As scientist Jim Lovelock observed, "Although the weight of the Oceans is 250 times that of the atmosphere, it is only one part in 4,000 of the weight of the Earth."
1/4000 = 0.00025
Therefore, only 0.025% of Earth's mass is Water. Yet we tend to think of our Oceans as vast and an endless resource, free to everyone.
Scientists also point out, "If the Earth were a globe 12 inches in diameter, the average depth of the ocean would be no more than the thickness of a piece of paper, and even the Deepest Ocean Trench would only be a tiny dent, one third of a millimeter deep. (0.3 mm = 0.01 in)
Since the Ocean's mass is 0.025% that of Earth's, our Oceans can more accurately be appreciated as the priceless reservoirs they are, the only living Oceans in the entire universe. Mars might have some frozen mud.
Knowing the Earth's "surface" is 70.8% water, often leads a popular conclusion... there might be more Ocean than Earth, so... "dilution is the solution" for pollution.
Unfortunately, this popular "solution" is LEGAL and leads to the global assumption... that pollution might be absorbed and simply rendered harmless... within the Ocean's vastness.
Millions of Tons of toxic chemicals are discarded into rivers worldwide, while the industry leaders "cross their fingers" in a futile false hope that the chemicals will quietly be absorbed by the living Oceans.
To compound the problem, millions of tons of plastic, also dumped 24/7, by the barge load, into our Oceans, does not "break down" for almost 1000 years, but it does break into tiny bits of plastic "dust" or "snow. Then the PCB's, that are now major contaminants in the Ocean, are attracted to the plastic bits like a magnetic sponge. Marine animals can't differentiate the plastic snow from plankton, so they eat the plastic bits, and become toxic with PCB's, causing immune system failure.
As the toxins slowly distribute worldwide by the Ocean's conveyer belt currents, the entire food chain is affected, from the tiny coral polyps that make world's largest reefs, to whales feeding on plankton and other particles suspended in the water column, including PCB laden plastic "snow".
An impairment to the immune systems of living creatures is being observed globally, from the tiny coral polyps, to the giant killer whales, and finally the humans themselves, seated at the top of the food chain, consuming industrial leftovers that will not bio-degrade in nature for thousands of years.
ATSDR points out that every child born from a mother who consumed Great Lakes fish during their pregnancies were three times (3X) more likely to have lower IQs and twice (2X) as likely to be TWO grade levels behind their peers in reading comprehension. Other studies have shown children who's mothers consumed PCB-contaminated fish had lower birth rates, reduced motor reflexes and neuromuscular function, poor short-term and long-term memory, weakened immune systems and greater susceptibility to infections, among other problems.
Now tons of the sludge from water treatment plants, also containing PCB's, are being dumped onto agricultural land. Scientists are scrambling just to name the new diseases as they discover them and counting the countless number of species that just became extinct, while the oil emperors fiddle in the stock market, making new world record profits.
I know this is hard to believe, it was for me too, so just Google it.
As a free nation... we the people... have spent more of our own tax dollars for exploring remote areas of outer space and the mud on Mars than protecting the only "Living Oceans" in the entire universe while the planet becomes less inhabitable for humans. Who is really steering this over-heating planet, big business persons? Is bowing to the $tock market index given a higher priority than the World's Ocean Health index in Washington?
As we awaken to the collapse of our Oceans, we begin to see the consequences of giving the "green light" to industry for dumping millions of tons of "known toxins" into the only known living Oceans in the entire universe.
At age thirteen, Jacques-Yves Cousteau's book, "The Silent World" was presented to me by my scuba instructor, when I was first certified as a scuba diver. I was thrilled with swimming and breathing underwater, enjoying a view of nature referred to as the "Silent World."
Today, Jacques-Yves Cousteau must be looking down on the Oceans, and the dying coral reefs, with salty tears in his eyes.
amazing... the following article says it all... and it comes from
the Odesy while in Spain, in the Canary Islands.
Log Transcript
---------------------------
This is "Genevieve Johnson" speaking to you from the Odyssey in the Canary Islands.
When I reflect on our time researching at sea over the past five years, two unrelated things stand out - whales and plastics.
Even in the most remote regions of the ocean, plastics are guaranteed. Unfortunately, the relationship between plastics and all marine life is far more intricate than most of us could possibly imagine.
