The Silent World

Staff · Issue 85, Jul/Aug 2015 · pp. 4

Editorial The Silent World Jacques Cousteau was pushing it a bit with his description of life underwater. The invention of the ‘aqualung’ enabled an increasing number of ordinary people to sample the underwater world but, with the exhaled bubbles, silent it was not; however in a strange sort of a way, in between breaths, it felt so. Here we were, able to stay down and observe this new life in an alien environment comparatively unfettered for the first time. It was bound to be revolutionary. What Cousteau saw, filmed and communicated was truly groundbreaking but it was in a different era. The footage he transmitted was sometimes barbaric (dynamiting reefs in the name of science to see what the effect would be?!) but this was accepted by the viewing audience of the day because the overall perception of the 50 minute movies was that the underwater world was full of adventure, beauty and, mo…