The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, halfway
between Hawaii and California and the largest of several navigation-impairing
gyres of floating and sinking trash (much of it falls to the ocean floor), is
simply too big to measure. An amalgamation of fishing nets, electronics, waste
and so much plastic, it’s hard to fathom. According to NationalGeographic.org,
“National Ocean and Atmospheric
Administration’s Marine Debris Program has estimated that it would take 67 ships one year to
clean up less than one percent of the North Pacific Ocean… [Drones have]
determined that there is 100 times more plastic by weight than previously measured. The team also discovered more
permanent plastic features, or islands, some over 15 meters (50 feet) in
length.
“While
many different types of trash enter the ocean, plastics make up the majority of
marine debris for two reasons. First, plastic’s durability, low cost,
and malleability mean that it’s being used in more and
more consumer and industrial products. Second, plastic
goods do not biodegrade but instead break down into smaller pieces.
“In the ocean, the sun breaks down these
plastics into tinier and tinier pieces, a process known
as photodegradation. Scientists have collected up to 750,000 bits of
microplastic in a single square kilometer of the Great Pacific Garbage
Patch—that’s about 1.9 million bits per square mile. Most of this debris comes
from plastic bags, bottle caps, plastic water bottles, and Styrofoam cups.
“Marine
debris can be very harmful to marine life in the gyre. For instance,
loggerhead sea turtles often mistake plastic bags for jellies, their favorite
food. Albatrosses mistake plastic resin pellets for fish eggs and
feed them to chicks, which die
of starvation or ruptured organs.” In 2018, a new
non-profit, Ocean Cleanup System 101, generated headlines with a new technology
(pictured above) – which fared poorly at first in rough ocean waters – to
encircle this gyre and remove massive amounts of floating debris by ship. The
world has become obsessed with eliminating plastics. Lots of good reasons to
focus on this non-biodegradable debris… as long as this is not a distraction from
the biggest threat to our oceans: global climate change.
Many communities,
including right here in Los Angeles, are busy banning plastic straws, requiring
that take-out containers be biodegradable and/or banning plastic grocery bags
as their contribution to eliminate this accumulation of “forever plastics” from
our environment. “When Seattle
became the first major American city to ban plastic straws last summer, the
anti-plastic straw movement was well underway. Alaska Airlines announced a plan
to ditch plastic straws in May, followed by the food service company Bon Appétit, American Airlines, and Starbucks.
It’s one facet of the growing public awareness of ocean plastic pollution,
which has led to more companies touting alternative packaging and soaring sales of
reusable water bottles.
“A recent
paper in the science journal Marine Policy asks
if the current focus on plastic pollution is distracting society from even
larger challenges facing the ocean, and if a focus on changing bottles or
straws is distracting us from making more fundamental changes to the economy.
As humans have pumped greenhouses gases into the atmosphere, almost all of the resulting heat has ended up in the ocean; as water gets hotter,
that’s killing fish and coral reefs. The heat also leads to sea level rise and
melts polar ice sheets, leading to even more sea level rise. Hurricanes are
becoming more intense. Extra carbon dioxide is making oceans more acidic, so
it’s harder for marine life to survive. At the same time, large-scale
commercial fishing is decimating fish populations.
“Of course, it
doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game: More attention on ocean plastic doesn’t
automatically mean less attention on climate change or the need for broader
societal change. Starbucks already buys enough renewable energy to power its
stores in the U.S. and Canada, and packaging–long a more visible sign of its
environmental footprint–is a logical step to tackle in addition. Plastic
production itself uses around 6% of global oil (as much as aviation) and is
also a source of emissions; by 2050, it may account for 15% of the
total global carbon budget. Moving from single-use plastic to circular economy
models, like systems of
reusable packaging for food or deodorant, can make a measurable impact on emissions.” FastCompany.com, March 1st.
