Fragile Pt.2

In the Pacific, there is pollution that we have never seen before. Like scientists said, it is “plastic soup”. They also say that it is floating in the Pacific, and it is growing fast! And it covers an area that equals the size of the United States twice. Yes, I am talking about the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch”, as they call it. This waste in the ocean covers 500 miles in the ocean, and is off the California coast.

Charles Moore, the American oceanographer that discovered the garbage patch in 1997, thinks that about 100 million tons of waste is circulating in the region. Marcus Eriksen, research director of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation says, “It is endless for an area that is maybe twice the size as continental United States.” While the majority of the plastic comes from land, a fifth of it comes from ships.

Moore, the heir of an oil industry fortune, sold his business to become an environmental activist. He says, “Unless consumers cut back on their use of disposable plastics, the plastic stew would double in size over the next decade.” With the debris floating in the ocean, millions of seabirds and sea animals consume this waste mistakenly, dying with the plastic still in their stomachs when found. And once again, what the food chain consumes, we will eventually consume.

This next disaster is one I can relate to since it was very recent and just as disastrous as the others. On April 20th, an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig caused an oil leak that would later be called the “largest accidental oil spill in history”. It leaked for 86 days, releasing nearly five million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, surpassing the Ixtoc I in 1979, spilling out 3.3 million barrels. When it hit shore, it drove many fisherman out of business, and tourists out of vacation spots. Finally in September, the leak finally ceased, but left behind a devastated Gulf.

Scientists have said that a 22-mile-long invisible patch of oil is settled below the surface of the Gulf, and it may stay there for a long time. They also worry that it is breaking down at a slow pace, making it a looming threat to the aquatic animals. And when you expect to see big plumes in the water, there isn’t, because the small amounts of oil are too small to be seen with the naked eye, and is odorless. These areas are 3,000 to 4,000 deep, farther below the area where many fish like snapper, tuna and mackerel inhabit. But the problem comes in when smaller animals below that point migrate closer to the surface, going through the oil, and bringing nutrients to larger animals. And once again that returns to the food chain where we are affected. While the source of the problem has stopped, Samantha Joye, from the University of Georgia says, “The full environmental impacts of the spill will thus not be felt for some time.”

Now that I have very briefly went through some events that have brought devastating results on our environment, eventually affecting the human race, you can have a image of what our environment really is like right now. We take things for granted, and abuse the fragile home that we live in. Even though I did not cover every environmental disaster in the world, these five I have talked to you about show that any disaster, no matter the size, can affect our world greatly.

So my earlier observation is correct. We have people that have the power to destroy or severely weaken the world, people that do not take the first step in cleaning up leaks that continue to poison the homes near it, and people that do not try to take steps that could help oceans and animals from the harmful substances that are not degradable. If we try to help as a global movement, it is very possible that we could slowly reverse the pollutants that our environment has had to consume, and create a healthy earth for us to live on, and the other species that inhabit it.