Until now, no studies were conducted on filter-feeding organisms, whose feeding mechanisms do not permit them to distinguish between tiny fragments of plastic debris and plankton, and no studies to assess potential effects on these filter-feeders.
It is now known that plastic fragments heavily impact these creatures.
When broken into smaller pieces, these tiny plastic fragments accumulate non-water soluble toxicants such as PCB's, and pesticides such as DDT.
Plastic polymers, or tiny plastic resin pellets act as sponges for these chemicals and other persistent organic pollutants, concentrating such poisons up to one million times higher than their concentration in the water as free floating substances.
The implications and scope of the problem is astounding ...
The facts are daunting and the future looks grim. Captain Moore and his colleagues currently predict a 10-fold increase in plastic in the ocean by 2010 bringing the ratio of 60 pounds of surface plastic to every one pound of zooplankton in the North Pacific gyre.
link to article:
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link to my graphic animation describing this exact same scenario:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://opendoorworld.com/website/test.html
Online course on climate change (UNU.edu)
Dr. Paul Desanker of Pennsylvania State University launched this course for its balanced perspective and for enabling better dissemination of information produced by IPCC and others such as UNEP.
After decades of human abuse, the world's oceans are in a state of "silent" collapse.
The complete report to Congress, issued by the Pew Oceans Commission, a bipartisan, independent group, is the most comprehensive look at all aspects of ocean health in 30 years.
After a multi-year assessment, the commission concluded that the loss of ocean life reaches far inland, threatening jobs, cultures, ecosystems and more.
Scientists estimate 1,000 whales, dolphins and porpoises drown every day after becoming tangled in fishing nets and other fishing gear, however... in reality, the figures are probably at least 10 times that amount. MarineConnection.org
An estimated 50,000 critically endangered sea turtles are caught each year as "by-catch". Panda.org article
Turtle Excluder Device's reduce the unwanted "by-catch", that is "normally", killed and tossed overboard, in quantities routinely estimated to be anywhere between 2 and 10 times greater than the "wanted catch". NOAA.GOV OceanConservancy.org
Turn the Tide, and make a positive impact on the environment. Aqua.org
Up to 1.5 million pounds of PCBs were dumped into the Hudson River alone.
In the 1970s, 17 million tons of industrial waste was legally dumped into the ocean.
In the 1980s, 8 million tons were dumped including acids, alkaline waste, scrap metals, waste from fish processing, flue desulphurization, sludge, and coal ash. (mercury)
James Connaughton, head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, counters that the Bush administration has promised, to announce, some regulations, aimed at, restricting mercury emissions from coal ash plants, which he calls a "world first."
The plan, which follows years of delays and lawsuits, is expected to include market-based trading of pollution credits among utilities and won't be implemented fully until 2018.
Where in the world was our government while profiteers dumped millions of tons of carcinogenic chemicals into "The Silent World" of dolphins, whales and salmon.
Will the corporations ever be forced to return an effective portion of the profits, to cure the illness dumped into our environment for their profit.
Will anyone be able to cure the cancers caused in humans who consume seafood, present and future.
New research finds: Soil samples with high PCB levels were collected at Ettie Street, at site SCV001 in the South Bay [19] and near Stege Marsh in Richmond [18] indicate that the storm drain system does contain sediments contaminated with Σ PCBs and mercury; contaminated storm drain sediments have also been detected at local military bases (K. Abu-Saba, SFBRWQCB, personal communication).
PCB's appear to "cling" to billions of tons of plastic that has polluted the Oceans.
Chemicals "stick" to the plastics as they move through the environment. That's a problem, because many forms of marine life, including fishes, seabirds, turtles and others, eat bits of plastic, either inadvertently as part of their regular feeding, or because they mistake bits of plastic for real food.
The researchers collected plastics, mainly polyethylene and polypropylene, from beaches in the Hawaiian archipelago, California, Mexico, from the puked-up stomach contents of seabirds, and from the surface of the North Pacific. They also collected samples from outdoor industrial sites like Mainland railyards where plastics were spilled during loading.
The plastic debris was then tested for the chemical pollutants. There was detectable DDT from Kualoa Beach on O'ahu, detectable PCBs on Kamilo Beach on the Big Island, and detectable PAH and PCB on samples from Tern Island on French Frigate Shoals in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.
The levels of PCBs at Tern Island was the highest found in any of the samples in the study. Tern Island has a documented PCB problem, associated with a landfill dating to the period when the island was used as a US Coast Guard LORAN station.
