Feasting on Ecocide!

Over the past decade, countries across the world have been discussing the profound damage that has been occurring through deep-sea fishing. The Pew Environmental Group has been tracking the situation:

Since 2004, the international community, through the United Nations (U.N.) General Assembly, has called on fishing countries and regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs) to urgently act to protect deep-sea life. Beginning in 2006, U.N. resolutions that outlined a plan to safeguard this fragile biodiversity passed. Many governments supported an outright moratorium on high-seas bottom trawling, but countries operating deep-sea vessels instead promised to take action to make fisheries more sustainable and protect vulnerable marine ecosystems. Ultimately, they agreed to conduct a formal assessment after a few years to determine how well the resolutions had been implemented.

Preliminary findings released in June 2011 by the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition (DSCC), "highlight serious failures by countries and Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (RFMOs) in efforts to protect vulnerable deep-sea biodiversity and high seas fish species."

Research conducted by scientists and published in the journal Marine Policy are recommending a complete halt to all deep sea fishing.  Instead of permitting industrial fleets from disrupting these extremely delicate aquatic ecosystems, scientists are further recommending that fishing be confined to more productive coastal fisheries nearer to consumers.

The following summary from Eurekalert outlines the problem:

Life is mostly sparse in the oceans' cold depths, far from the sunlight that fuels photosynthesis. Food is scarce and life processes happen at a slower pace than near the sea surface. Some deep-sea fishes live more than a century; some deep-sea corals can live more than 4,000 years. When bottom trawlers rip life from the depths, animals adapted to life in deep-sea time can't repopulate on human time scales. Powerful fishing technologies are overwhelming them. 

"The deep sea is the world's worst place to catch fish" says marine ecologist Dr. Elliott Norse, the study's lead author and President of the Marine Conservation Institute in Bellevue, Washington USA. "Deep-sea fishes are especially vulnerable because they can't repopulate quickly after being overfished." 

The deep sea provides less than 1% of the world's seafood. But fishing there, especially bottom trawling, causes profound, lasting damage to fishes and life on the seafloor, such as deep-sea corals, these experts say. 

Since the 1970s, when coastal fisheries were overexploited, commercial fishing fleets have moved further offshore and into deeper waters. Some now fish more than a mile deep. 

"Because these fish grow slowly and live a long time, they can only sustain a very low rate of fishing," says author Dr. Selina Heppell, a marine fisheries ecologist at Oregon State University. "On the high seas, it is impossible to control or even monitor the amount of fishing that is occurring. The effects on local populations can be devastating."

The Washington Post has a good article discussing the topic and revealing the moral cowardice of the Europeans in reigning in their colleagues in Portugal, Spain, France, and Denmark from destroying these ecosystems.

The Coming Environmental Collapse

The United Nation's Biodiversity Chief, Dr. Ahmed Djoghlaf, issued a unequivocal do-or-die statement to the governments of the world, regarding the implementation of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity.  According to the UN's website, the convention's purpose is to achieve the following:

The Convention on Biological Diversity was inspired by the world community's growing commitment to sustainable development. It represents a dramatic step forward in the conservation of biological diversity, the sustainable use of its components, and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the use of genetic resources.

To date however, not a single signatory has met its target to protect nature.  Planetary biodiversity is not an esoteric subject or a triviality to be dispensed with lightly.  Rather, it is a vital ecological principle that defines biosphere stability and hence the survival of the human species.  The web of life is an extraordinary complex and dynamic set of systems, which cycles nutrients and minerals, stabilizes global climate levels, and controls an enormous number of biological systems necessary for sustaining life from the Antarctic to the rainforests to the grain fields of the Great Plains in North America.  As this blog has been discussing for the past year (here, here, here, & here), the destruction of the biological commons; liquidation of forests; consuming all the ocean's fish; and toxification of the air, land, and sea with human waste and pollution will result in a world which is more fragile and susceptible to ecological collapse; i.e. human extinction.

The Guardian UK newspaper outlines the argument.  In the article, Djoghlaf warns countries, "It would be very short-sighted to cut biodiversity spending. You may well save a few pounds now but you will lose billions later. Biodiversity is your natural asset. The more you lose it, the more you lose your cultural assets too."   His warnings, made to the entire world community, implies that unless substantial policy changes are made and improvements at conserving biodiversity and managing ecosystem stability are achieved, many nations and their citizens will cease to exist in the future.

