Ilan University’s Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences and the Interuniversity Institute for Marine Science.

A Geopolitical Nightmare

Currently, the Houthis, an armed political movement, control access to the Safer FSO single-hull tanker. Up until recently, they have denied the UN’s requests to board the vessel to develop proper risk impact analyses and contingency plans in the event of an otherwise likely spill. Allowing the UN’s involvement would be necessary in preventing the spill from occurring.

However, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Mark Lowcock, remains wary of the Houthi authorities reluctant cooperation. He noted that similar assurances were made by the Houthis in August 2019 before being withdrawn the night before the UN inspection team was supposed to board the vessel. Regardless, the lack of smooth cooperation has impeded the UN’s ability to take concrete steps to prevent the potential spill, despite multiple warnings of the FSO tanker’s degradation.

“Not only are Red Sea ecosystems and the livelihoods of 28 million people at stake, but an oil spill could aggravate the security situation in the region as vital resources become polluted, scarce, and contested,” says Inger Anderson, Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). Anderson predicts the entirety of Yemen’s fisheries would be affected within days and spark an estimated $1.5 billion worth of damage over the next 25 years. She warns that a spill of this magnitude would also prompt the closure of Yemen’s nearby port in Al Hudaydah for at least six months, thereby causing food and fuel prices to spike drastically. Other countries bordering the Red Sea would also be similarly affected in due time.

“Responding to a spill would mean containing and recovering the oil at sea and cleaning up the shoreline, but it will take years for ecosystems and economies to recover,” says Anderson. “To top it all, the COVID-19 crisis has relegated the oil spill issue further down the priority list of regional States.”

Can this be Prevented?

In the absence of assessment procedures, the only way to truly eradicate the threat of the Safer’s massive oil spill is to physically remove the oil from the vessel. However, this requires rounds of necessary inspection, appropriate repairs, and proper maintenance in order to safely extract the oil before disposing of the deteriorating tanker altogether, a proposal outlined by Martin Griffiths, the UN envoy for Yemen. Unfortunately, this response strategy has not been initiated due to the Houthis noncompliance despite the Yemen Government’s approval.

According to a policy brief article published on December 15, 2020 in Frontier in Marine Science, the authors write that 4.8 million barrels of crude oil and refined petroleum products normally pass through the Red Sea each day. The authors recommend the immediate drafting of leak containment strategies specific to the Red Sea’s water currents and urge oil companies who transport their products across the Sea to make yearly contributions towards spill mitigation funds regulated by the UN.

Focusing global efforts towards clean, renewable, and sustainable energy is critical for the tumultuous years to come. Without shifting away from the reliance on fossil fuels, the routine transport operations of oil across our waters will continue to threaten marine ecosystems and the communities that depend on them. It’s not just the Safer spill that needs to be prevented, it’s the other potential incidents that are to likely happen in the future.

ZAVIT – Science and Environment News Agency

In the spring of 2015, I sat on the 33 bus swiping through Tinder dispiritedly and let out a huge sigh. The San Francisco online dating hustle was wearing on me, and analog dating hadn’t gotten me very far, either. But beyond the confines of my Tinder matches, my singledom looked even bleaker when I compared it to Los Angeles, where my 88-year-old grandmother Hilda had found herself a boyfriend. My 88-year-old grandmother found a boyfriend before I did.

Hilda — affectionately known to her family as Omama (Grandma in German) — had not dated since my grandfather died 20 years earlier. She wore her wedding ring as a tribute to their marriage, which had spanned four decades. Up until recently, she had spent her evenings at Torah Study or watching Jeopardy alone.

My 88-year-old grandmother found a boyfriend before I did.

Omama grew up in Berlin and escaped Nazi Germany on the Kindertransport, an organized rescue effort that brought nearly 10,000 Jewish children to Great Britain from Nazi Germany between 1938 and 1939.

In April 2015, Burbank City Council invited Omama to be honored at City Hall for speaking to middle and high school students about her experience during the Holocaust. They informed her they were sending someone to pick her up and drive her to the event.

Omama was surprised when they sent a 92-year old Austrian Holocaust survivor sharply dressed in leather oxfords and a felt hat. His name was Herb.

When the City Hall event came to a close, Herb drove Omama back to her home in Studio City. As he pulled up to the home she had raised three boys in, he paused to ask, “Would you consider going out to dinner with me one night?”

Omama didn’t give Herb an answer, but the next day, he sent her an email, reiterating his request for a date. Omama called my father (her youngest son) for advice. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t really know him,” she said. My dad told her that he was sure the man was okay, being a 92-year-old. And so, with my father’s blessing, Omama agreed to accompany Herb to dinner.

Omama and Herb quickly bonded over their trauma of escaping the Nazis and the experience of rebuilding their lives in Los Angeles. Their once-a-week meetings expanded to frequent companionship. Herb drove Omama to the theatre and to Trader Joe’s, and Omama made Herb dinner. Soon enough, she was no longer watching Jeopardy alone. She began to fondly refer to Herb as “Herbie.”

Omama was especially impressed that Herb could drive at his age. He was willing to drive her wherever she wanted to go, including to Lake Hollywood for her daily stroll with her walking group.

On May 27, 2015, I received an email from Omama containing a photo of Herb and her at Lake Hollywood. I replied, “Herb is so cute!!!!  Maybe soon I will have a boyfriend too!” Omama quickly wrote me back: “Love is in the air so you will have one soon.  Love, Omama.”

It turned out that Omama was a fortune teller. Within the year, Christian (6’3” with a bio proclaiming “Let’s do art things”) appeared on my Tinder screen. I swiped right and asked if he’d like to meet up on Sunday. “I have plans Sunday. Thursday?” Ah, a man with plans. A man who schedules plans! A millennial unicorn!

I met Christian at a hip bar in the Mission district. I walked slowly from work to the bar, fearing that I’d be early, yet when I approached the front door, I saw that he was early as well. We talked for hours and drew on a piece of paper together. Art things. We drew intersecting lines over each other’s, lost in good conversation and smoky mezcal.

I called my parents to tell them my good fortune: I had met someone who I like who also likes me. “But you won’t like his name,” I said. Jesus? No. Christian? Yes. His German last name elicited the question of what his grandparents were doing during World War II. But once my parents met Christian, they approved of him too, of his gentleness, his enthusiasm to converse in German with my father or play tennis with my mother and the gifts he’d bring for their cat.

After three months of dating Christian, I moved to the East Coast to finish my Masters of Social Work. He wrote me letters and sent flowers after I presented my thesis. One weekend, he visited me at school, and we spent our time together in a Boston walk-up brownstone, strolling around in the warm summer night, drinking wine and laughing. As Christian boarded his flight back to San Francisco, I called my dad and said, “I think I’ve found my Herbie.”

Christian and I have been together for almost five years now. We had intended to be married in front of our family and friends this past October, but the coronavirus thwarted our plans. Deciding not to postpone our nuptials, we were legally married by our Rabbi in a private ceremony on October 9, 2020. Our large wedding with family and friends has been postponed to summer 2021. Herbie and Omama, now 94 and 97 years old, are still going strong. God willing, they will be there to say Mazel Tov! I am looking forward to seeing my grandmother pull into the venue’s parking lot with Herbie at the wheel.

JULIA SIMONE FOGELSON is a licensed clinical social worker and psychotherapist. She lives in Oakland, CA, with her husband Christian and their dog Clover.