Framing the debate

A sea of red that evokes thoughts of more than just algae

As nature becomes habitually freakish because of climate change, the future depends on how we interpret its marvels
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A mother and her daughter assess the red algal bloom in the water at Clovelly beach in Sydney
A mother and her daughter assess the red algal bloom in the water at Clovelly beach in Sydney this week. Photograph: Newspix/Rex Features

In this prodigious photograph, a mother and her daughter behold the gory tide after the seas around Sydney filled this week with what looked like blood. Lo! It is the wrath of the Lord. Just as black and white engravings on news sheets sold by travelling peddlers once depicted rains of frogs, two-headed calves and ghost armies in the sky, so this and other bizarre pictures of Australian beaches invaded in the last few days by a sudden bloom of red algae beg to be interpreted allegorically.

Ancient oceanic life forms called dinoflagellates have swarmed the waters of Sydney, as seen here at Clovelly beach. The beaches were closed because, although non-toxic, these algae can cause skin irritation. But as this mother and child contemplate the red sea, what images float to mind?

It is hard not to imagine portentous meanings in what is really a natural occurrence. As an uneasy peace was declared in Gaza, as the streets of Egypt shook again, as the fiscal cliff got closer, this gory blossoming of the sea confronted beachgoers with a vivid warning. What new horror is coming? Is it the End?

Red algae closes Sydney beaches – video Link to video: Red algae closes Sydney beaches

Of course, no one actually thinks that. The ancient human belief in signs and wonders faded away long ago as scientific knowledge brushed superstition aside. In the year 1600, before reason ruled, the startling appearance of the sea in this photograph would have been understood literally. It would have been reported as a sea of actual blood and taken as a warning of dire events to come. The diaries and even history books of the time meticulously record such portents and relate them to great events. I can see the headline now: Guy Fawkes Arrested – Red Sea Warning Vindicated.

So, how far have we come? The publication of the Leveson report concentrates minds on the ethics of journalism, but this picture raises what might be called more cosmic issues about the gathering of news. The passion for news is a much more ancient human instinct than we realise. Long before newspapers, people lapped up stories of marvellous births, comets, and freak weather. In the New Testament, written almost 2,000 years ago, the Three Kings are news junkies: these Magi from the East notice a new star and follow its prodigious astral headline to find a holy child born in a stable.

Today, knowledge of nature is more accurate, and the bloom of red algae seen in this photograph is known to be a natural phenomenon. But how far have we come, really? The web of events that constitutes "news" increasingly encompasses phenomena that fit perfectly into the ancient folklore of heavenly signs. Massive storms wreak havoc and floods upturn towns. From New York to St Asaph, extreme weather causes matter-of-fact damage while inviting eerie forebodings.

There is a scientific answer, of course. Extreme weather does not just happen, it is connected with the melting of the Arctic and warming of the seas. Human action is destabilising global temperatures. The same year that saw a record polar melt has also witnessed Hurricane Sandy, and wild rains in Britain. Of course it's all connected. A certain kind of scepticism is now a threat to reason, for those who dismiss the idea that one hurricane means a global climate crisis are the voices of wilful blindness. Paradoxically, it has become urgent to take signs for wonders, to invent a scientific, and informed, version of the old, discredited belief that Everything Means Something. News can no long be just a lot of stuff that happens. When it comes to natural cataclysms, we need to heed the portents.

This red sea (which glowed blue at night) was just a freak occurrence, no doubt. But as nature becomes habitually freakish, the future depends on how we interpret its marvels.

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