UCLA scientist Jared Diamond likewise has outlined in his book Collapse how human civilizations over the millenia have failed due to human caused environmental degradation.  Overpopulation, resource scarcity, misuse and abuse of natural resources, water management failures...etc. are all areas that have resulted in the decline and eventual demise of many societies throughout history.  Today, all nations are confronted with some, if not all, of these issues.  Loss of biodiversity and ecosystem instability is therefore a direct result of societies and humankind not addressing the individual and unique issues that ultimately are within their own control and perpetuating what historian Arnold Toynbee described as the collective suicide on the part of societies, when they fail to adapt to challenges of their time.

Phytoplankton Levels in Oceans Crashed during the 20th Century

According to EurkeAlert!  a new study conducted by researchers at Dalhousie University in Canada, have found that phytoplankton, unicellular organisms that form the basis of the marine food chain, have been declining globally at dramatic rates over the 20th century.

Using an unprecedented collection of historical and recent oceanographic data, a team from Canada's Dalhousie University documented phytoplankton declines of about 1% of the global average per year. This trend is particularly well documented in the Northern Hemisphere and after 1950, and would translate into a decline of approximately 40% since 1950. The scientists found that long-term phytoplankton declines were negatively correlated with rising sea surface temperatures and changing oceanographic conditions.

Lead author of the study, Daniel Boyle, told CBC News, "We should be very concerned … it's extremely disturbing."

Phytoplankton represent a vast array of aquatic plants that live in close proximity to the ocean's surface.  Through photosynthetic activity, these organisms "produce about half the world's oxygen and remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere."  In addition to forming the basis of marine food chains, phytoplankton are an important component of the carbon cycle and therefore are vital to the stability of the global climate.

The Christian Science Monitor provides a more detailed explanation of the methodology, which entailed three years of combining satellite based data from 1979 and physical measurements as far back as 1899.

After carving up the marine map into 10 regions, the team found a lot of year-to-year variation in phytoplankton populations, as well as regional variations in abundance. But the century-long decline was evident in 8 of 10 ocean regions and was strong enough to offset gains in two others centered in the Indian Ocean.

The overall decline in phytoplankton populations is directly correlated to increases in ocean temperatures.  As temperatures increase, thermal stratification occurs, which prevents nutrients cycling to upper surface levels and diminishes phytoplankton growth.  The findings therefore, "contribute to a growing body of scientific evidence indicating that global warming is altering the fundamentals of marine ecosystems."   Anthony Richardson of the University of Queensland in Australia explains:

The ocean absorbs 40% of the CO₂ humans emit. Phytoplankton, in turn, convert that CO₂ into oxygen or die and bury it at the bottom of the ocean. If the phytoplankton are disappearing, Richardson says, "the ocean as a carbon sink is declining, and what that means is ultimately more CO₂ will stay in the atmosphere instead of being dissolved in the ocean." That will translate into a warmer world, which will wipe out even more phytoplankton.

Human based activities including over-fishing, pollution, biodiversity loss, climate change induced acidification of the oceans, and the creation of permanent dead zones in coastal areas across the planet point to the obvious and undeniable fact that the planet's oceans are in very poor health.   When aquatic ecosystems across the globe collapse, so will terrestrial life, which is inexorability connected to the oceans through the web of life.

Fishing fleet working 17 times harder than in 1880s to make same catch

UK researchers who have analyzed fishing data going back 118 years, have found that current trawl fishing fleets have to work 17 times harder to catch the same amount of fish today as it did when most of its boats were powered by sail. 

As described in EurkeAlert!

They found that trawl fish landings peaked in 1937, 14 times higher than today, and the availability of bottom-living fish to the fleet fell by 94 per cent.

The findings are the result of a study using previously overlooked records and suggest the decline in stocks of popular fish such as cod, haddock and plaice is far more profound than previously thought.

The research is published in Nature Communications, the new online science journal from the publishers of Nature.

Ruth Thurstan, lead author of the study from the University of York's Environment Department, said: "We were astonished to discover that we landed over four times more fish into England and Wales in 1889 than we do today.

"For all its technological sophistication and raw power, today's trawl fishing fleet has far less success than its sail-powered equivalent of the late 19th century because of the sharp declines in fish abundance."

