The ocean is broken
theherald.com.au
theherald.com.au
http://www.okcfox.com/story/23728488/scientists-puzzled-as-r...
http://www.vancouversun.com/travel/Sudden+disappearance+sard...
http://rt.com/news/fukushima-apocalypse-fuel-removal-598/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/fukushima-...
"Officials of the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) said on Friday they detected 400,000 becquerels per liter of beta ray-emitting radioactive substances - including strontium - at the site, a level 6,500 times higher than readings taken on Wednesday, NHK World reported."
"On Wednesday TEPCO said it had detected high levels of radiation in a ditch leading to the Pacific Ocean, and that it suspected heavy rains had lifted contaminated soil."
We are talking about some non-zero (lets just say integer) chance of global catastrophe if the oxgenation of the Pacific ocean is disrupted by mass radioactive spoiling of biomass. I don't understand why a concerted organisation of nuclear engineers and assistants are not stepping in to avert what could be game over for Japan in general, to say nothing of cascading affects across the oceans and N. Hemisphere in general.
Well, the trees on-site are still green.
I'm not trying to minimise the problem. I know there's a lot of uranium in there. But not enough to sterilise an ocean.
Well, that's certainly reassuring.
;-)
That said, overfishing is probably the worse problem since it's not tractable to enforce regulations (since police aren't on site to ensure that there isn't too much "extra" catch thrown back, etc.). At least it would be possible to mandate the construction of seawalls.
[1] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1386978/The-Japanese...
For example, I'd like to get confirmation of the problem from NOAA[1], particularly the NMFS[2]. Alternatively, Green Peace[3] would no doubt be one of the first organizations to raise an alarm - they care about the ocean, and presumably gather signals from many sources. I want confirmation because the simple fact is that it's impossible to get a comprehensive picture of the Pacific's health from one voyage - there are too many variables at play.
The skeptic in me questions the tacit assumption (the one that makes the OP's observations so troubling) that the entire Pacific is normally teaming with fish. However, I assume that fish travel in schools, and that fish density is wildly variable. E.g. there are normally vast swaths of the Pacific that are "dead". Indeed, anyone going out to fish for sport knows that fish aren't uniformly distributed, and they don't stay in one place. In the open ocean, these schools are vast, but so are the dead zones when there are no schools.
That said, not being in the field, I'm not sure how we gauge the health of an entire ocean from a "supported biomass" perspective. Nor do I know anything about who would be responsible for officially raising an alarm about global catastrophe. Or if they did, what we could do about it. It seems like the only thing we really could do is reduce the rate at which we harm the ocean, rather than dumping into it.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Oceanic_and_Atmospher..., http://www.noaa.gov/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Marine_Fisheries_Serv..., http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/
But, you might be concerned to learn that the NOAA typically only reports on mass die offs fairly close to US shores, at least within our EEZ zone- because they are only adequately funded to do so- [1] is an example of such a report. There is no well-funded transnational environmental authority that can make a reliable 'alarm' about the potential of mass common-water oceanic die-offs (think 'tragedy of the commons'); Greenpeace is more of an advocacy organization than a scientific or monitoring authority.
One thing we can indirectly empirically gauge is the size of these large garbage patches at sea simply via imaging. In fact NOAA has put together a fact sheet on this [2], although it is rather simplistic. What we can glean from this is the fact that they are real, quite large, and if you look at the map it looks as though the OP's voyage passed through it at least once if not twice. Which would explain much of what he saw, but not necessarily the consistency (pervasiveness) of the dead zones observed..
Finally, just food for thought (er.. perhaps bad choice of words.. haha) that there is a sort of conflation in the article about the long-going decline of fish stocks and accumulation of garbage due to dumping and the more acute poisoning/death of fish stocks due to radioactive leakage from Fukushima in the areas off-coast Japan specifically. There is academic evidence [3] that large fish, specifically tuna, are acting as vector to transport large amounts of spoiled biomass as far afield as California. How much of the biomass die-off does this explain? I have absolutely no idea, but since both issues are quite concerning in their own right we should probably keep tabs on both..
[1] http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/30/1227489/-Mass-Aquat...
I have to disagree with you regarding waiting for confirmation from NOAA, NMFS and Green Peace. From strictly personal experience, growing up in the mediterranean and being the 2nd generation of spear fishers, sailors and divers, living in resort/tourist destinations for the majority of my life; waiting for confirmation from resource-strapped government agencies is sticking your head in the sand. I've seen the decline of fish first hand since I was a teenager.
Focussing on the Pacific Ocean, and this specific article would be to forego the magnitude of the problem. We removed smoking areas in restaurants because, as one wise man said it "its like having a pissing area in a pool", I believe the same can be applied to the ocean.
Green Peace have already reported on similar problems [1] So have the NOAA & NMFS [2]
In countries like Mexico, economic stimulus is prioritised as most mayors/local governments live on a 4 year stint to make an impact, resorting to populistic moves that the unfortunately ignorant populace will follow. Prioritising development of real estate, hospitality, touristic developments that are by no means sustainable. Making sure everyone has a job. I'm by no means arguing that these are bad things, I've made my career in the field but these are again, by no means sustainable. Long term investments into education are left secondary, effects of which are already felt [3]. I'm talking about the destruction of sea turtle nesting grounds, the destructions of mangroves that nourish the reefs, water sewage directly in the ocean[4], the killing of sharks[5] and much more.
Italy, where most older fishermen can barely read nor understand what their daily labour actually does to the ocean is facing a crisis across all coasts. There's just no fish left to sustain its industry. [6]
Its hardly new any of this. Jacques Yves Cousteau reported on this long ago. [7]
Know that everything around you will eventually turn into waste, we are at a point in history were we have enough alternatives to not damage. I agree with you that all we really could do is reduce the rate at which we harm the ocean. Its time to make educated choices.
