Is the ocean really dead?

Sailor's Discovery: 'The Ocean Is Dead' - Yachtsman shares ominous tale


Has anyone crossed the pacific since the tsunami. I have looked for blogs but i can't find anyone who has done it that recently.

eseyoung said:

Sailor's Discovery: 'The Ocean Is Dead' - Yachtsman shares ominous tale


Has anyone crossed the pacific since the tsunami. I have looked for blogs but i can't find anyone who has done it that recently.

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Here's a list of 100 plus boats that were signed up to go last year. A good number will have blogs you can probably find with a little digging.


Pacific Puddle Jump Fleet 2013

I sailed with Ivan for the second part of this trip from LA to Hawaii and south to Vanuatu and Aus. We sailed again this summer from Hawaii to San Francisco. The amount of garbage in the oceans is stunning and getting worse all the time. The most notable observation for this years, voyage was an alarming lack of sea birds.

Scroll down to the photo's in this link. It'll break your heart...

Laysan Albatrosses’ Plastic Problem | Smithsonian Ocean Portal

Here's one of the photo's from the link above. Like I said...a real heart breaker

The Smithsonian story and accompanying photos are so much more than heartbreaking to me. Anger is the first emotion I feel. But who to dire it at?
As a species, humans can be so incredible. With imagination, creativity, exploration, sciences and the like. Followed with the other side of the coin representing incredible stupidity, greed and selfishness.

What other organism poisons it's own habitat? At this rate of polluting the oceans, climate change, terrorism and the other ills of mankind won't matter much. We will have destroyed the planet's heart. it's the equivalent of blood poisoning in ones body.

So to me, it's a matter of just how many more decades can the planet continue to absorb our stupidity? The albatross representing a canary in a coal mine.....

texasnielsen said:

The Smithsonian story and accompanying photos are so much more than heartbreaking to me. Anger is the first emotion I feel. But who to direct it at?

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That's the heartbreaking bit for me, in that what's done is done and there is no way to do anything about this in the short term. They are as good as doomed, it's our fault, and their only hope to evade extinction is to live in an area which allows them to squeak out a couple sets of eggs before they slowly starve to death.

Future Paleontologists will continue our tears & rage.

Overall I have faith that Nature and Life will always find a way, despite what we do during our time on Earth.

Let the Smitsonian preach to the second and third world where they consider rivers to be sewers.


We are certainly not perfect but I am tired of going on guilt trips for every world problem. I ,and the US, are not responsible for the actions of others and when most of the world live and act like pigs I will not be made to feel guilty for their actions.

bayview said:

Let the Smitsonian preach to the second and third world where they consider rivers to be sewers..

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Yes, and in the Western and South Pacific and China Sea - North to South - and not all are third world countries:

-Russia Far East
-Japan
-China
-Indonesia
-Philippines
-India

With the above countries representing about 75% of the world's population and a much higher % of the world's air and water pollution. Dare I ask though what % of the Smithsonian's funding comes from the above listed countries?

15 million tons of stuff from the latest Japanese tsunami with an estimated 25% still drifting around.

But, Victoria awaits final startup of their new sewage treatment plant, so the Canucks are no perfect angels either.

Last but not least, lobster and crab traps sure deter my coastal cruising at night.

bayview said:

Let the Smitsonian preach to the second and third world where they consider rivers to be sewers.


We are certainly not perfect but I am tired of going on guilt trips for every world problem. I ,and the US, are not responsible for the actions of others and when most of the world live and act like pigs I will not be made to feel guilty for their actions.

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Hmmm.

I have no guilt, either about my own behavior or that of the world's. Responsibility is a two-edged sword in my opinion. As with education, there are the ignorant and naive, and the more informed. In most cases, the un-informed and third world countries and their populations are eking out not much more than a subsistence living. Frankly, I doubt they have the GDP to be creating the larger percentage of the pollution the planet is contending with. And even where there is a large GDP (CHINA) they still live for the most part in Third world conditions from a percentage of their population.

It will always fall upon the shoulders of the educated and successful societies to attempt to help improve the lot of those less fortunate. That isn't a left-leaning or religious slant. It's one based on the reality that we are all sharing this place we call Earth.

