The ocean is broken

The ocean is broken

Yahoo News!

If we didn't have a clear understanding what we, the people, of the earth, have done to our habitat before, this article written by Greg Ray of the The Newcastle Herald and reposted in Yahoo News! should clearly tell us. It tells the story of sailor, Ivan Macfadyen who retraced a route from Melbourne, Australia to Osaka, Japan and what he found during his travels.

IT was the silence that made this voyage different from all of those before it.

And why was it so quiet?

No fish. No birds. Hardly a sign of life at all.

The cause was a complete shock to the veteran sailor. Fishing trawlers working day and night were emptying the area of all fish, killing and dumping what they didn't want. In essence, killing the ocean.

The article's own words best express this next part of the story:

If that sounds depressing, it only got worse. The next leg of the long voyage was from Osaka to San Francisco and for most of that trip the desolation was tinged with nauseous horror and a degree of fear.

All the horrible things that have been described about the tsunami of Japan, have been nothing compared to the reality described in the article. The oil slicks, plastic, metal, power poles and other refuse of civilization washed out to sea is spread from Osaka to San Francisco, which was the next part of the trek.

Read the article to learn more about this horrific 28 day trip in early 2013. Ivan Macfadyen and his yachting friends are not giving up on the ocean, though, they plan on fighting to revive and save this beautiful part of our earth, anyway they can.

reply to post by BearTruth


This may sound stupid but can they outlaw all fishing for a period of time to let the oceans replenish itself? How long would it take? I love my seafood but I would gladly give it up for however many years it took.

reply to post by catfishjoe


I don't know, but if they don't do something, and soon, I am afraid that it will be too late for many species. There will, of course, always be something that fills the void eventually, but it won't be the fish species that we have relied upon for centuries, and it will have a direct impact on our diets where seafood is concerned.

Over fishing has been condemned for a long time by the conservancy groups for this very reason, but, of course, it was said they were just being overly protective, by those who make their profits from the business.

This is more than a shame.

BT

The ocean isn't broken...it's fubar'ed.
Rainbows
Jane

Pollution, garbage, radiation, greed.

Sounds like a death-knell mix.

angelchemuel
The ocean isn't broken...it's fubar'ed.

Rainbows
Jane

Fubar'ed indeed. Things are always best hidden in plain sight, especially when they are in the middle of thousands of miles of ocean. The thing is, the ocean always eventually gives the garbage back. We will git ours.

BT

I'm sure over fishing is the main cause. But how big of an impact would the fukishima fallout have caused by now? How much commercial fishing is out the middle of the Pacific? I don't know much about it but I'm not sure i want to believe it's really that dead all the way from Japan to California.

reply to post by intrptr


I agree with you intrptr. It is a death knell for many parts of the ocean, and who knows where it will stop. I refuse to say if.

BT

Thanks for sharing.

For a long time I was a "vegetarian" who ate fish occasionally (a pescatarian, I suppose).

However, what I saw in a documentary about the sea really made rethink that position.

It's just a crying shame how they catch tons of fish and sea creatures that they can't even use, and then they throw them back into the ocean - dead!

I mean that's so unnecessary, if they could just stop that it would be a great help.

Seemingly what happens to big, arguably sentient fish at sea is worse than factory farms.

It makes me ashamed to be a human being.

The health magazines and trendy sushi bars all push the advantages of eating fish (although you can also get some fat parasitic worms).

But they rarely push the ocean as a non-renewable resource.

In SA seafood used to be for mainly the poor people, but now it's so expensive that the poor have been totally cut off from anything but imported sardines.

Our oceans are being fished empty.
It's a sad fact.

SeeEm
I'm sure over fishing is the main cause. But how big of an impact would the fukishima fallout have caused by now? How much commercial fishing is out the middle of the Pacific? I don't know much about it but I'm not sure i want to believe it's really that dead all the way from Japan to California.

Well, we have been over fishing for a very long time. There have been fishing limits on US fleets, but many other country's do not have the same kinds of limits.

As far as the Fukishima fall out, two and a half years of radiation feeding into the pacific plus all the pollution from the tsunami pollution had to have some effect on the ocean. And due to the North Pacific Gyre, that radiation flows from Japan directly to the West Coast of the United States, so it is quite possible that the radiation and pollution has had an adverse effect on the sea life.

Radiation exposure is quickly fatal close up. Particulate exposure over the long term will still kill you it just takes a little longer for the cancer and lukemia to take hold. These will show up at varying times after exposure. This is true for all fish and mammals to my understanding. And the particulates also contaminate the animals so they are unfit as a food source.

So there are lots of negatives here.

