10 replies to this topic

[neodoxa]

Hey everyone,

I wasn't sure where to post this video, but I saw it and feel it's relevant.  Over-fishing and pollution are destroying one of our biggest resources... the ocean.

The alkalinity in the ocean is going down; acidity up.  Coral reefs are dying.  The ocean is at the brink.



Here is a link to a Greenpeace article on destructive fishing practices...  Bottom trawling devastates the seabed.
http://www.greenpeac...ottom-trawling/

Neodoxa

[Don]

Um, I'm not sure how to break this to you, but that's a natural phenomenon. Not the fishing, I mean, but the chemical balance of the ocean. Besides, the volume of sea water that exists is so much greater than can be easily affected in the last two hundred years, that I find it highly improbable that humans would have much of anything to do with the death of fish species - through chemical involvement.

I do agree with you on over fishing, though. I just don't think that Greenpeace is the right activist organization to get taken seriously by the corporations responsible for it.

[neodoxa]

The chemical balance of the ocean gets upset by CO2 levels in the atmosphere.  So it is not a natural phenomenon, really.  Cars, fossil fuel burning, etc. obviously increases CO2 in the air.  You can't burn millions of pounds of fossil fuels and not expect something to happen.  The ocean is acidifying at a very fast rate not consistent with natural variation in the past.

A quote from the Royal Society of the UK on ocean acidification:

"The [present] fossil fuel acidification is much faster than natural changes, and so the acid spike will be more intense than the earth has seen in at least 800,000 years."

Neodoxa

[artistry]

Thanks for the videoes. This is another example of the assault on the planet. We keep doing things which worsen, and do not help to improve conditions in the environment. There have been reports in the past, about miles and miles of trash and non-biodegradable items, spread out and floating on the top of the ocean, As far as I know, the massive floating trash pile is still floating. We are destroying ourselves in so many ways, and we as a population are not concerned enough, to do anything constructive about it. Poor oceans, poor atmosphere, and as a result poor population.

[kat74]

People thing that dumping the waste products from their factories in the oceans and rivers will not affect their life's on land, what they don't realize is that both the land and the ocean need each other. the rain which rains on the land comes from evaporation from the oceans and rivers. We have to open our eyes and see what we are doing to ourselves.

[NeilPearson]

We pull millions (if not billions) of fish out of the ocean every year.  It's not really a surprise that the big fish are disappearing.  I think it has more to do with over fishing than it does with pollution... don't get me wrong, the pollution is bad too but humans as a species have a history of hunting things to extinction (without needing pollution to help kill them)

Fish are pretty hardy for the most part... Coral, well that's another story

[criticalthinking]

If we were even eating what we fished, that would be one thing. (Not that it would solve the problem of killing off all the fish.) But instead, 80 percent of what gets caught and killed bottom trawling is thrown back into the water to rot. And it makes it so that normal fishers, who fish the way humanity used to for food, can't even catch fish unless they have one of those deep ocean vessels. What a waste!

Don, on 08 October 2011 - 06:53 AM, said:

Um, I'm not sure how to break this to you, but that's a natural phenomenon. Not the fishing, I mean, but the chemical balance of the ocean. Besides, the volume of sea water that exists is so much greater than can be easily affected in the last two hundred years, that I find it highly improbable that humans would have much of anything to do with the death of fish species - through chemical involvement.

I do agree with you on over fishing, though. I just don't think that Greenpeace is the right activist organization to get taken seriously by the corporations responsible for it.

Greenpeace successfully got both Wal Mart and Costco, the 2 largest seafood distributors in the world, to stop selling endangered fish and fish caught with unsustainable practices in their stores across the globe, just this last year.

[IndigenousShaman]

It's sad. I hear people say things like "there's no way humans could have enough impact on the planet to destroy the environment".  Really I have read that on a few message boards this past week even.  Is it blindness, stupidity, what?

Now I'm not the smartest guy in the world or anything. But to me it seems that if you notice something starting to show signs of really messing up, it's usually a good idea to stop what your doing and try and figure out what the problem is.  Not keep going on with what your doing.

[sbjc]

Yes you are right. Oceans are dying now. People are not thinking about the results and consequences of massive destruction to the oceans we have at the moment.
I think people do not know how important our oceans are. I wish our next generation can still witness the  beauty of oceans we have.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

Don, on 08 October 2011 - 06:53 AM, said:

Um, I'm not sure how to break this to you, but that's a natural phenomenon. Not the fishing, I mean, but the chemical balance of the ocean. Besides, the volume of sea water that exists is so much greater than can be easily affected in the last two hundred years, that I find it highly improbable that humans would have much of anything to do with the death of fish species - through chemical involvement.

I do agree with you on over fishing, though. I just don't think that Greenpeace is the right activist organization to get taken seriously by the corporations responsible for it.

Chemicals, waste-water, pesticides among other things are dumped into our oceans on a daily basis; so your
statement of
"I find it highly improbable that humans would have much of anything to do with the death of fish species - through chemical involvement." is not based in fact.

Article

[kels]

We as humans are adding to the issue of the big fish disappearing, for more than one reason.
One big issue in the oceans right now is eutrophication. Eutrophication is when there are too many nutrients in the water, often caused by runoff from our fields with excess fertilizer and other chemicals. These excess nutrients in the water lead to phytoplankton blooms. There are not enough natural predators to eat the phytoplankton before they die, so eventually the dead phytoplankton sink to the bottom of the ocean where they are eaten by decomposers. These decomposers use up all of the oxygen, leaving little for consumers, and therefore chasing the consumers (the fish) away. Often, these consumers cannot escape, causing many to die. This is not a natural phenomenon, and is causing issues in many parts of the world. We need to be careful about what chemicals are making their way into the ocean, as it can have harmful consequences.