Our Oceans are Under Attack

Jeremy Jackson, marine ecologist and environmental advocate, professor of oceanography at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, describes how overfishing, habitat destruction, global warming and other human-induced activities have contributed to a crisis in the health of the world's oceans.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZkwewR69w8&eurl=http%3A%2F%2F

Its a long presentation so you might have to put aside a little time to view it. I've not had that time myself, but just a few quick excerpts I would reference as a preview: (use the time curser)
...skip the intro and go to time 11:00 minutes
...then jump to time 19:50 minutes
...then to 22:00 minutes


On another subject thread I had written,
Per the home page of your website and one of your foundation’s most basic goals, "may our children and our children’s children experience the magic of Dolphins playing with the ocean waves".

We are currently at a real risk of this not happening!!…..we are on the brink of an environmental disaster that may very soon be inflicted upon our oceans, and by our own Navy in this case.....

If we permit our oceans to become a cemetery, we may damage its alter ego the atmosphere and ultimately our planet itself.

Our oceans are a precious resource, even beyond our own imagination. We need more qualified academics in pure oceanography....

The health of our oceans affects us all on planet earth...

 

he is also the professor emeritus of tropical ocean research at the Smithsonian
basically the guy everyone else answers to at one of the most prestigious establishments on the planet.

thing to really listen for throughout the presentation is his assessment of the inevitable outcome to mans interaction with the seas

B

one thing DR J
failed to touch on in the video is the reality that plastic outweighs plankton in the oceans as measured in

1991....6/1 thats six floating bits of plastic seined from the sea for every on bit of plankton
2000....10/1
1008...? the new study is due out almost any day now and if the numbers follow trend we're looking at something between 13/1 to 15/1

thing is the filter feeders that keep the oceans water clear and clean are starving to death in an ocean that although it may be packed with plankton is so packed with plastic that they starve to death wasting there energy trying to digest the 10 bits of plastic they ingest for the one bit of plankton

 

So stop blaming boaters and look at industries and cities that dump their sewage and garbage into the ocean. Look at countries like China, Russia, Korea, India that have no regulations on dumping anything. Look at countries that have these big factory ships and drift nets that kill more fish in a hour than you or I could eat in a lifetime. Look that the scoundrels that are trying to make money on global warning, scaring everyone but lie as to their intentions and just that your money. Boaters are not the polluters, they use the resource and appreciate it, it is usually the landlubber people that flush chemicals down the toilet...

 

I realize that boaters are such a SMALL percentage of this contribution of plastic, and likely they are more aware of the situation than non-boaters, so contribute even less. Maybe we need to be a bigger voice in getting the story out...the damage we boaters see.

And more on Plastics in our ocean world:
http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/boat-design/plastic-bags-our-water-world-23242.html

 

Funny sad story...
When I went to outback in Somalia, they had houses like a cross between a tepee and a dome made from sticks covered with skins, cloth and many plastic interlaced covered with mud and dung. So the plastic bags are everywhere.

 

Sorry I don't buy it. Lunacy to think there is more plastic than plankton. This is a page from another non-believer, better to re-think this then to run off then saying the sky is falling....it's not....

Lyn and Larry Pardey. The link is here

:http://www.landlpardey.com/Tips/2008/October.html


Have any of you crossed an ocean, or benn beyond the beach?

October 2008


What about floating Plastic Waste in the Pacific
When I used the Internet at Kiritimati Island to check my emails, I found several asking if we were seeing a lot of plastic trash floating along our route down through the Pacific. It seemed strange because both Larry and I had commented on how little flotsam and jetsam there seemed to be compared to previous passages through this area. By the time we anchored at Kiritimati, we’d counted five pieces of plastic spotted during 3100 miles of sailing. Due to unusual weather, and to diverting around the edge of Hurricane Boris, we’d gone farther towards the center of the Pacific High than we might otherwise have chosen. Remembering the collection of flotsam we’d seen in the Azorean high (fishing buoys, an industrial sized stainless refrigeration cabinet, wooden fish traps) we’d expected to see more here. When we reached our first destination, the 27 mile long coral atoll that is the largest single landmass in all of the country of Kiribati, we were befriended by Henry Genthe, a Marine biologist and writer who is married to a local woman, Teretia and has a 4 year old daughter Reaua who already speaks two languages fluently. Henry has been working and studying around these atolls for many years. He and I took a detour to the windward side of the atoll one day to look at the reef there. He confirmed my impression that there is less plastic trash floating up onto the atoll then there was 20 years ago. I meant to mention this pleasant lack of plastic junk in our last newsletter. I didn’t and then in Apia, Samoa, I got three more emails on the same subject, but one of them included links to three articles that have appeared one website saying there is so much plastic floating in the Pacific that there is now an island the size of Texas with trash so thick even big ships are getting stuck in it. I feel this article is either a hoax or written by an alarmist who has not actually done his research. (Just one example of errors found on reading the source article - There is no part of the Pacific “as large as the state of Texas” that is completely free of ships traffic, nor un-traversed by airplanes or unseen by satellite surveillance as the web article states.) Perhaps photographic evidence might help the plastic island theory hold some water.