The authors of this paper say the plastic debris seems to "absorb, accumulate and transport persistent organic pollutants."
"These plastics are important point sources carrying (persistent organic pollutants)," the researchers write. And they're problems not only for the creature that eats the plastic, but then for the creatures that eat those creatures, and the ones that eat them...
Scientists find substance linked to diseases in dolphins
BY JIM WAYMER
FLORIDA TODAY
Scientists have discovered chemicals used to fireproof plastics and products in the blood and blubber of bottlenose dolphin in the Indian River Lagoon.
They don't yet know for certain how the chemicals got there, but they suspect they could be playing a role in the new diseases, such as herpes, that are attacking the marine mammals.
"The data suggests at this point that these flame retardants suppress a part of the immune system that makes antibodies," said Greg Bossart, one of the researchers who made the discovery.
"There's a potential of opening up these animals to a Pandora's box of diseases."
Bossart and his colleagues found flame retardants called polybrominated diphenyl ethers or PBDEs in tests of dolphin in the lagoon and in Charleston Harbor, S.C.
They measured mean levels of total PBDEs in lagoon dolphin at about 1,500 parts per billion in fat tissue, more than three times the highest levels found in humans, 500 parts per billion.
The EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) requires industrial facilities of a certain size
and in certain sectors to report annual discharges of about 650 chemicals and chemical
categories (e.g., arsenic and “arsenic compounds”) sent to publicly owned treatment
works. These 650 substances represent only a portion of the more than 75,000 chemicals
registered in the United States for commercial use.
Going beyond the issue of marine mammals, one must be concerned about the chilling effect when capable government scientists see scientific data ignored or distorted in order to support a political agenda.
Fear of retaliation may make them reluctant to offer frank and honest advice.
One need only mention here the case of Dr. William Happer, the widely respected chief scientist of the Department of Energy, who was fired when he called for measurements of UV radiation to put the ozone depletion theory to test.
and chemical compounds can be found in sewage sludge, and scientists are developing 700 to 1,000 new chemicals per year.
Stephen Lester of the Citizens Clearinghouse for Hazardous Wastes has compiled information from researchers at Cornell University and the American Society of Civil Engineers showing that sludge typically contains the following toxins:
In addition, a 1994 investigation by the US General Accounting Office found that "the full extent of the radioactive contamination of sewage sludge, ash and related by-products nationwide is unknown." Most of the radioactive material is flushed down the drain by hospitals, businesses and decontamination laundries, a practice which has contaminated at least nine sewage plants in the past decade. [12]
In 1977, EPA Administrator Douglas Costle estimated that by 1990 treatment plants would be generating 10 million tons of sludge per year, a thought that "gives us all a massive environmental headache." [13]
Today there are about 15,000 publicly-owned wastewater treatment works in the United States, discharging approximately 26 billion gallons per day of treated wastewater into lakes, streams and waterways. Before treatment, this wastewater contains over a million pounds of hazardous components. Sewage plants use heat, chemicals and bacterial treatments to detoxify 42 percent of these components through biodegradation.
Another 25 percent escapes into the atmosphere, and 19 percent is discharged into lakes and streams. The remaining 14 percent -- approximately 28 million pounds per year -- winds up in sewage sludge. [14]
Once created, this sludge must be disposed of in some fashion. The available methods include: incineration (which releases pollution into the air), dumping into landfills (which is expensive, and often lets contaminants leach into groundwater), and ocean dumping (where it has created vast underwater dead seas). A fourth approach -- gasification, using sludge to generate methanol or energy -- is favored by EPA's Hugh Kaufman as the "most environmentally sound approach, but also the most expensive." [15]
A fifth approach -- using sludge as plant fertilizer -- was considered hazardous to health and the environment until the 1970s, but it has the advantage of being inexpensive.
As budget concerns mounted in the late 1970s, the EPA began to pressure sewage plants to adopt the cheapest method available -- spreading sludge on farm fields. [16]
The Once and Future Circulation of the Ocean
and how they could cause climate changes in the future.
To examine the ocean’s role in climate change, scientists use computer models that simulate the workings of Earth’s ocean and climate. The models point to a possible “switch” that speeds up or slows down a global system of ocean currents that transports heat and warms the North Atlantic region and surrounding continents. It seems likely that any changes in the rate or strength of this circulation would have substantial impacts on Earth's climate.
