Category: Environment

Visualize eight million of something, anything. Now visualize a metric ton. Now visualize eight million metric tons. That’s how much plastic enters our oceans every year. Mind boggling.

After posting last week about how just nine rivers in the world account for most of the plastics in the world’s oceans, I heard from a group called Sustainable Asia about a podcast series they’ve produced about ocean plastics, the challenges of plastics recycling, the conundrum of incineration (waste-to-energy), and the programs China is undertaking to address its role in the crisis. I listened to it over the course of a week and it was so good I’m starting over. Super recommend (though it takes a bit to really ramp up).

When people say “fossil fuels” they think of fossils, which makes them think of dinosaurs, which makes them think fossil fuels are made of dinosaurs. But that is far from truth. Actual dinosaurs make up a teeny, tiny percentage of fossil fuels, which really represent the carbon leftovers of ancient moss and other plant matter. Think of how much biomass you get when you rake leaves a few times a year. Multiply by the earth’s surface, and that by millions of years. If a few lizards found their way into the pile, fine. “May contain dinosaurs.”

95% of ocean plastics enter the water via rivers in China, India, and Africa. As important as it is to find ways to reduce our own plastic consumption/waste, and to continue finding ways to clean up the existing gyres, we need to focus on ways to help other countries improve their waste management, and to help them install massive filtration systems at the outlets of these rivers. Starting with the Yangtze.

Tardigrades, aka Waterbears, aka “Moss Piglets” (I just learned that third term while traveling in Iceland) are usually referred to as basically immortal, since they are pretty much resistant to heat, freezing, radiation, and the vacuum of space. Incredible creature, and cute too, but there’s a perception problem:

Virtually every article you read or video you see about them plays up their indestructibility without recognizing that they’re totally destructible! They’re endoskeletal but with a soft shell, which means they’re basically resistant to everything except the things that would actually kill them. In the real world, tardigrades are eaten by the millions by crabs, shrimps, slugs, snails, mites, spiders, insects, and other waterbears.

The moss piglet species strategy seems to be “Who cares about the short-term survival of most of us, as long as some of us can stick around through WWIII or the next catastrophic asteroid impact?”

Thanks TierZoo (and Milezinator for bringing this to my attention):

Spent a couple of days off the grid at Año Nuevo state park with families. The first evening, Amy and I found ourselves trudging across 1/2 mile of dunes to meet the sun just as it kissed the horizon of the sea. With a light haze blowing through the sand and tall grasses, scenery was mystical and perfect. Elephant Seals unfortunately weren’t very active when we were there – just sunbathing blobs, but neat to see anyway. Wrapped up with a hike in the foothills beneath Big Basin. Recharged!

Lots more in this Flickr set