BT

halfoldman

It makes me ashamed to be a human being.

Our oceans are being fished empty.
It's a sad fact.

I agree with everything you said, but these things even more so.

BT

It's a damn shame, too.

I watched an Eye-opening Vice documentary about the damage humans have caused to the planet, - particularly the ocean.

The furthest point from civilization on the planet, and it's absolutely riddled with evidence of the presence of its human inhabitants.



^I recommend the above video to anybody interested.

It makes you wonder - if this planet were to be rediscovered; long after humans; either by humans or something else... what will they find?, will they find fossilized bottles? Etc. - what will they conclude about this 'advanced' civilization in the distant future? The same way we speculate about past civilizations, what will they think of this one?

Hmm... One can only imagine... Lol.

That's what they want you to believe. That's how they make they're money, like climate scientists, they MAKE STUFF up, and the lie about it for years, and when they finally get caught they say "It was all about the children" and then they cook up they're next scam. Mother Nature is designed to kill us, and there is no escape. The only difference between the Human race and ANY other creature living on this planet? We build space ships, they can't, and we should leave them behind when we leave. Survival of the fittest after all.

iunlimited491

I watched an Eye-opening Vice documentary about the damage humans have caused to the planet, - particularly the ocean.

The furthest point from civilization on the planet, and it's absolutely riddled with evidence of the presence of its human inhabitants.

I think we should have to clean up our messes, not just leave them. Instead of wars, we should send our ships to work the oceans and collect the plastics and metals and recycle them. We should put our scientific minds which work so hard at mastering war to work mastering the art of ocean water filtration removing the pollutants and returning them to their balance so that the sea life can once again thrive.

Once that was done, we could then farm the oceans correctly, always having an abundance of kelp, algae and sea life. If we could only learn to live as parts of the earth instead of believing we are better than and above any thing else on it we might have a chance.

BT

reply to post by tencap77


Well, I really don't want to leave, so I guess I vote for improving what we have already. And trying not to make anymore of a mess of what we already have.

BT

Very, very sad stuff.

As a long-time snorkeller and scuba diver, i'm always picking up bits of plastic and other crap as i'm cruising around in the water.

I live in Sydney, Australia and so many times I see disrespectful idiots at beaches leave all their rubbish on the beach which of course ends up back in the ocean and all over the place. Then these people wonder why the waters are so polluted...it sickens me.



How about that last comment in the article...saying that there would be more environmental damage by going out to clean it. What a load of crap...

I remember reading on here somewhere about a device someone had invented which could skim all sorts of rubbish and pollutants on the ocean surface. I hope that they get made en masse and really soon!

As for over-fishing...don't get me started.

The ocean isn't dead. This guy just has all the bad news on his brain and was noticing all of the stuff that "confirmed his fears".

That said, yeah, its getting dire. But whatever. We have screwed this planet over. Or well, we have screwed OURSELVES over. The planet will survive and will "soon" (geologically speaking) be healthy as ever.

It is easy to point fingers at things like corporate greed, but like V says, if you are looking for who is guilty, all you need do is look in the mirror.

I am ready for this charade to end. Jesus. Have we not learned enough lessons yet?

I just read an article today that the Mitsubishi Corporation (or Group), who buys up the most Bluefin Tuna from the Atlantic and Mediterrenean, is ramping up its frozen storage capacity. They are predicting that the Atlantic Bluefin tuna will be fished out of existence in a few years, so they are planning on gradually selling their inventory at VERY high prices when this occurs.
I almost fell out of my chair when I read this. A huge corporation that is involved in car manufacturing, electronics, financial, mining, pharma...etc., instead of using its pool of engineers and scientists to find a way to conserve this fish, instead is looking at means of how to buy up all the Bluefin tuna, store it, and then turn a huge profit because of market demand.

All I can do is throw my hands up in the air and just walk away. I can't get mad anymore.

reply to post by Kratos40


They were behind the zero fighter too. At one stage they were the 3rd biggest corporation in the world, GM used to be #1 at that time.
Rainbows
Jane

It is the changing of the ocean environment that is causing the decline in the water related see life. A combination of pollution, off balancing the fish populations by overfishing, moving around species of fish that do not have natural predators, and many other things. It is hard enough on the sea life with just natural causes.

We need to eat fish but we should not be overfishing areas. We need to quit adding so much concentrated and unnatural chemistry in the waters. We need to quit wasting and buying things we do not really need. We need to make things well so we do not have to keep remaking them. This is in direct opposition of consumerism though so I doubt if it will ever be fixed. I can't understand how come people are so blinded by their personal wants. Keeping up with the Jones's used to be a bad thing.