Assuming one has children, does the parent allow behavior to continue that is harmful to either parent or child? When an adult witnesses behavior(s) which are not socially or legally acceptable, does the adult turn away and ignore the problem? Now I understand in today's society it has become (sadly) the norm to accept any and all behaviors, poor judgement, etc. as our (US) society moves in a direction of what IMO, has become an excess of PC-righteousness. And how often do we see it mimicked around the world.

So I've digressed in to a rabbit hole which was deeper than I first thought as I took to the keyboard. All the point of this diatribe was to basically say to ignore a problem will eventually lead to becoming part of the problem ones self. I try to do my part individually but as the saying goes, it takes a tribe to raise a child, not just the parent.

Ignoring the "pigs" at our front door will eventually lead to them wanting in the (our) house. I'd prefer to keep them in the fields . .

I thought there was a specialized automated ship designed and built to clean up the trash pit in the Pacific ocean?

Greetings,
Mr. b2. Ship? From what I understand the extent of the problem to be, there aren't enough ships in the world. I read somewhere, it would take all of the current worlds shipping 75 years too clear the mass of refuse (mostly plastic) down to 1/4" size.

RT Firefly said:

Greetings,
Mr. b2. Ship? From what I understand the extent of the problem to be, there aren't enough ships in the world. I read somewhere, it would take all of the current worlds shipping 75 years too clear the mass of refuse (mostly plastic) down to 1/4" size.

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Then there's the neutrally buoyant plastic bits at varying depths, not to mention the microscopic particles. Factor in acidification with its effects on plankton and shell forming species, and the ocean ecosystems are being squeezed from both ends.

We sure have knocked things out of whack for now, but Nature will set things right in time...question is, will our species be around to see things balance out again?

Nature is in this for the long game. Hard to imagine us around in a couple million years if we don't rein ourselves in.

I saw lots of oil during the big spill. It's gone now, don't know where it went but it's gone. There was a lot of clean up effort but I think that was for pr purposes. It's hard to look at the birds but its funny how no one cared about the bp spill until some pictures of birds made it to GMA. Maybe these pictures will help fight the mountains of plastic.

Folks up here in Maine are seeing more see life then they have in years! The tuna catch has been great. Wicked Tuna will have a bunch of footage this spring that was shot here in my marina bringing some monsters several days in a row.

Things are not near dead here. But we are seeing more and more trash.

Idiots who can't manage their trash are a waste of MY useful air!

MurrayM said:

Hard to imagine us around in a couple million years if we don't rein ourselves in.

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That's funny. Try a couple of hundred years.

Or next few decades. When things go over the tipping point it's every fast. Not a gradual decline.

Hard to imagine 100% self generated annihilation through global environmental systems breakdown. We're a pretty resilient bunch, and it wouldn't take a very big pocket of survivors to get things going again, although it might be a wee bit tough for a couple hundred generations. Me-thinks it would take a planet fracturing asteroid to do the trick.

The small stuff adds up too. A new problem which is not so visible is microscopic plastic. Things like microbeads which are put in toothpaste and face wash as a scrubbing agent will end in the ocean's food chain. Hundreds of millions of people are "micro-littering" the ocean every day unknowingly.

The micro-plastics are too small to be filtered out in water treatment plants. They have a serious effect on plankton and other smaller marine life, and a flow on effect right through the food chain.

Check your toothpaste ingredients and buy one without plastic.

eseyoung said:

Sailor's Discovery: 'The Ocean Is Dead' - Yachtsman shares ominous tale


Has anyone crossed the pacific since the tsunami. I have looked for blogs but i can't find anyone who has done it that recently.

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We did right after it happened. Since that time the Pacific is pretty much dead. Massive floating debris fields are still coming ashore on Vancouver Island - which prominently sticks out.

Most of the fish are contaminated with Cesium, Thorium and dozen other radioactive materiels. This is why tuna is not on the menu. Only bluefin and swordfish from Atlantic is.

There's been a news blackout since the Japanese govt passed a secrecy act to prevent info from getting out. This is now three years since the accident and hundreds of tons of radioactive wastewater enters the ocean every day.