The findings suggest that the damage to fisheries is greater and has taken place over a much longer period than previously acknowledged, pre-dating developments such as the Common Fisheries Policy which are usually blamed for declining stocks.

Simon Brockington, Head of Conservation at the Marine Conservation Society and an author of the study, said: "Over a century of intensive trawl fishing has severely depleted UK seas of bottom living fish like halibut, turbot, haddock and plaice.

"It is vital that governments recognise the changes that have taken place. The reform of the Common Fisheries Policy gives an opportunity to set stock protection and recovery targets that are reflective of the historical productivity of the sea."

The study calculated 'landings of fish per unit of fishing power' (LPUP) from 1889 to 2007 to give an indication of changes in the amount of fish available for capture by the fishing fleet. In that time, LPUP declined 500 times for halibut, more than 100 times for haddock and more than 20 times for plaice, wolffish, hake and ling. Cod has declined by 87 per cent.

Professor Callum Roberts, from the University of York's Environment Department, said: "This research makes clear that the state of UK bottom fisheries – and by implication European fisheries, since the fishing grounds are shared – is far worse than even the most pessimistic of assessments currently in circulation.

"European fish stock assessments, and the management targets based on them, go back only 20 to 40 years. These results should supply an important corrective to the short-termism inherent in fisheries management today."

Deepwater Horizon: Spill, baby, Spill...

"Every asshole who ever chanted 'Drill baby drill' should have to report to the Gulf coast today for cleanup duty." - Bill Maher

On April 20th 2010 the Deepwater Horizon, an offshore drilling platform located approximately 80 kilometres off the Louisiana coast, was critically damaged by an explosion.   Eleven workers were lost at sea and are presumed dead.  Initial estimates provided by operators of the platform stated that the rig may have had as much as 700,000 gallons of diesel on board and 1,000 barrels a day of petroleum were leaking out of the broken wellhead.

Two days after the initial explosion the entire platform sunk.   New assessments indicate that the amount of petroleum leaking out of the ruptured wellhead is approximately 5,000 barrels a day; five times the original estimate.  At least six million litres of petroleum have spilled so far, according to U.S. Coast Guard, making this incident the worst U.S. oil spill since the infamous Exxon Valdez.  In addition, millions of animals, including 1.8 million migratory waterfowl, are at risk.  The potential environmental/economic damage extends across the entire aquatic zone adjacent to the Louisiana coast, which is abundant in shrimp, oysters and other marine life.  The state's aquaculture industry, the largest in the lower 48 states, is worth $1.8-billion annually.

News reports are emerging that BP (the facility’s operator) de-emphasized the risk of a catastrophe in risk analysis’ it submitted to the U.S. government as recently as last year.  BP claimed that it was
"unlikely that an accidental surface or subsurface oil spill would occur" and in the event of such an unlikely situation, "due to the distance to shore and the response capabilities that would be implemented, no significant adverse impacts are expected."  As of today, the oil mass has already reached the Louisiana shoreline and substantial levels of heavy oil contained within a 1,500 square kilometer oil slick is anticipated to wash ashore in Mississippi on Saturday, before reaching Alabama on Sunday, and Florida on Monday.

According to the federal Minerals Management Service, since 2001 there have been 69 offshore deaths, 1,349 injuries, and 858 fires and explosions in the American controlled Gulf of Mexico.   Occupational health and safety management under the previous Bush administration was neutered.  Republican hacks, corporate yes-men, and people who had spent their entire careers fighting OSHA were placed in positions of authority.  Policies were then created to allow industries to set their own standards of compliance.   A culture of indifference to human life and the environment, which was the trademark of the "toxic Texan", became the national standard.

With the actual consequences of Mr. Bush’s deregulatory framework and anti-environment policies becoming clearer, the dunces of the Republican Party, who made "Drill baby drill" their call to arms during the 2008 federal election, have suddenly gone silent on this issue.  The Wasilla whack-job (Ms. Palin) has yet to provide an intelligent response to the catastrophic risk she demanded Americans accept so that they could drive their Hummers and fat-asses to their anti-tax and anti-government Tea Party rallies.

Mr. Obama on the other hand, who during his election campaign vigorously defended the position that no offshore drilling should be permitted on America’s coastlines, reversed himself several weeks earlier and allowed Atlantic drilling to proceed in an attempt to garner the support of Republicans for the passage of a global warming bill.  The hypocrisy and sheer spinelessness of this president to abandon the principles for which he was elected to execute is staggering.  Unlike the daft feces-throwing monkeys of the Republican Party, Mr. Obama promised America he would deliver real change and not simply continue on with the policies of the most hated administration in the history of the nation.

