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05/23/2012 06:09:51 PM · #1 |
Very moving film about a really horrible reality... Midway
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05/23/2012 06:23:35 PM · #2 |
That's heart-wrenching. And incredibly effective; with no sound and no captions, I still get the message.
R.
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05/23/2012 07:41:31 PM · #3 |
Heart-wrenching indeed. Not much more to say than that.
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05/23/2012 09:24:56 PM · #4 |
| I read awhile back that the gyre is so expansive that even if all countries banded together and were willing to clean it up, it is simply beyond any feasible means to do so, regardless of how much money could be thrown at it. |
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05/23/2012 09:35:05 PM · #5 |
| I've seen something similar to this before. It is heart breaking. |
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05/23/2012 09:48:31 PM · #6 |
this is why I don't litter...I don't throw anything out the window or anything....
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05/23/2012 09:52:57 PM · #7 |
During the Vietnam War I spent 10 weeks on Midway, a 1 mile by 1/2 mile sand dune in the middle of the Pacific. The only joyous memory I have of that is watching the albatross go through the entire cycle of mating, raising young and teaching them to take off and fly. It is so sad to see what we have done to our environment and the impacts it is having, many of them site unseen. Ever since the Navy gave over the island I have wanted to go back, despite the waste we left behind, and see those birds again. I'm still hoping that they reinstate the ecological tours there soon.
Thank you for posting this.
edit: Looks like they have reinstated ecotours. Maybe 2013 will be for me.
Message edited by author 2012-05-23 22:09:30. |
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05/24/2012 01:55:16 AM · #8 |
| Is most/any/all of that Japanese tsunami debris? Or was this from before? |
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05/24/2012 12:10:33 PM · #9 |
Originally posted by Art Roflmao:
Is most/any/all of that Japanese tsunami debris? Or was this from before? |
Been going on for years. There is a small planet size flotilla of junk floating around out in the Pacific. Marine traffic has to avoid the area it is so bad. Some areas still barge their waste out to sea and dump it thinking it will just disappear. Parts of the US did so until only a few years ago. |
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05/24/2012 09:11:27 PM · #10 |
That was a heartbreaking video. It is one of those things that consumes your thoughts for days after watching. At first I wondered if the birds were choosing to eat that stuff or whether their alternative food sources have dried up. After following up some Wikipedia links, it seems that the water is so full of this crap that birds would be hard pressed not to swallow some every time they suck in a beak full even if they are trying to catch legitimate food. It is a tragedy, and one wonders how long it will take to extinguish many species.
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05/24/2012 09:33:21 PM · #11 |
| If you don't feel moved after seeing that, you are not human! |
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05/24/2012 10:03:24 PM · #12 |
Originally posted by jbsmithana:
Originally posted by Art Roflmao:
Is most/any/all of that Japanese tsunami debris? Or was this from before? |
Been going on for years. There is a small planet size flotilla of junk floating around out in the Pacific. Marine traffic has to avoid the area it is so bad. Some areas still barge their waste out to sea and dump it thinking it will just disappear. Parts of the US did so until only a few years ago. |
It's not even *mostly* waste dumped off ships, either. It's just all the plastic waste in the world that goes down rivers, onto beaches, into the sea, and eventually ends up parked there in the gyre, where it cannot escape. This has been a known phenomenon for decades, and it is getting worse and worse. There seems to be absolutely nothing that can be done to fix it.
This gyre is HUGE, it's continent-size; and it's not the only one; there's another in the pacific, there's one in the Atlantic, I know of at least those three :-(
It's the freaking PLASTIC, see? It doesn't bio-degrade. It breaks down from exposure to sunlight, but not into its component chemicals, just into smaller and smaller pieces. The layer of junk is like 100 feet deep. It's not even that obvious over most of the surface, because the pieces are mostly so small...
R.
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05/24/2012 10:52:45 PM · #13 |
Originally posted by Bear_Music:
Originally posted by jbsmithana:
Originally posted by Art Roflmao:
Is most/any/all of that Japanese tsunami debris? Or was this from before? |
Been going on for years. There is a small planet size flotilla of junk floating around out in the Pacific. Marine traffic has to avoid the area it is so bad. Some areas still barge their waste out to sea and dump it thinking it will just disappear. Parts of the US did so until only a few years ago. |
It's not even *mostly* waste dumped off ships, either. It's just all the plastic waste in the world that goes down rivers, onto beaches, into the sea, and eventually ends up parked there in the gyre, where it cannot escape. This has been a known phenomenon for decades, and it is getting worse and worse. There seems to be absolutely nothing that can be done to fix it.
This gyre is HUGE, it's continent-size; and it's not the only one; there's another in the pacific, there's one in the Atlantic, I know of at least those three :-(
It's the freaking PLASTIC, see? It doesn't bio-degrade. It breaks down from exposure to sunlight, but not into its component chemicals, just into smaller and smaller pieces. The layer of junk is like 100 feet deep. It's not even that obvious over most of the surface, because the pieces are mostly so small...
R. |
I believe their are five gyre in the oceans of the world. The one in the Pacific seems to be the worst due to the strength of the currents so it collects the most junk. I've read stories from round the world mariners who have passed through the area and they are all astonished by the magnitude as well as how much stuff is in there, whole refrigerators in some cases. Anyone interested only needs to do a search using junk, gyre and Pacific and you will get multiple hits going back decades as Bear says. Even those who want to clean it up say it is now impossible and can only be kept from getting bigger by reducing our plastic waste. Hawaii has banned all one use plastic bags from the stores there. I believe LA also did recently. It is getting some attention but there are many nay-sayers. Out of sight out of mind.
Message edited by author 2012-06-18 19:33:49. |
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