Pressure is mounting; California is about to further tighten
the rules, while noting that traditional recycling efforts remain economically
unjustified: “New
legislation announced last month [February] would require plastic and other
single-use materials sold in California to be either reusable, fully recyclable
or compostable by 2030. The measure would also require the state to recycle or
otherwise divert from landfills 75% of single-use plastic packaging and
products sold or distributed in California, up from the 44% of all solid waste
that was diverted as of 2017…
“[California state Sen. Ben Allen
(D-Santa Monica)] said annual global plastic production is rising and now
totals 335 million tons. The United States, he said, discards 30 million tons a
year… The national recycling rate for plastic is projected to drop from 9.1% in
2015 to 2.9% this year, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
and other sources, said Allen… He said California only recycles 15% of
single-use plastic in part because the cost of recycling plastics exceeds the
value of the resulting material.” Los Angeles Times, March 4th.
OK, plastics
are environmentally bad for any number of reasons, but global warming is even
worse for oceans and ocean life. Addressing these realities clearly cannot be
mutually exclusive. Further, as the global population continues to soar, there
is one more, human-selfish reason to take responsibility for reversing both
negative trends: food. A study – Climate change
impacts on fisheries – appearing in the March 1st
Science Magazine paints a bleak picture of the future of the oceans
as a sustainable source of sufficient seafood for human consumption.
While a few species (like Atlantic black sea
bass) have increased slightly or left the quantity of Atlantic herring relatively
unchanged, the overall impact of global warming is undermining the fish
populations around the world. We’ve learned that sea life in
warmer oceans tend to be impacted far worse than those creatures inhabiting
colder waters. The negative impact of overfishing also is worse in warmer
water.
The February 28th New York
Times explores the significance of this new
report: “The study found that the
amount of seafood that humans could sustainably harvest from a
wide range of species shrank by 4.1 percent from 1930 to 2010, a casualty
of human-caused climate change.
“‘That 4 percent decline sounds
small, but it’s 1.4 million metric tons of fish from 1930 to 2010,’ said Chris
Free, the lead author of the study, which appears in the journal Science… Scientists have warned that
global warming will put pressure on the world’s food supplies in coming
decades. But the new findings — which separate the effects of warming waters
from other factors, like overfishing — suggest that climate change is already
having a serious impact on seafood…
“Fish make up 17 percent of the
global population’s intake of protein, and as much as 70 percent for people living
in some coastal and island countries, according to the Food and
Agriculture Organization of
the United Nations… ‘Fish provide a vital source of protein for over half of
the global population, and some 56 million people worldwide are supported in
some way by marine fisheries,’ Dr. Free said.
“As the oceans have warmed, some
regions have been particularly hard-hit. In the northeast Atlantic Ocean and
the Sea of Japan, fish populations declined by as much as 35 percent over
the period of the study… ‘The ecosystems in East Asia have seen some of
the largest decline in fisheries productivity,’ Dr. Free said. ‘And that region
is home to some of the largest growing human populations and populations that
are highly dependent on seafood.’… Marine life
has been subjected to some of the most drastic effects of climate change. The
oceans have absorbed 93 percent of the heat that is trapped by the greenhouse
gases that humans pump into the atmosphere…
“[On
the other side of the world:] The northeast Atlantic Ocean — home to Atlantic
cod, the mainstay of fish and chips — saw a 34 percent decline in sustainable
catches… Over all, more populations of fish declined than increased over the
eight decades in the study.”
Not
only are we losing vast quantities of sea life to global climate change and
environmental pollution, but those who make their living fishing are finding
their lives deteriorating as well. “A separate study, published
Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, found that limiting warming to 2.7 degrees
Fahrenheit, or 1.5 degrees Celsius, above preindustrial levels — a goal of the
Paris climate agreement — could result in billions of dollars in extra revenue
for fisheries globally. Much of that would be in the developing world, where
many people rely on fish for protein…
“‘Fisheries are
like a bank account, and we’re trying to live off the interest,’ [said Malin L.
Pinsky, an associate professor in the School of Environmental and Biological
Sciences at Rutgers University and a co-author of the new study in Science
Magazine].” NY Times. We appear to be seriously eroding the principal now. It’s
our planet. Unless interplanetary travel and locating another life-compatible
world happen in the very near future, we’ve got a huge problem made so much
worse by official U.S. government policy that denies or marginalizes global
warming and even encourages the increased use of fossil fuels. There will
future generations who will simply wonder how we could have been so ignorant,
so selfish and so oblivious to the obvious consequences of ignoring the biggest
problem humanity has ever faced.
I’m Peter Dekom, and unless you want to be a bigger part of the
problem, remember all of these facts when you cast your next vote.
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