The damage is now done.  Millions of litres of toxic sludge will continue to contaminate the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and the shorelines of the Southern states.  Wildlife will die, ecosystems will be destroyed, and the lives and welfare of those people and communities that depend on these commons will be decimated.

Propaganda Alert: The World is Not Cooling!

I'm sure you've heard the recent claims made by Climate Change skeptics that much of the data and arguments pointing towards global warming are little more than bulk conspiracy theories. The BBC ran an article a month ago by Paul Hudson, asking "What happened to global warming?" It makes the declaration that "the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998" in the past decade and further states that skeptics believe "there are so many other natural causes for warming and cooling, that even if man is warming the planet, it is a small part compared with nature."

While it is true that global temperatures reached a high point in 1998, it is not true that temperatures across the planet have been in decline since. Given the controversy, a re-analysis of the existing data led by the US NOAA's (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency) climate data center was conducted and no statistically significant cooling trend was found. An AP story quotes the agency as stating:

"The last 10 years are the warmest 10-year period of the modern record," said NOAA climate monitoring chief Deke Arndt. "Even if you analyze the trend during [the skeptics] 10 years, the trend is actually positive, which means warming."

Furthermore, in relation to ocean temperatures, NOAA asserts that of the 10 hottest years recorded, "eight have occurred since 2000, and after this year it will be nine because this year is on track to be the sixth-warmest on record."

What skeptics have done is what they always done: manipulate the truth. Depending on the starting year of their so-called ten year interval and the robustness of the data set, one can get one of three different outcomes: temperatures trending upwards, constant, or downwards. So which one is correct? According to David Peterson, a retired Duke University statistics professor, the methodology used by the skeptics to claim a downward cooling trend is "not scientifically legitimate." AP quotes Ben Santer, a climate scientist at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Lab, who calls their efforts, "a concerted strategy to obfuscate and generate confusion in the minds of the public and policymakers" prior to the international climate talks in Copenhagen this December.

People need to stop listening to these hucksters who are peddling refuted arguments prettied up with bogus statistical data for political gain. These are not trivial matters. For example:

• Heat waves in Europe in 2003 caused nearly 40,000 people to die.
• Global warming is more than a third to blame for a major drop in rainfall, that includes a decade-long drought in Australia and a lengthy dry spell in the United States, according to researcher Peter Baines of Melbourne University in Australia.
• Forest fires that have decimated parts of Australia, the Mediterranean, and Western North America in the past few years have been linked to a "positive feedback loop" caused by increased global temperatures.
• Glaciers across the world continue to melt at an unprecedented rate. Many of the world's most populous regions including India, China, and nations along the Andes are highly dependant on these bodies for water utlized in agriculture. Displacement of these massive bodies of ice has also been predicted by geologists to lead to an increasing number of earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions in unexpected places.

A world that is less stable and less able to sustain human habitation, is simply a world with less humans.

***

I have additional blog entries about recent public opinions shifts in America on Climate Change (here) and a brief discussion on scientific research confirming CO2 concentrations and global temperature increases (here).

Hey, global warming skeptics, take your heads out of the sand | csmonitor.com

Hey, global warming skeptics, take your heads out of the sand csmonitor.com

One of the more enduring alternative hypothesise that global warming skeptics have forwarded in attempting to rationalize why ambient global temperatures are on the increase, has been in correlating the natural periodicity of the planet to biosphere transformations. The basis of this argument is that Earth’s orbit varies in distance from the Sun over a 21,000 year cycle, leading to defined and determinable changes.

The above Christian Science Monitor article outlines research, conducted by Northern Arizona University (NAU) and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., over a period of five-years, that has reconstructed 2,000 years of Arctic summer temperatures. The research team combined previous data from ice cores and tree rings with lake sediment data to build a record of events substantially beyond the existing 400 year record.

The study shows the Arctic is warming two to three times faster than anywhere else at a time when it should be cooling down. Natural changes in Earth’s orbit vary our distance from the Sun over a 21,000 year cycle. The closer we are, the warmer the Arctic and vice versa. Right now, we’re in the cool down part of that cycle. The study confirms a cooling trend over the past 2,000 years until it reversed about a century ago. The Arctic summer now is about 2.5 degrees warmer than it should be.

