Today is the 100th birthday of Jacques Cousteau.
Few men have led lives as rich and full as his was; naval officer, explorer, ecologist, filmmaker, innovator, scientist, photographer, author and researcher, Cousteau studied the sea and all forms of life in water. He co-developed the aqua-lung and pioneered marine conservation, sharing his fascination of oceanic life in all it’s rich and diverse forms with the world, in the reams of film he and his crews produced and broadcast around the globe for over 50 years.
Through these oceanographic and cinematographic campaigns, Cousteau became a passionate and outspoken conservationist who was able to leverage his worldwide fame to promote the idea of the Earth as a limited and fragile environment that needed to be preserved. He was able to explain the ideas of biodiversity and the often fragile links in the eco-chain in a way that the average viewer could appreciate and understand. Cousteau was also the only non-politician to take part in the 1992 Rio Summit.
Cousteau occasionally became a key figure involved in direct action in the eco-cause. In October 1960, a large amount of radioactive waste was scheduled to be discarded in the Mediterranean Sea by the French Atomic Energy Agency (CEA). They argued that the dumps were experimental in nature, and that French oceanographers such as Vsevelod Romanovsky had recommended it. The CEA also claimed that there was little circulation – and therefore no need for concern – at the dump site located between Nice and Corsica, but public opinion sided with the oceanographers, including Cousteau, who repudiated the claims. Cousteau organized a publicity campaign which in less than two weeks gained wide and popular support and the train carrying atomic waste was stopped by women and children sitting on the railway tracks, and was eventually forced to return to it’s point of origin.
Cousteau was also rarely afraid of courting controversy. In November 1991, he gave an interview to the UNESCO courier, in which he stated that he was in favour of human population control and population decrease. As he grew older, his views became understandably more pessimistic and somewhat misanthropic: An ideal planet, he apparently confided to Yves Paccalet, would be one in which humanity is limited to 100,000 people who are both educated and respectful of nature.
Despite the much-publicized family conflicts (culminating in at least one lawsuit) which chipped away at the persona known and beloved by the public, Cousteau’s greatest single legacy is the kind of underwater adventure films he is synonymous with – a genre that has never been more popular and continues to thrill and fascinate people the world over.
Cousteau’s death in June 1997 (aged 87) left an impressive legacy which included more than 120 television documentaries, over 50 books, and an environmental protection foundation with 300,000 members.
Merci, monsieur Cousteau. Votre contribution a ete enorme.
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