Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : The Environmentalist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Land Shark who wrote (34479)	7/5/2011 3:05:11 PM
From: longnshort	1 Recommendation Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 36921

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch Turns Out To Be “Grossly Exaggerated” By A Factor Of More Than 200 By P Gosselin on 5. Januar 2011 Trash washes up in Tanzania. (Photo credit: Loranchet / Wikipedia) We’ve heard about a giant patch of garbage supposedly floating out in the Pacific, yet another unmistakable sign of the scourge that man is to the planet. Read NatGeo here and The Independent here and NPR here, just to name a few. It turns out that it’s all a huge exaggeration. Caught red-handed again! Who can believe these media organizations any longer? Sadly this is routine procedure when reporting on climate change and evironment. Wikipedia here calls it the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and describes it as the Pacific Trash Vortex, which is estimated to be an area the size of the state of Texas to one larger than the continental United States. There’s just one problem, though. Wikipedia writes: Despite its size and density, the patch is not visible from satellite photography.” Hmmm. Well, there’s a good reason for that. One reason is likely because it’s a heck of a lot smaller than what we have been led to believe. Today Jürgen Schönstein has a piece at science blogs titled The garbage patch is smaller than feared. Schönstein writes that marine biologist Assistant Professor Angel White of Oregon State University has come to the conclusion that the size and growth of the patch is “grossly exaggerated by the media”: The amount of plastic out there isn’t trivial. But using the highest concentrations ever reported by scientists produces a patch that is a small fraction of the state of Texas, not twice the size.” You can read the Oregon State Univsersity press release here. Well, you might say, Texas is a big place and even a small fraction is a lot. The press release writes: The studies have shown is that if you look at the actual area of the plastic itself, rather than the entire North Pacific subtropical gyre, the hypothetically “cohesive” plastic patch is actually less than 1 percent of the geographic size of Texas.” Simple mathematics tells us that the media exaggerated the patch size by a factor of more than 200. I’m not saying there isn’t problem with marine pollution. It’s just nowhere near as bad as we are told, like many other things - climate to name one. In the end, pick up your trash and dispose of it properly. Don’t litter! White says: If there is a takeaway message, it’s that we should consider it good news that the ‘garbage patch’ doesn’t seem to be as bad as advertised,” White said, “but since it would be prohibitively costly to remove the plastic, we need to focus our efforts on preventing more trash from fouling our oceans in the first place.” One final note: Have you ever compared the aftermath of a Tea Party demonstration to the aftermath of a save-the-planet type of demonstration in terms of garbage left behind? That pretty much tells you who the real big slobs are. The same can be pretty much said about their carbon footprints too, i.e. think Gore, Hollywood, UN bureaucrats, “climate scientists” and activists flying all over the globe and living high on the hog. LIKE HERE.

To: Land Shark who wrote (34479)	7/5/2011 3:07:47 PM
From: longnshort	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 36921

Plastic-eating bacteria found in 'ocean desert,' scientist says Scientists have found an organism that may be eating plastic in the ocean, according to a report in Nature News. But whether the bug is green or mean remains to be seen, a scientist told CNN on Wednesday. It has been proven that microbes can degrade plastic, said marine microbiologist Tracy Mincer of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. What's significant is that the plastic is being degraded in a nutrient-poor area of the sea, an "ocean desert," Mincer said. The bacteria, found in a region of the North Atlantic Ocean called the Sargasso Sea, is clearly breaking down the plastic, but scientists don’t know if the byproduct is environment-friendly waste or a toxin. If the bacteria – or its waste – is consumed by larger organisms, the effects could be detrimental to aquatic life. Examining items such as a fishing line and plastic bag, Mincer discovered the living cells entrenched in the plastic, seemingly gorging on it, he told Nature News. In any event, the findings suggest the vast "garbage patches" that have been found in parts of the world's oceans and considered largely devoid of life may be full of living communities. "We are seeing the plastic particles as a type of artificial reef that certain types of microbes can colonize," Mincer said. "Since plastic has a much longer residence time in the water column than any other natural particle in the water column, this could be making a significant impact." The discovery of environs that encourage plastic-eating bacteria raises larger questions about the organisms' toll on other aquatic life, Mincer said. "One of the questions that I am interested in is: How does this artificially introduced plastic that is heavily colonized by microbes influence the rest of the water column microbial balance?" he asked. The part of the Sargasso Sea that scientists studied is depleted of phosphorous and other nutrients, Mincer said. "In other words, are the plastic colonizers stealing away phosphorous from others that would normally be receiving this share?"