4 - Can the Baltic Sea Die? An Environmental Imaginary of a Dying Sea

Summary

Death seems to happen to the living; yet, around the world, different communities talk about dead or dying seas, lakes or rivers. From the Dead Sea to the Aral Sea to the Baltic Sea, these waterbodies have been referred to as dying, which lead many to wonder whether these seas (and other waterbodies) can be saved and restored to ‘health’. This discourse of dead and dying waterbodies spurs counterarguments that seek to curb, challenge or upset such dystopic characterizations. The group running the Ocean Health Index, for instance, argues that oceans cannot die, making the case that waterbodies are not living organisms (OCH, 2020). Though this debate may never be settled, these conversations of hope and denial, pollution and harm, invite reflection upon what exactly is meant regarding the life or death of waterbodies. It begs the question: can a waterbody die?

The significance and relevance in asking this question stems from taking seriously the societal contention that seas die or do not as well as attempts to redefine life and death as ecological and environmental issues linked to the Anthropocene epoch. Concerns over the magnitude of human impacts upon environmental habitats and physical processes lead scholars to reconsider human relationships to dying, particularly in respect to the effects of industry, colonialism and pollution as well as the bio-and necropolitical control mechanisms exerted over nonhuman animals, such as invasive species and ‘unloved others’ (Rose and van Dooren, 2011). Nonetheless, inquiry into the lives and deaths of entities typically considered non-living, such as waterbodies, remains absent. This chapter aims to address this silence, in part, because if industrialized societies understood places, objects and processes as literally (rather than metaphorically) being alive or dead (Lidstrom et al, 2022), profound philosophical, ethical and political consequences would need consideration.

To think with the tensions of those things that cannot die but seem to be in danger of dying anyways, I focus on a discourse of dying waterbodies, using the Baltic Sea as a particular case. Governmental organizations, nongovernmental organizations, media and scientists agree, society must ‘save’ the Baltic Sea and restore its ‘health’ (Sveriges Radio, 2014; Hinton, 2017).