(November 16, 2006. Source: Oceanus – WHOI. Story by: Jerry McManus, Delia Oppo. http://www.whoi.edu/)
We the people... are the only ones
who will help to stop the industrial strength
polluting of our oceans
October 10, 2007
Leachate is formed when water passes through the waste in the landfill cell. The precipitation can be from rain, melted snow or the waste itself.
Leachate is being pumped into oceans. Leachate is medical and industrial waste from incinerators and includes plastics.
The Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), the state agency, prohibits the disposal of leachate into the ground where its toxicity causes damage. Therefore, North Marion County Disposal Facility pays Georgia Pacific (GP) $800,000 to dump their leachate into our ocean along with the pulp waste from the mill in Toledo.
If leachate poisons the ground, what makes us think it does no harm to the ocean?
My information indicates that the ocean dead zone and the leachate dumping off Oregon’s coast have been occurring for the past six years and steadily increasing in size and severity.
When GP exceeded the Zone of Initial Dilution in their permit, the DEQ, rather than placing any censure on GP, just increased the size of the zone.
If ground pollution endangers our health, wouldn’t water pollution have the same effect on marine life? No matter how you look at it, pollution is pollution, and it kills.
The DEQ claims that the low oxygen levels in the ocean are not caused by pollution. But DEQ does not have a good record in protecting us from pollutants. Also dead zones are occurring on a global scale and DEQ does not look at this on a global level.
It does not matter if we are not the only cause of the pollution to the ocean. We, you and I, have the power to at least put a stop to our part in it. Maybe if we are successful, others might see the results and become encouraged to help put a stop to this pollution. Your help is needed. Do not retreat.
Exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls before birth may reduce children’s thymus size and disturb protective immunity
Hints from animal studies that polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) could damage an essential immune organ are now beginning to be borne out in humans. Hye-Youn Park and colleagues show that the presence of these persistent chemicals in the blood during pregnancy is associated with a reduced thymus organ in newborns, pointing to possible immune system damage.
"Our results provide the first evidence to date that higher prenatal PCB exposures are associated with a smaller thymic index at birth, which may imply impaired thymus development in utero,” write the authors in Environmental Health Perspectives this week.
PCBs were used for decades, mainly in the electrical industry, before their ban in many industrial countries more than 30 years ago. But they tend to endure in the environment and can build up in the human body. They can be toxic to various organs and may be linked to some cancers.
To see whether there was any effect on the development of the thymus in humans, the research team measured 15 PCBs in maternal blood at delivery, and estimated thymus size for their neonates a few days later using a standard measure, the thymic index. On average, a jump from the lowest to the highest 10% of PCB levels corresponded to a 7% drop in thymic index, regardless of other factors that could affect the association.
The participants lived in two districts of eastern Slovakia with substantially different PCB levels in the local environment. Knowing the mother’s district of residence could predict thymic index in these infants. The blood levels measured in the study suggest a high PCB exposure in the area, according to the authors.
The thymic index does not directly indicate whether the immune system can function well, explains Rodney Dietert, Professor of Immunotoxicology at Cornell University in the state of New York. But it is a reasonable measure because thymus size reflects the number of cells needed to build-up the body’s defences in early life or adulthood. So, significant changes of thymus size at birth suggest a higher chance that related immune functions will be impaired.
"Because critical developmental events occur within the thymus in early life, disruption of thymic-dependent maturational events can lead to an increased risk of immunosuppression and/or autoimmune and allergic disease,” Dietert says.
"The results of this paper alone do have significance in suggesting that human gestational exposure to PCBs could alter the thymus and potentially impair thymic-dependent immune capacity,” he adds. Moreover, they assume greater importance in light of other research that shows that a child’s reduced response to vaccination was predicted by PCB levels in the mother’s umbilical cord blood.
"The present study provides a physical measure of the thymus near birth that is likely associated with the PCB-impaired vaccine responses seen [in the previous study],” according to Dietert. "Note, both studies demonstrated that in utero PCB exposure is a critical consideration.” Findings for other persistent pollutants also suggest that exposure before birth is more important than contemporary levels of a chemical.
