In my final days in Belém, during COP 30, I witnessed a scene I will never forget: Heloisa Schurmann, the head of the household, was recording a video about the dire consequences that climate change is having on the oceans.
When she finished speaking, she commented in a tone of admiration:
-Nothing like a moderately trained person.
She looked at me and corrected me with the elegance of someone who knows the world and the sea:
– Media coach, no. Cardio training.
She was right. For someone who has spent decades sailing around the planet, experiencing the radical intimacy that only the sea allows, climate urgency is no longer an artistic equation. It’s personal. It’s intimate. It’s from the heart.
The ocean plastic crisis — a major focus of the Schurman family through the Ocean Voice Institute — becomes more serious every year. Now, we know that it’s even more intertwined with the climate crisis.
A study just published in the journal Frontiers in Science, led by researchers at Imperial College London, reveals that plastic pollution, which already threatens human health and ecosystems, has become more mobile and dangerous due to extreme weather events.
For example, increasingly intense heat waves and floods are increasing the dispersion of plastic waste and accelerating its breakdown. As temperatures and humidity rise, plastic decomposes faster, breaking down into invisible micro and nanoplastics – but they are in everything.
The study brings another, more troubling warning: Climate change is not only making microplastics proliferate, it’s also making them more toxic, causing them to absorb pesticides and chemicals that don’t break down in the environment. Heat facilitates the absorption and release of these pollutants, increasing the potential for poisoning ecosystems.
The consequences for the oceans are devastating. Coral reefs, already weakened by global warming, are suffering even more; Marine animals ingest microplastics and pass them on to predators, pushing pollution up the chain – all the way to us.
The study is conclusive: We need fast and effective action to dramatically reduce plastics production. The threat is real, it is growing, and the trend is getting worse: global plastic production has increased 200-fold between 1950 and 2023, and continues to accelerate.
In light of all this, I am reminded of Heloisa’s phrase: The heart is trained. Perhaps this is exactly what we are missing – turning technology into empathy, data into action, and science into heartfelt urgency.