OCEANOISE 2026 – an odd side-meeting

There was much collegiality at last week’s (May 23, 2026) OCEANOISE conference. Attendees came from a broad range of stakeholders – from conservation biologists and physical oceanographers, to members of the shipping, oil, and minerals extraction industries. The topics of concern that floated to the surface were shipping and seismic survey noise – which have been on the ‘concern list’ forever, to deep-sea mining and ultrasonic anti-fouling devices – which are the latest flashing red lights in the ocean noise dashboard.

I think as a result of me saying something smart in one of the panel sessions, I was invited to join a European Joint Program Initiative Ocean (JPI Ocean) meeting. I wasn’t sure what it was all about, but was told it had something to do with seismic survey technologies and noise metrics.

The conference room filled up with about 30 folks across all attending industries. The folks I knew and recognized were a pretty august selection, so I was in informed company. The Moderator stated the intention of the meeting was to improve our understanding of the impacts of both seismic surveys and shipping noise; expand our understanding of noise mitigation technologies and metrics, with the ultimate goal of making the ocean quieter – and somehow getting that work funded.

I then “laid an egg” (intentionally) by stating that 40% of the ships at sea are transporting fossil fuel, so the most direct way of accomplishing the stated goal would be to use less fossil fuel. I also suggested that instead of seeking government grants, perhaps it would make more sense to go directly to the fossil fuel companies and ask them to fund the efforts of cleaning up their messes.

The moderator mumbled something to the effect of “well, we need to get the fossil fuel to where it is being used…”

I told the coordinator (who had invited me) that I would probably not be participating in the JPI Ocean efforts, because life is only so long…