Oceans on the Brink

Discussion in 'News from around the damp planet' started by 9anda1f, Oct 14, 2013.

  1. 9anda1f

    9anda1f Administrator Staff Member

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    In addition to Fukushima ...

    https://climateandcapitalism.com/2013/10/14/oceans-brink-ecological-collapse/
     
  2. Rick Larson

    Rick Larson Junior Member

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    I just spread that one around.:D
     
  3. Farside

    Farside Junior Member

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  4. Pakanohida

    Pakanohida Junior Member

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    Well, lemme think about this one from spots I know about.

    SF Bay - Dead Zone, over seas invasive species & pollution
    Mediterranean Sea - Numerous Dead Zones due to Caulerpa Spp. & other invasive species
    Pacific NW Gyre o Plastic - Killing off Plankton, which IMO, is causing a collapse.
    Other Gyres - See above, but not nearly as big
    Fukashima - Tesco is lying to Japan, they lost face & admitted it. They have no idea on actual #'s
    Gulf of Mexico - Numerous Dead Zones thanks to BP Oil
    Gulf of Mexico & Caribbean - Invasive species problem due to Katrina Hurricane
    Palau - Huge dead zones due to dynamite & cyanide use to catch tropical fish for sale world wide
    Philippines - Numerous dead zones due to dynamite & cyanide use for same reason as above
    Global Sea Levels have risen - From 1870 to 2004 the ocean has risen 7.7" or 195mm
    Glaciers - Receding every where.. did you see the video of "lower NYC" size calving event?

    They going to drill the Great Barrier reef?

    Take all this together, and IMO, it spells disaster.
     
  5. matto

    matto Junior Member

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    Not so much drilling the GBR but dredging inside the Marine Protection area to make way for increased cargo traffic for coal exports. Dredging will hurt the worlds best populations of dugongs by burying sea grass.

    Global sea level rises are exacerbated by depleting inland aquifers and increased hard surfaces in urban areas. And incised channels and loss of floodplain function.

    The worst water Ive surfed in was Northern Spain, weird rashes and ear infections. Worse than anything in Indonesia and Central America, which was surprising, unless you see what happens in the streets at 2:30am after a night around the tapas bars. Apparently a bunch of trash on the ground in the bar is a sign of good trade, and that gets swept out onto the street, then washed into the drain. Then there is the industry up river. The dodgy brothers are running Spain.

    But in good news, after years of protection of whale populations, Im seeing more Humpbacks than ever on the East Coast, and Southern Rights over in the West are doing awesome. Marine reserves work!
     
  6. 9anda1f

    9anda1f Administrator Staff Member

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    The sense of dread I get from reading this article is overwhelming. As a sailor, one of my dreams was to go to sea in a ~40' sailboat and live a nomad's life. But as we go, we ultimately realize that while we can do anything we want, we can't do everything we want, and that dream was passed by ... perhaps for the better.

    I've been to the Marshall Islands and to Wake Island, which is all by itself out in the vast blue. There were only about 200 people on Wake, a nearly mothballed air force base, and walking on the beaches there was simultaneously awe inspiring and horrific. For one, you could palpably feel your remoteness surrounded by a limitless horizon. There were no other footprints on the beach and if you wanted to feel some distance between yourself and the rest of humanity, that was the place. For the other, the beach was literally covered in plastic junk. Every plastic doo-dah you could imagine had washed up there, and while at first it felt a little like a treasure hunt, after a bit it became sickening. This was in the late 1980's. From reading about the Pacific gyre and the article above, the plastic garbage at sea has increased exponentially.

    I'm feeling the dread, the ocean is dead. =(
     
  7. 9anda1f

    9anda1f Administrator Staff Member

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    Too Little, Too Late?

    2015??



    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/oct/22/xprize-science-research-into-ocean-health-global-warming
     
  8. eco4560

    eco4560 New Member

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    Very apt. At high school I wanted to buy a red Audi convertable. I had forgotten all about it until my 20 year reunion when someone asked my if I had ever done it! It's no longer on the to do list.