References and links
1. Park HY, Hertz-Picciotto I, Petrik J, Palkovicova L, Kocan A, and Trnovec T. Prenatal PCB exposure and thymus size at birth in neonates in eastern Slovakia. Environ Health Perspect 2007. doi:10.1289/ehp.9769
Food web-specific biomagnification of persistent organic pollutants
Author(s) Kelly BC, Ikonomou MG, Blair JD, Morin AE, Gobas FA
Institution School of Resource and Environmental Management, Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Drive, Burnaby, British Columbia, V5A 1S6, Canada.
Abstract Substances that accumulate to hazardous levels in living organisms pose environmental and human-health risks, which governments seek to reduce or eliminate. Regulatory authorities identify bioaccumulative substances as hydrophobic, fat-soluble chemicals having high octanol-water partition coefficients (K(OW))(>/=100,000). Here we show that poorly metabolizable, moderately hydrophobic substances with a K(OW) between 100 and 100,000, which do not biomagnify (that is, increase in chemical concentration in organisms with increasing trophic level) in aquatic food webs, can biomagnify to a high degree in food webs containing air-breathing animals (including humans) because of their high octanol-air partition coefficient (K(OA)) and corresponding low rate of respiratory elimination to air. These low K(OW)-high K(OA) chemicals, representing a third of organic chemicals in commercial use, constitute an unidentified class of potentially bioaccumulative substances that require regulatory assessment to prevent possible ecosystem and human-health consequences.
A small Green Sea Turtle was found along a
rock wall near the Dive In dive center in Key
Largo, completely covered with thick, black
oil. The baby turtle was rescued, using
mayonnaise (which dissolves the oil without
harming the turtle)
www.TurtleHospital.org
CO2 is now absorbed into the Oceans, causing acidification and potentially toppling food chain domino #1, the plankton.
Ocean "acidification" occurs when chemical compounds such as carbon dioxide, sulfur, or nitrogen mix with seawater, a process which lowers the pH and reduces the storage of carbon.
Ocean acidification hampers the ability of marine organisms—such as sea urchins, corals, and certain types of plankton—to harness calcium carbonate for making hard outer shells or "exoskeletons." These organisms provide essential food and habitat to other species, so their demise could affect entire ocean ecosystems.
Earth's rivers polluted with cancinogenic chemicals
Wed Oct 10, 2007 3:11pm EDT
www.reuters.com
PARIS (Reuters) - Rivers in eastern and northern France found to be contaminated with chemicals that have been outlawed since 1987 and are proving very hard to eliminate, the government reported on Wednesday.
The River "Rhone" which runs through the southeastern corner of France (scientists said) contained dangerous levels of polychlorinated biphenyls ( PCB / PCBs ).
The latest report said additional rivers were in an even worse condition because of industrial dumping dating back decades, including the River Seine which runs through Paris.
"It's a huge clean-up job," Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, the secretary of state for ecology, told a news conference. Other big rivers in Europe are affected by the same problem, she said.
PCB's were used primarily as a cooling and insulating fluid for electricity transformers and capacitors. It has been banned in France since 1987 after research showed it could cause fertility, growth and cancer in humans.
Kosciusko-Morizet said PCB had been very heavily used in industry since the 1930s and France was suffering the consequences of long-standing pollution.
"Cleaning it up is far from easy. It's very complicated because there are huge amounts of sediment." She said it would be technically and economically impossible to clean up the whole Rhone River... (... what about the Ocean?)
Here is the PCB problem
.... connecting the dots .....
with plastic pollution....
=============-------..-------===============
( text_insert )
"Alguita, the oceanic research vessel from Algalita, just came back from one of its research expeditions in the Pacific Gyre, an area of the Pacific Ocean otherwise known as the Garbage Patch. They collected samples on the surface of the ocean and found evidence of record high concentrations of small plastic particles.
Birds and fish eat the plastic because it mimics the food they eat, zooplankton. Research data from the Algalita Foundation shows plastic particles outnumber zooplankton 6 to 1. Especially concerning is the fact that the plastic pieces can attract and hold hydrophobic elements like PCB and DDT at up to one million times background levels. As a result, this floating plastic is a "poison pill".
... so... the "easy" solution would simply be to get industry to stop
dumping millions of tons of toxins into the rivers/oceans....
( ... going back 50 years or so... )
... then just get the entire world to stop using plastic 'once',
and tossing it into the garbage/oceans....
... that will probably be about as easy as
oh... maybe stopping the use of fossil fuels...
then we can get back to work on that little global warming "issue".... :-)
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