[1] http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/campaigns/oceans/fish-in-cr...
[2] http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/mediacenter/2012/09/13_secretary_of...
[3] http://noticaribe.com.mx/2013/10/18/sacude-magisterio-a-play...
[4] http://www.quequi.com.mx/2107_solidaridad/1759374_hay-aguas-...
[5] http://forums.locogringo.com/forums/tm.asp?m=1292457
[6] http://www.lastampa.it/2013/10/12/scienza/ambiente/il-caso/c...
[7] http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article.html?isPreview=&id=309...
The ocean is obviously not "broken". It is a large body of salt water covering the majority of the planet's surface. It still exists as a liquid, therefore it's still an "ocean"
A more useful translation of the title is "The ocean had a lot of artistic meaning to me in the past. A recent trip demonstrated to me that this artistic value is now gone"
Very difficult to get clicks for, sure, but at least with the modified title I can pick it up and know what to do with it.
It's a shame the author had this experience. I too like the birds and water without debris. I wonder, though: is the state of the entire ocean the same as this author indicates? Or might he be using a bit of artistic license and hyperbole to emphasize his loss?
I feel that he's probably stretching things quite a bit for effect, but that's fine. After all, the point is his emoting to us and us understanding his feelings. I was able to feel what he was feeling. Very well done.
The problem here, however, is trying to have some sort of public policy discussion based on what amounts to a poetic interpretation of reality. Just what is the ocean supposed to do? Look pretty? Purify our air? What job do we assign the ocean that it can then fail or succeed at? Do we owe some consideration to a large body of water that we don't to, say, a rock? Or is the ocean's "job" just to keep us alive?
These are subjective questions. Different people can have widely different answers to them. We make a mistake when we jump from a nicely written article about one man's personal loss at his view of the changing state of a large body of salt water and deciding what's right or wrong for everybody else in the world.
So I liked it, but with caution. Many readers will be unable to both appreciate the author's loss and keep in mind the context of these types of works. It all just bleeds together to them.
Oh right, and we need the ocean as a carbon sync and it generates most of the oxygen on the planet.
But yeah, it's all about the art. Nothing to do with the ocean being an incredibly complicated delicate life support system for the planet that we are breaking...
[On the same trip 10 years earlier] "There was not one of the 28 days on that portion of the trip when we didn't catch a good-sized fish to cook up and eat with some rice," Macfadyen recalled.
But this time, on that whole long leg of sea journey, the total catch was two.
No fish. No birds. Hardly a sign of life at all.
They observed a trawler going back and forth day and night across a reef and later the same trawler offered them buckets of fish...
"They told us that his was just a small fraction of one day's by-catch. That they were only interested in tuna and to them, everything else was rubbish. It was all killed, all dumped. They just trawled that reef day and night and stripped it of every living thing."
I read the article and realized that it had a completely different meaning to me than the average HN reader. I felt it might be interesting to share. If nothing else, the responses should be instructive.
If your value for the ocean is "it must support the life of humanity" then that's fine. Just come out and say it. Of course the next step in the conversation is what, exactly, is required for the ocean to do to support life. That's where it starts getting more tricky.
I think the problem here is that writers such as this are asking folks to have a religious experience -- to feel a sort of transcendence or guilt that doesn't have to be explicitly defined or looked at too closely. Therefore anybody can read the article, feel guilt and anguish, and join in the emotional fun. Hey, who wants to nuke the ocean, kill the fish, and fill it full of garbage? Nobody, that's who. That's the troll, not my analysis of the piece.
It's like humor. Once you start to really look at it, it goes away. A good sign you're having your chain yanked.
I shared my opinion because articles like this only serve to gin up mobs. Take a look at some of the comments. You'll have free marketers talking about the people that were fed, green earth types venting over the damage to mother earth, and so on. Not much in the way of actual analysis aside from just reassuring each other of our mutual shared subjective values, no matter which ones they are. Just noise.
I would have flagged it, but, as I said, it has artistic value. I could really feel I was there on the guy's voyage. However your point is valid. My honest reaction seems to have generated plenty of disgust. So I invite fellow HNers to just take a look around. I've shared my reaction to the piece. It's emotionally manipulative, but that's okay -- as long as you understand what it's doing. But for you personally, is this a useful article for the site or not?
Also striking is the lack of photos - I suspect it wasn't literally "like sailing through a garbage tip" (as opposed to occasional debris, much more than usual).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_of_the_Atlantic_north...
In the 1990s the Northern Cod populations collapsed to less than 1% and after a 20+ year moratorium on fishing has only increased to 10% of its historical stock.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isla_de_basura
The Soviets used to dump scrap ship reactors into the Arctic Ocean whole. Many of them, and over a long period of time.
I don't have an exact number for this reactor, but several sources indicate that nuclear reactors have something of the order of 100 tonnes of uranium in them (there are also fission products, of course, but those are in much smaller quantities).
The oceans have about 4.5 billion metric tons of uranium in them from natural sources.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/nuclear/nuclear-fuel-from-th...
It should be clear that even if you ground up the entire Fukushima reactor into a fine powder and dumped it straight into the ocean, it wouldn't make the slightest difference.
Can a reactor disaster pollute the local region, including ground water? Certainly.
Can a reactor disaster make a significant difference in something the volume of the Pacific Ocean? No, it's sheer nonsense.
The ocean already has 4.5 billion tonnes of uranium in it. That's the equivalent of 45 MILLION reactors.
And of course the Fukushima reactor wasn't dumped in the ocean whole to begin with.
http://apps.seattletimes.com/reports/sea-change/2013/sep/11/...
http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2013/10/ocean-acidification-an...
http://blogs.seattletimes.com/seachange/2013/10/12/expert-cr...