Ocean Hoptimism

Half a billion years of ocean history. A brewery full of curious people. And a reminder that our future is still ours to influence.

On September 24, Ocean Hoptimism welcomed Dr. Seth Finnegan, Professor of Paleobiology and the Virginia G. and Robert E. Gill Chair in Natural History at UC Berkeley, and Curator at the UC Museum of Paleontology, for a journey through ancient seas—and their lessons for the living ocean we depend on today.

Seth began by broadening our picture of paleontology beyond dinosaurs. A rare T. rex skeleton captures the imagination, but a hillside full of fossil shells can reveal patterns across entire populations. Those shells document which species lived where, while their chemistry preserves clues to the water they inhabited.

Together, they help Seth and his students ask: when the ocean changed, what survived—and why?

For more than half a billion years, ocean life has faced shifting temperatures, chemistry, coastlines and climate. Some species persisted. Others vanished. Seth and his students study that extraordinary record to understand how environmental change shaped marine biodiversity.

As we learned, mass extinctions don’t all follow the same script.

The Late Ordovician extinction, a focus of Seth’s research, devastated species while leaving major branches of ocean life intact. Other crises cut deeper into the family tree. During the Permian, enormous volcanic eruptions and magma heating coal deposits released carbon, driving planetary warming and catastrophic losses of marine life.

The connection between carbon, climate and survival felt uncomfortably familiar.

Finding hope amid all that upheaval might seem a tall order, as Seth acknowledged with a line that drew a few laughs: “I was encouraged to try to find something hopeful about all of this.”

He found some in the ocean’s smallest inhabitants. Plankton whose carbonate remains help buffer ocean acidification over long timescales have given today’s ocean capabilities ancient seas lacked—offering researchers more to investigate, and the rest of us another reason to appreciate life at the microscopic scale.

That hardly lets us off the hook. Another mass extinction is a real risk, but our actions can still bend the curve. Reducing fossil fuel use, bringing others into the conversation and electing leaders who act on science all help shape what comes next.

The ocean’s persistence through deep time is extraordinary. But we depend on the living ocean of today. Its future and ours are inseparable.

Thank you to Professor Finnegan and everyone who joined us for a remarkable evening of curiosity, perspective and hope grounded in action we can all take.

—Professor Seth Finnegan