In an announcement of this result, team member Nicholas McKay explained that, “The 20th century is the first century for which how much energy we’re getting from the Sun is no longer the most important thing governing the temperature of the Arctic.” His co-author, Caspar Ammann at NCAR, said, “This study provides a clear example of how increased greenhouse gases are now changing our climate.”

As alternative explanations to global warming continue to fall to the wayside, the evidence continues to point to the fact that anthropogenic sources of CO2 emissions arising from the massive industrialization in the 19th and 20th centuries has precipitated this climate shift. Instead of engaging this subject with our best minds and efforts, we have allowed oil and gas companies, people with no understanding of science (much less evolution and ecology), anti-intellectuals who believe in a 6,000 year old earth, and bought off Western politicians to dictate the future of all life on this planet. Military organizations across the world have already started war-gaming the outcomes and have begun making internal preparations. Yet those in power would rather dither and obfuscate the reality to the public, while the dumbest of our population scold us that the American president just may be a resident alien who is a closet-communist seeking to euthanize the elderly and incarcerate card carrying rednecks in FEMA holding cells.

In some ways the issue is moot, for humanity has already waited too long to prevent the problem. We are now past the point of no-return, as the tell tale products of global climate change emerge: acidification of oceans, irregular precipitation patterns, drought, forest fires that are larger and more destructive (i.e. Australia, Greece, and Western North America), declining agricultural production, rising ocean levels, and mounting civil unrest brought on by environmental scarcity. Even if we were to completely stop all industrialization tomorrow, the existing gases in the atmosphere will reside there for decades and continue to likewise heat the planet.

Declining Oceans, Declining Life

On the front page of today's Globe and Mail (Canada), it is reported that the BC sockeye salmon population has "mysteriously" collapsed to a record low for the second summer in three, eliciting international concern among scientists that the species’ long-term survival is threatened. An estimated 10.6-13 million sockeye were expected to return to the Fraser Valley this summer. However, the official count according to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) is that only a paltry 1.7 million have returned.

Causes:

Ocean temperatures have risen substantially over the past years and researchers state that, “Warm water can affect things like food availability for the fish... [whereas] sockeye are plankton feeders, and plankton of the west coast of B.C. tend to thrive when conditions are cold.” On Aug. 10, the Fraser River temperature was 18.8 C at Qualark Creek, BC, 1.1 degrees higher than the average for that date. As such, "water temperatures in this range may stress migrating sockeye and slow their upstream migration" the US-Canada Pacific Salmon Commission said.

Sea lice that flourish near fish farms are another possible source of decline. "The parasites are known to latch onto young wild salmon heading into the sea and are suspected as a factor in the decline of other wild-salmon populations" along the BC coast.

Alexandra Morton, who several years ago correctly predicted a collapse of pink salmon runs in the Broughton Archipelago because of sea lice infestations, in March warned the same thing could happen to Fraser sockeye. She said researchers used genetic analyses to show Fraser sockeye smolts were getting infested with sea lice in Georgia Strait.

It is too early to ascertain if the current sockeye collapse will be repeated with other species that are expected to return this year; notably pink salmon which are projected to number 17 million.

More Fishy Stories

As a follow up to a previous blog entry on the state of Tuna fish in our oceans, Science magazine has an article outlining new quantitative data on the state of fish populations. The number of species continues to dwindle as human consumption increases and deep water extraction techniques are employed to remove slow-growing and reproducing species.

In 5 of 10 well-studied ecosystems, the average exploitation rate has recently declined and is now at or below the rate predicted to achieve maximum sustainable yield for seven systems. Yet 63% of assessed fish stocks worldwide still require rebuilding, and even lower exploitation rates are needed to reverse the collapse of vulnerable species.

Although, the numbers appear grim and political action remains sluggish as usual, there is more news and discussion of this tragedy of the commons in the leading print papers. The Washington Post has an article titled, "Unpopular, Unfamiliar Fish Species Suffer From Become Seafood." It reveals how the marketing people, seeing coastal populations of cod, red snapper, and other popular species decline (if not collapse) decided to start selling fish that were once considered unpalatable by rebranding the fishes name. Ocean fish once known as slimeheads, goosefish, rock crabs, and Patagonian toothfish have been recast with "tasty" sounding monikers. The slimehead, for example, has been transformed into the "Orange Roughy" and as a result seen its population decimated.

