Singing the blues
A Blue New Deal: Why We Need a New Politics for the Ocean
Chris Armstrong (Yale, £20)
THE weather is very changeable today. Sunny one moment, the sea a sheet of burnished gold, dark the next, as a heavy squall sweeps in off the Atlantic and turns it slate grey. The air coming in through my open study window smells of seaweed and salt. In a few weeks’ time, we will be able to put the boats into the water and, a few weeks after that, we’ll be able to start swimming again. For most of my life, I have lived within a stone’s throw of the sea. When I am away from it, I feel uneasy. If I couldn’t live close to it, I would be bereft.
Yet, despite my love affair with the sea, when I received a copy of this book with
