“If everything on land were to die tomorrow, everything in the ocean would be fine. But if everything in the ocean were to die, everything on land would die too.” It’s this dire warning, first communicated to journalist Alanna Mitchell by one of the scientists she met while researching her best selling book Sea Sick: The Global Ocean in Crisis, that neatly sums up the theatrical version of her novel, a powerful, confronting look at global environmental trends.

Sea Sick’s transformation from book to play was comparatively quick and painless: the original work spawned a series of public talks, and ultimately Mitchell’s charisma and powerful message caught the attention of the Theatre Centre in Toronto, with the company commissioning her to turn the work into a non-fiction play alongside directors Franco Boni and Ravi Jain.

As a passionate orator, Mitchell recognises the value the new format has brought to her message. “Sea Sick,” she says, “is about the marriage of art and science. I say in it: ‘Science gives us knowledge, but not necessarily meaning. Art gives us meaning, and it’s meaning we respond to’.”

She also acknowledges that the transition to stage has likely attracted another audience to her work, a crowd that might not have been exposed to the book. “The glorious intimacy of the theatre not only explains the information in a new way, but allows audiences to become immersed in another world, and to feel the emotion of it.”

However, for Mitchell’s part, the process was as terrifying as it was exciting. “My biggest challenge was conquering my own fear of being on the stage to perform the play. I loved the writing. I loved the psychological excavation with Franco and Ravi of what it means to be a journalist, and why I deal with all this difficult information.”

Each of the five times life on the planet has undergone a mass extinction, changes in the ocean’s chemistry have been a critical trigger.

And the information is certainly difficult. During her extensive research she began to hear the same three pieces of information repeated: that carbon is making the ocean warm, breathless and sour. If this is allowed to continue, Mitchell warns the results will be devastating for all life, above and below the surface; stressing “plankton provide every second breath of oxygen we breathe. The global climate is driven by interactions between the two liquid media on our planet – the air and the water of the ocean. Each of the five times life on the planet has undergone a mass extinction, changes in the ocean’s chemistry have been a critical trigger.”

Of course the most obvious example of these changes in Australia is the Great Barrier Reef, currently experiencing a major coral bleaching event. However, when asked what Australia stands to lose, Mitchell has two answers. “If it dies, it will be a signal that the ocean as a whole is becoming inhospitable for life as we know it. And the ocean contains the switch of life on Earth. It’s not about what Australia stands to lose, but what the planet stands to lose. So that’s the scientist’s answer.

Humans – only 200,000 years old as a species – may not survive the devastation we’ve wrought on the planet.

“The artist’s answer is that the Great Barrier Reef is a metaphor. It is nature’s holy ground. It represents the awe and wonder of the world. Even if we destroy it, the corals that created it will likely still survive in some form or another, as they have for half a billion years, and eventually return to create a new reef somewhere. Humans – only 200,000 years old as a species – may not survive the devastation we’ve wrought on the planet. So it is also a metaphor for humility, for sorrow, for human hubris, for human absurdity.”

When asked how anyone can avoid despairing over the complexity of the problem, she has only one thing to say: “come see my play!”

Sea Sick will be showing at Carriageworks as part of Sydney Festival from Friday January 19 to Monday January 22.

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