That fishermen have turned to them shows what's left in the ocean. Today's seafood is often yesterday's trash fish and monsters..."People never thought they would be eaten," said Jennifer Jacquet, a biologist at the University of British Columbia. "And as we fish out the world's oceans, we're coming across these species and wondering, 'Can we give them a makeover?' "

It is now obvious that regardless of what is done a large and potentially catastrophic loss of ocean fairing species will be lost. The Science article does give the slight hope that with more reasonable minds and practices, "About half of the depleted species might actually have a chance to recover, the scientists found, if given enough protection."

Tuna: you can almost taste the extinction in each bite!

Tuna fish, (not to be confused with actual “chicken” or ‘chicken of the sea’ as in Jessica Simpson’s case) is one of the great marvels of the oceans. It is considered one of the most evolved fish in the world. Bluefin tuna, for example, can reach speeds of up to 88 km per hour. Along with Mako sharks and Great Whites, the bluefin tuna are homoeotherms; animals that are capable of internally regulating their body temperatures. They are capable of elevating their body temperatures by as much as 25 degrees above the water they swim in, thus making them particularly effective as predators. Bluefin Tuna can migrate across the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, then turn around and do it again.

The bluefin tuna, and to a lesser extent, the yellowfin, are among the most sought-after of big-game fishes. Tuna is the most popular food fish in the world. It is eaten raw, cooked, in sandwiches, in salads, and in cat food. The total worldwide tuna harvest is four million tons. Commercial over fishing, almost exclusively to feed the insatiable Japanese sashimi market, has endangered all populations of bluefin tuna.

The WWF (not the wrestlers you idiot) are predicting that Mediterranean Bluefin Tuna will be extinct by 2012. They have stated that, "The population of tunas that are capable of reproducing – fish aged 4 years or over and weighing more than 35kg – is being wiped out." Ransom Myers, a marine biologist from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, has pointed out the fact that industrial fishing took no more than 10-15 years to virtually liquidate and imperil any new fish community it encountered to a tenth of its previous size. "From giant blue marlin to mighty bluefin tuna, and from tropical groupers to Antarctic cod, industrial fishing has scoured the global ocean”. In fact, scientists predict that the collapse of all ocean fish stocks by 2048.

In a 2003, Dr. Myers published an article in the journal Nature and stated,

Most people also don't know how bad it is for us to be eating so much fish, not only because of the destruction of an ecosystem vital to survival but also because the big predatory fish are full of the toxins and other pollutants that we cast into the oceans. It's not as healthy to eat fish as most people believe.

Due to the ferocious demand for bluefin tuna from Japan where bluefin tuna are considered a delicacy and are used in sushi and sashimi, overfishing is posed to drive the species into extinction. The Economist magazine has an article stating that Monaco, with support from European allies France and Britain, along with the USA are pushing forward in 2010 to have an international ban on the sale of bluefin tuna.

As Prince Albert, Monaco’s ruler, wrote in the Wall Street Journal last month, “The forces of selfishness and stupidity that wiped out the great whales and the northern cod in the last century are steaming ahead at full speed... The bluefin tuna is as endangered as the giant panda and the white rhino.”

Once the oceans have been systematically deprived of life and ecosystem after ecosystem begins to fail, terrestrial environs will also collapse and human civilization too will cease due to our own greed.

The Pacific isn’t the only ocean collecting plastic trash | csmonitor.com

The Pacific isn’t the only ocean collecting plastic trash csmonitor.com

The idea of a garbage “patch” or “island” twice the size of Texas, a favorite term in the media for the now-infamous spot in the Pacific, feeds misconceptions, he says. “It’s much worse. If it were an island, we could go get it. But we can’t,” because it’s a “thin soup of plastic fragments.”

Cost externalizing is a socio-economical term describing how a business maximizes its profits by off loading indirect costs and forcing negative effects to a third party. In this case we the consumer, who purchase everything from plastic bags, drink bottles, coffee with plastic lids, and a barrage of small single-usage items are the primary culprits here. I've seen rivers congested with plastic bags in Indochina and streams saturated with crunched up plastic bottles in South America. We consider this type of pollution someone else's concern. Few accept or understand that contamination of the "commons" and toxification and demise of ocean life are all costs that shall be borne by us collectively as a species in the near future.