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02-18-2010, 10:52 AM | #1 |
Avalon Senior Member
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: UK
Posts: 1,709
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Garbage Island...
Garbage Island... Sad!!!
What are we doing to our Once beautiful planet!! shes gonna get angry !! watch the video here... http://vimeo.com/3251574 For years we've been reading about a patch of garbage the size of Texas floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, ingeniously dubbed the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Basically, any trash that gets dumped in the water rides the currents to this one spot and joins an ever-increasing flotilla of crap. For all the breathless accounts of the mess and its impact on the area's sealife, however, no one seemed to have a picture of the buildup. In order to sate our own curiosity, VBS joined the crew of a research vessel studying the trash and sailed out into one of the most remote spots of open water in the world, the North Pacific Gyre, in search of this mythical garbage island. What we discovered once we got there was an ecological disaster beyond any of our expectations and possibly the single worst thing human beings have done to the planet and ourselves. Hope you're into cancer and sex-reversal! VBS CORRESPONDENT THOMAS MORTON: Before this trip, I was never all that crazy about the ocean. I’ve always appreciated the fact that it generates the majority of the world’s oxygen and keeps us nice and far from places like Britain, but in terms of any sort of awe or “respect” it just never happened. I would say I looked at it less as the primeval womb of all terrestrial life than as an excessive amount of water you sometimes have to fly over. Part and parcel with this was my attitude toward the Pacific Garbage Patch, or as we willfully misidentified it for the duration of our journey, the elusive Garbage Island. All the journalism I’d read about the patch had carefully danced around physical descriptions of the trash, leading myself and the rest of the shooting crew to fanciful visions of a solid, Texas-size barge of discarded Coke bottles and sporting goods. The idea that people had managed to **** up a part of the world that nobody even visits, much less inhabits, and on such a monumental scale struck me as interesting and, to be honest, slightly awesome-sounding, but at the end of the day the impact of the mess on the rest of the world failed to register. I mean, sure, sea birds choking to death on deflated balloons and sea turtles whose shells have been completely deformed by soda can rings (click here for a picture of this if you want to completely ruin your day)—all this definitely sucks, but so do a lot of things, you know? Needless to say this whole journey ended up overturning my expectations about the Garbage Patch, as well as just about every misconception I’ve ever held about the sea, environmentalism, consumption, barfing, knots, pollution, humanity, and myself. After absorbing the myriad dangers of our plastic-heavy lifestyles for three weeks, I’m now a proud, carbon-conscious “Earth Warrior” who yells at grocery clerks for double-bagging my produce and carries around one of those 70s gunnysacks to drink out of. Just kidding, although the trip did lead me to ferret out a group of non-hippie environmentalists. I also finally got into Earth Crisis. Pretty decent. viking |
02-18-2010, 01:51 PM | #2 |
Avalon Senior Member
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Northern Michigan
Posts: 412
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Re: Garbage Island...
Viking , there should be a real re-direction of focus from the global warming hoax to an intense effort to stop the garbage dumping by other countries and cruise ships and start cleaning this mess up. We as a people of the earth can be much better stewarts of the earth than we are today.
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02-18-2010, 03:03 PM | #3 | |
Avalon Senior Member
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Temiscouata
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Re: Garbage Island...
Quote:
Namaste, Steven |
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02-18-2010, 03:27 PM | #4 |
Avalon Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 1,285
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Re: Garbage Island...
What do we do about it is the real question..
What action leads to such immense change? |
02-18-2010, 03:56 PM | #5 |
Avalon Senior Member
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: UK
Posts: 1,709
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Re: Garbage Island...
Mmmm not sure if we have left it too late ... We'll keep trying hey...
heres a thought... If we just wake up one person per day and each one you woke up would do the same...then you would increase exponentially... after lets say a year...people would be out of there slumber... I have spoken to many...and they just don't get it...they are quite happy to stay in the loop, so to speak. So I wonder if we will ever get past 50% let alone 90... Yes conciousness is rising but we need more... Are you doing your bit?? viking |
02-18-2010, 04:05 PM | #6 |
Avalon Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 1,285
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Re: Garbage Island...
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02-18-2010, 04:20 PM | #7 |
Avalon Senior Member
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: UK
Posts: 1,709
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Re: Garbage Island...
Well I'm glad you are Celine...
Lets hope others are too... It's all very well coming here educating and waking up ect ect... BUT part of the deal is waking others up as well!! viking Last edited by viking; 02-18-2010 at 04:24 PM. |
02-18-2010, 05:13 PM | #8 |
Avalon Senior Member
Join Date: Sep 2009
Posts: 2,375
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Re: Garbage Island...
viking - there are people doing something about this garbage vortex.
Project Kaisei - Capturing The Pacific Garbage Vortex (07-21-2009, 09:35 AM) http://projectavalon.net/forum/showt...garbage+vortex Maybe there is more going on than people believe a surfing company involved as a sponsor, lots of cooperation. It's a massive mess, little project. If things work out there, it might help with the Indian Ocean and pharma dumping, developing techniques hope so... kelp beds need help! |
02-18-2010, 08:02 PM | #9 | |
Avalon Senior Member
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Cheyenne, Wyoming
Posts: 4
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Re: Garbage Island...
Quote:
We're making disposable items out of permanent material on a finite planet. That's guaranteed suicide. And remember - we've only been producing commercial plastics for 50 - 60 years and already we're choking the planet on our garbage. Think about that the next time you buy a bottle of water, a disposable diaper or something in a styrofoam cup. The more you contemplate the problem the more you realize that for the earth and us to stand a chance we all need to stop consuming and stop reproducing immediately. We can't think that using a canvas shopping bag is going to solve this problem. Every bottle of water, every new car, every plastic storage bin that gets purchased is another nail in all our coffins and we Americans are the worst. |
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