    We have to stop making and using plastic. I was thinking that to myself last night as I threw another plastic thing in the rubbish. I will require a HUGE shift in my shopping habits to eradicate plastic around foods.
     
  9. songbird

    songbird Senior Member

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    harvest the gyres

    i was just reading someplace else about a country that recycles so much that it is running out of trash and is importing it from a neighboring country. is it too far from that to sending out ships to harvest the floating trash in the oceans to use in recycling and incinerators? by the ton it would be much cheaper than harvesting trees and having to cart them over rails/roads.
     
  10. 9anda1f

    9anda1f Administrator Staff Member

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    I had to look it up ... it's Sweden.

    And I think you're right, soon someone will realize that the abundance of "waste" floating around out there is actually a valuable commodity and begin to harvest it.
     
  11. songbird

    songbird Senior Member

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    to add another report to the conversation

    i remember as a kid, growing up in the 60s-70s that the oceans contained so many fish that we could never overfish them. didn't take long to start proving that viewpoint (misstyped viewpint first and liked that typo, but didn't keep it) wrong...

    i was really interested to hear about the sardine collapse as i used to eat sardines as much as often as i could (then i decided to avoid canned foods as much as possible). also, i've been interested in marine life, aquaria, reefs, etc pretty much my whole life. i no longer can keep a marine reef tank, but miss it as there was always so much going on and so much more to learn. i had to move and in the end decided that the hobby was too expensive and wasteful for me to continue if i were to keep on moving (i moved 4 more times after that, not sure if i'll move again, that is up in the air...). whups, i'm in a wandering mood tonight... :)

    as the article noted, sardines can crash in areas due to relatively unstudied reasons. which puts us in a hard spot of knowing if the fishery is depleted and won't ever recover unless it is restored or if this is a different sort of event due to water currents, temperatures, other food sources, or over-feeding by other species. which actually seemed hinted at by the article (whales and hake), but not really fleshed out. sardines being both so small and so numerous i sure hope they'll recover. i just hope it's not got anything to do with Fukushima.

    yet the crash brings to mind a study released earlier this year, which is not complete by far for the whole ocean, but gives at least some positives amid a lot of otherwise negatives:

    NRDC Report February 2013
    Bringing Back the Fish: An Evaluation of U.S. Fisheries Rebuilding Under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act

    www.nrdc.org/oceans/files/rebuilding-fisheries-report.pdf‎

    i never got into looking at the responses to this report, but i would be interested to see any other similar reports that cover more than one species that also include more information.
     
  12. songbird

    songbird Senior Member

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  13. Unmutual

    Unmutual Junior Member

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    Even though this is a thread about the ocean, I find it strange that there is usually little to no mention on freshwater species. When the oceans are completely screwed, and all of our rain becomes acidic(acid hurricanes should be "interesting"), we're going to need to find out about our freshwater species of fish. Now I'm thinking about Soylent Green again...
     
  14. 9anda1f

    9anda1f Administrator Staff Member

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    In the northwest states, almost all of the lakes have been usurped by "Fish and Game" departments. It is common practice to poison lakes of all fish species, then plant in "sports" fish such as trout, pike, and bass. Then during the springtime freshwater fishing season, most of them are fished out by "sportsmen". You can practically walk across some lakes by stepping boat-to-boat on opening day.
    Not many wild fish left in the freshwater lakes (and streams) around here anymore.
     
  15. Pakanohida

    Pakanohida Junior Member

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    yup yup :(

    I have a family member who used to fly for fish & game dropping fish from airplanes into lakes. So many fish die on impact, "but it's negligible." To who? You or the fish? ...humans.

    This crabbing season the Dungeness crabs did NOT come into the bay leaving a lot of people a tad concerned. However, the old timers tell me that this happens from time to time. I asked when it happened before did the city also spray chemicals in the wetland to kill them? (Bandon sprayed to get rid of mosquitoes this summer to help tourists)

    I got no answer.
     
  16. songbird

    songbird Senior Member

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    oh Paka, don't get me going on mosquito control... *sigh*
     

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