The Foreign Service Journal, September 2018

56 SEPTEMBER 2018 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Further, the Marshall Islands is one of the main transshipment points for tuna, and its marine life is stunning. While scuba-diving all over the world, I’ve seen sharks, rays, turtles, barracuda and morays—but never in the abundance I saw during my four years in the Marshall Islands. Fish don’t need passports, so improv- ing the health of the global seas and giving future generations a chance to see these marine wonders has to be an international effort, with environmental diplomats working to find common ground. Reasons for Hope Fortunately, to be an environmentalist you really only need one credential: the desire to build a better future for the next generation. That goal poses real challenges, to be sure; but I’m optimistic, especially because young people get it. If the Parkland generation has taught us anything, it is that once they get hold of an issue, look out, world! In addition, the climate change issue isn’t going away, thanks to poets like Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner, statesmen like Tony deBrum and eighth-grade teachers all over the country. I’m also optimistic because I’ve seen what the United States can do. As a polar affairs officer in the Bureau of Oceans and Inter- national Environmental and Scientific Affairs in the department, I sawWashington take the lead in the creation of the Arctic Council, a now-powerful multilateral forum of all Arctic countries dedi- cated to the environment and indigenous issues. And as a nuclear affairs officer in Moscow, I worked on U.S. programs to safeguard Russian nuclear material and to take highly enriched uranium from Russian nuclear missiles and blend it into low-enriched uranium to burn in American nuclear plants. And there is one more reason for hope. I’ve been to Bikini, the site of some of the most destructive nuclear bomb blasts ever conducted on Earth. And the marine environment there is thriving—enough so that the Discovery Channel went to Bikini in 2016 to film Shark Week’s Nuclear Sharks program. Their crew was amazed by the hundreds of sharks they saw. Nature can come back—if we let it, and if we each do our part. As Tony deBrum once said at the United Nations: “Each one of us is responsible for a drop of ocean. You take care of that drop, and he takes care of his drop, and she takes care of her drop, we can take care of the world.” n U.S. Ambassador Tom Armbruster finds coral from a construction site in the Marshall Islands (below); and, with the help of a fellow diver, retrieves it for relocation elsewhere. KARLFELLENIUSMEESE KARLFELLENIUSMEESE