Yes, any plastic trash dumped at sea is too much; any plastic bag blown off shore will float around for quite a while and can pose a danger to sea life. But the majority of plastic items do eventually grow barnacles and other forms of sealife and sink and efforts worldwide to reduce plastic waste, including large fines lodged against ships that can not prove they have returned their non-biodegradable garbage to a proper shore station, seem to be paying off. Since leaving Kiritimati we have sailed another 1600 miles, and seen two more pieces of plastic floating at sea, one a grain sack floating just at the entrance to Apia Harbor. What do we do with our plastic waste? We try to remove as much packaging as we can before putting provisions on board. Offshore, we stuff every small piece into larger plastic containers (it’s amazing how many plastic shopping bags or zip-lock bags will stuff into a jam jar) then carry them ashore when we reach our next port. In Kiritimati there is a mostly successful recycling program being carried out and youngsters are paid a few pennies a pound for plastics and aluminum cans. Samoa (Western Samoa that is) has a major clean up and recycle campaign going also. American Samoa is behind the eight-ball on this one at the moment.

 

this is a picture of a beach in Hawaii after a ilmd storm has washed up some of those mythical bits of plastic



this is L.A. after a rainstorm washes trash from the streets down the storm drains and into the ocean





here's a picture of a sea bird that probably died as a result of eating so much plastic it starved







some people regardless of the weight of evidence to the contrary simple can not imagine the scope of the problem

in a way I envy those people the ignorance

 

some people regardless of the weight of evidence to the contrary simple can not imagine the scope of the problem

in a way I envy those people the ignorance

Typical response....I do not agree with your belief, so you call me ignorant....I must not be as educated or have all the insight you do...

Have you ever crossed an ocean? You label anyone who does not agree with you ignorant?

I have crossed the ocean more times than I can count in the last 30 years. There is no concentration of crap anywhere......NONE! If we see something out there, it is a notable event....... Give me photo evidence, at sea, not washed up on a beach after a storm, of all this crap you accuse me of being ignorant about.

What you are showing us, and trying to imply, that this is all over the ocean..... like a drop of water compared to an Olympic sized swimming pool. Again I ask,have you ever crossed an ocean, or even been 50 miles offshore? What did you see? It is so easy to scare people into hysteria over this kind of tripe.
You show highly populated areas after some sort of Strom that gather's the crap up. Pretty ugly alright, but you cannot leap to a belief that the ocean is all like this....unless it is what you want to believe it. Beliefs are funny things. You will look for evidence to support your belief, rather that consider changing your belief.

 

Pollution is bad regardless of its magnitude. That being said, the alarmist busybodies of this world often damage their case by exagerating it out of proportion. I don't know any boater that thinks dropping plastic in the water is a good idea, but I know a whole bunch of city dwellers who don't think twice about throwing litter out of their car windows. I feed the crabs some chicken bones once in a while, they don't leave much to be seen after a day or so. Other than that, everything that comes aboard goes back ashore. Oh and global warming if it is indeed occuring isn't anthropogenic anyhow so lets leave that out of the thread.

 

I spent 18 years on cape cod and return there nearly every year to sail and scuba dive off the harbor islands, green island being my favorite and the best preserved of the lot. I also just got on with the marine biology dep of a fairly well known breading facility for endangered species and I attended to woods hole oceanographic institute before moving on to MIT and later CU

as for crap floating in the oceans if you get a chance drag a seine anywhere you happen to be for about five minutes and get ready to be amazed at what you pull up

there are numerous gyre systems in the worlds oceans
one of them is in the north pacific
its twice the size of Texas and samples taken from it regularly contain 6~10 times more plastic than plankton



sorry but you are dead wrong on this one mate
if you have any scientific evidence to the contrary feel free to admit it for review but I can site hundreds of articles on this issue and post a paper I wrote on it as well

ignorance is the correct term for a lack of knowledge
your lack of knowledge leads you to believe something
an education might lead you to believe something else
its not an insult its a name for a condition
I am ignorant of the efficiencies of various mono hull forms and have been on here trying to educate myself a little so I can have some idea as to what my NA is talking about when we start talking options
its ok to be ignorant
keeps life interesting to keep finding things to learn about if you ask me

by the way
we all learn by making mistakes
its how well we admit our errors and make something from them that divides the men from the boys

you are welcome to your beliefs
but knowing why you believe something is a lot more valuable than just insisting on it

the plastics issue is a no brainer
global warming is a thread of its own and I have given up on it after futile efforts to explain the 150 year old science behind the 50 year old predictions that are today being seen coming true across the globe
something else thats a lot easier to deny than face
the reality of what we have done to our home



another little tid bit you may have not be aware of
we are in the middle of the largest extinction event ever
at no other time in the fossil record did so many species disappear as fast as they are today

80% of the coral in the Caribbean is dead with the climax species (Acropora palmata) being nearly extinct and not expected to survive