Our friends who were 100km away from Fuku, were required, not requested to move. They did so and on their last blood tests - apparently didn't move fast enough. 250rads made them ill. Now mercury and pcbs are present in their blood. We will bring them home when they are "allowed" to leave.

swampu said:

I saw lots of oil during the big spill. It's gone now, don't know where it went but it's gone. There was a lot of clean up effort but I think that was for pr purposes. It's hard to look at the birds but its funny how no one cared about the bp spill until some pictures of birds made it to GMA. Maybe these pictures will help fight the mountains of plastic.

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It sank - it's on the bottom and will not dissipate anytime soon.

Then there's commercial fishing;

Big-Fish Stocks Fall 90 Percent Since 1950, Study Says

Ghostrider42 said:

We did right after it happened. Since that time the Pacific is pretty much dead. Massive floating debris fields are still coming ashore on Vancouver Island - which prominently sticks out.

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As a Mariner, I understand and have seen first hand floating plastic trash at sea... but the above comment is a bit harsh.. that the Pacific is Dead?

Every day "live" fish , crab etc is harvested from the Pacific..Dolphin and Orca's swim around.. I believe the above statement is a touch over the top.

It is interesting but a google search for Vancouver island Tsunami debris brings up little news since 2013.. and I seriously doubt a news blackout by BC Govt.
For ever we have heard about the Pacific being littered with plastic trash, yet when we sailed all over the South Pacific for 2-1/2 years we never saw 1 piece of floating debris... 15000 miles and zilch. We did see plastic trash walking on the windward beaches and atoll's .. mostly all with Japanese writing that we surmised was from fishing boats.. but not the heaps of trash some environmental groups would report in the news. Since we were there it may have got much worse.. but awareness has also risen in a lot of societies.
For a person reportedly in Iceland you sure do seem to know a lot about the waters in my back yard.

edit: the above mentioned plastic I did see was a sony tv floating off the Washington about 75 miles.

HOLLYWOOD

With all these massive floating debris fields as far as the eye can see you'd think Google Earth satellite photos would be all you see on every news service worldwide. Oh wait, news blackout.

CPseudonym said:

With all these massive floating debris fields as far as the eye can see you'd think Google Earth satellite photos would be all you see on every news service worldwide. Oh wait, news blackout.

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I seem to recall reading several years ago that due to the ocean's gyres, there was a mass of debris (plastics mostly) claimed to be greater is size than the State of Texas swirling around in the Pacific. It was purportedly breaking down (as mentioned in post #13) and creating havoc throughout the food chain.

Wondered myself how come it's not visible from a Sat photo available to us commoners....

I'm in no way saying pollution shouldn't be taken seriously wherever it's known to exist. I'd just like to see some scalable photographic evidence to substantiate the claims. Seems not much to ask in an age where I can pull up a street view of most any address in a first world country from my cell phone is all.

One of the unusual happenings the past few years on the BC and Alaska coasts is the lack of tsunami debris vs the predictions. This is from expert, personal and first hand information. People have and are looking, including teams from Japan who have been sent over.

No doubt when it gets to the purity of the oceans and shores, emotions run high. Overfished, yes. Whether the Pacific, Atlantic, Baltic etc commercial fishing has badly depleted stocks.

Anti dumping efforts of sewage and trash around the Pacific Rim is making progress, but lots moreto do. China predicts millions to be employed on environmental efforts and machinery - on that one basis alone China will move forward with cleanup of air, water and land as they need the jobs.

Well, it's finding its way into the Arctic sea ice;

Trillions of Tiny Plastic Pieces Reside in Arctic Ice - Scientific American

MurrayM said:

Well, it's finding its way into the Arctic sea ice;

Trillions of Tiny Plastic Pieces Reside in Arctic Ice - Scientific American

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No doubt the two paragraph summary has lots of field data, but I'm puzzled. Some say the Arctic sea ice is melting at an alarming rate and has been for decades. This being the case, how did the plastic from the tsunami find its way into the sea ice samples tested? Or even earlier plastic for that matter?