Try reading some of DR James porter University of Georgia's papers and get back to me if you still have trouble believing my numbers

every heard of the red list
1/3 of amphibians are endangered with half of that number being critically endangered
1/3 are threatened
and the other 1/3 are in serious decline

read the red list
http://www.iucnredlist.org/
if you have trouble believing my numbers on the status of amphibians

Im not trying to insult you mate
but try and remain open minded on this one
cause its the simple reality

Ild be happy to speak with you off line concerning issues of global warming
should you have the interest

peace
B

ps
if in reading or watching the information presented you find that I have exaggerated anything, please, bring it to my attention so I can get it straight next time.
I did however just receive a grant for my educational expenses at the facility mentioned and have been engaged to assist in training my classmates ( which surprised me cause Im still in training myself ) so I think Ive got my resources down on these types of issues, however if I do get something wrong and you have evidence to the contrary, bring it up and I will give it my full consideration.
cheers
B

 

The simple alleged science of anthropogenic global warming is that CO2 increases cause warming. The reverse is the case, CO2 increases follow warming, and all but Al Gore and one of his buddies now acknowledge that. So all models and dire predictions based on anthropogenic increases in CO2 are bunk, bogus, bs, irrelevent and moot. All of your superior intellect notwithstanding.
When you are arguing from a weak scientific standpoint, smug elitism is really unattractive, you should try another tack, you're running aground on this one.

 

alleged ?
best of luck to you on defending that position
this will be my only response concerning global warming on this thread



not sure about you, but Im wrong sometimes
Im ok with it and Ill readily admit it when faced with sufficient evidence to the contrary, its called having an open mind, comes in handy when your interested in learning something new.
course
sometimes people are not interested in learning anything at all, and cry wolf or conspiracy when presented with any new evidence.

in the future if we could please restrict this thread to its intended purpose
the state of the oceans
there is another thread for global warming

oh
and your theory on the lag is slightly off
the permeability of h2o ice to atmospheric gasses is such that given the accumulation incidence of the ice it takes about 800~1200 years for the exchange of atmospheric gasses to be halted by a sufficient mass of ice, so the lag between the dating and isotopic evidence of temp in the ice core and that of the the fossil atmosphere within the sample is actually easily explained. If you have trouble with this concept numerous studies were conducted in order to establish the lag time. All that needed to happen was to take a look at the latest co2 content of the atmosphere and then drill down 1000 years into the ice and check the trapped atmosphere for any influence. There was and based on the density of the ice formation you get a lag time of x.

if you think Im exaggerating when I say 80% of the coral in the Caribbean is dead
check out what happened to the coral in the Indian ocean
if you need more than one video to convince you of the severity of the event let me know
there are countless papers and studies done on it

 

Russia has no regulations? One must be an idiot to say that. There are strict requirements on pollution.

 

I quite often agrees with Boston, probably a coincidence...
Don't know if Boston has crossed an ocean, but if thats a requirement for beeing allowed to have an opinion; I have, and during the crossings, I don't see too much plastic floating about.

On the other hand (1); I have an deplacement kinda small boat for "pleasure" (Its not a pleasure, its a drift...). But that hull, shape seem to gather up a plastic bag in the propeller at least every second year, and when I hit the shore, I normally disengages the propeller, so its not a bag gathered up after a storm.

On the other hand (2); I used to go diving, but astma finished that partly; still no reson for not doing skin diving; I always (read that as "some" to "a lot") find some plastic, here in Norway,, or on vacations in the following places; Egypt (very messy), Portugal (both sides), Spain, Italy, France, Denmark...

Photo evidence... sorry no, thats not something I consider a "motive"...
Plastic parts here in Norway, is rougher, thicker, bigger parts, sharp colours. Plastic parts in Meditereanian (+ Egypt) area tend to be thinner plastic, screds of thinner plastic bags, but more of it.

 

"There are strict requirements on pollution (in Russia)". Get serious now. There are laws in many other third world countries against pollution, too. They all pollute more than the West, in my experience. Is that decade long oil -seepage on the tundra still going in Russia? If not, it's because oil has more value now - not because they give a damn.
http://www.alaska.org.tw/images/Juneau_Alaska_Glacier_Kayak.jpg - nope, no plastic here!
Want to really do something about a perceived lack of plankton? With an estimated 20 tons per day diet per whale get the tree huggers off our *** and lets get the damned humpback whales pared down. Trust me. It's politicized as to how few there are but these things are the single biggest threat to Alaskan future fisheries there is and there are many times more than stats relate.
Plenty of grays, fins, seis, and now, for the first time in my life, blues. All of these are baleen feeders, scoopin' up everything up to maybe the size of a salmon (a gray whale's throat is only the circumference of a basketball). If that's not a sign of plankton in the North Pacific (of course not in blue, relatively sterile water), I don't know what is.
Should we somehow meld the after typhoon shot you posted with one where I didn't see a piece of man-made ANYTHING for twelve weeks for some kind of average? Can we assume all of California looks like those shots? Obama better put some more of my money in the California bailout (LA has been called the greenest city in the country - yet leaves it's street lamps on 24-7 ) for Superfund cleanup.