#OccupyTheOcean

The Ocean is the single biggest feature of our planet.

From one million miles away we resemble a small blue marble, from one billion miles a pale blue dot.
The Ocean covers more than 70% of the Earth's surface, holds more than 80% of its biodiversity and 90% of its habitat.

Phytoplankton in the Ocean provide more than half of our oxygen and provides the basis of the primary protein for more than a billion people.

More than half a billion people, mostly artisanal fishers, owe their livelihoods to the seafood industry.
Humans have derived unmeasurable inspiration, joy, recreation and relaxation from the Ocean for millennia.

But WE have treated the Ocean poorly, and it's decline in recent decades has been catastrophic for our planet and its people.

WE have put too much into the Ocean, in the form of oil, sewage, fertilizers and pesticides, antibiotics, plastic pollution, noise and increasing levels of CO2.

WE have taken too much out of the Ocean by subsidizing and encouraging inefficient and destructive overfishing, bottom trawling, long-lining, purse seining, dynamite fishing, irresponsible aquaculture and illegal hunting.

WE have destroyed the edge of the ocean--places like wetlands, kelp forests, mangrove forests, river deltas, coral reefs and seagrass beds--where diversity and abundance once thrived, now turned into dead zones growing in size and number.

As a result of OUR behavior, the wildest animals and most remote beaches on the planet carry plastic in them, coral reefs are on the verge of disappearing, shark populations have been decimated, the ocean is warming and becoming more acidic and fisheries are predicted to collapse globally.

This situation will only continue to spiral downward, unless we listen, learn and change.

To slow, stop and then reverse this trend will take immediate, widespread and drastic actions, not isolated, small and incremental adjustments.

The control large corporations have over our political processes must be severed, bold legislation enacted and new behavior patterns widely adopted.

We need an Ocean Revolution.

The passionate individuals, organizations, expertise and solutions needed to do this exist around the world.

What is needed is a massive boost in personal and political will alongside strong actions and louder voices.

It is OUR coast and OUR Ocean.

The time is now to Occupy The Ocean.

[This is a living document: repost this anywhere you like, personalizing and adding to it as you will, in support of your good work for the Ocean]

Ocean Revolution Gear for Ocean Lovers

Ocean Revolution Gear for Ocean Lovers

Following this link to a message from my brother Joshua, who has created beautiful and unique Ocean Revolution belt buckles and pendants to help you support our work and look good.

Microplastics in the ocean

Are 'microplastics' marine pollutants?
Experts start to ask if tiny particles might be clogging ocean food chain

By Jessica Marshall
Discovery Channel

We've all heard about sea turtles, dolphins or seabirds dying from entanglement in six-pack rings, plastic bags or other detritus - or from bellies full of mistakenly swallowed plastic. But some marine researchers are concerned about the effect that much smaller bits of plastic may be having on the seas.

So-called "microplastics" may concentrate pollutants, be ingestible by the ocean's tiny denizens - from zooplankton to filter feeders like clams and mussels - and move up the food chain.

A group of scientists gathered this month to identify what's known about this problem and where more research is needed.

"We know that stuff breaks down, and as it breaks down, it forms smaller and smaller pieces of plastic," said workshop organizer Joel Baker of the University of Washington, Tacoma. "But there's another story, and that is that there are some processes that either purposefully or inadvertently create microplastic particles in their own right."

One such source is nurdles, the little plastic pellets used as the raw material that's molded or extruded into plastic products. A growing source is tiny plastic spheres - less than a millimeter across, and in some cases just microns in diameter - used in new industrial abrasives or in cosmetics as exfoliants, Baker said.

"Because they're used as abrasives, presumably they're pretty hard and pretty resilient to breakup," he said. "The general rule of thumb is, if it doesn't break down pretty quickly, it ends up in the ocean. We don't have any way of monitoring for them. We have no idea, really, if they're having any impact on any organisms."

Estimates of exactly how many particles are in the ocean give a wide range.

"You tend to have numbers that are much less than one per cubic meter," Baker said. "But if you do that in terms of the number of pieces per square kilometer of sea surface, it's tens of thousands."

Amphipods, lugworms, barnacles and mussels take up microplastic in aquarium experiments. Fish and birds in the wild have been found with microplastic pieces in their bodies. But the extent and effect of this ingestion is not yet known.

Plastic specks in the oceans appear to adsorb poorly water-soluble pollutants, such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and persistant pesticides like DDT. This might give creatures that ingest pellets a superdose of toxins that can accumulate up the food chain.

"There's some indication that when the animal ingests those, they not only get the physical damage to the gut, but those pollutants can desorb into the animal," said workshop participant Douglas Helton of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Marine Debris Program, in Silver Spring, Md.

On the other hand, the pellets might act like pollutant sponges that mop up the contaminants and sequester them out of harm's way, Baker said. One study presented at the meeting suggested that the amount of pollutant accumulated by one type of marine worm decreased when more plastic was added to sediment in an aquarium, suggesting the latter mechanism may work in that case.

One of the outcomes of the workshop was to identify areas where the greatest effects are likely to be seen. "There are probably areas where it floats on the surface, and those are lagoons and marshes," Baker said. "The other place is coastal urban sediments, where it has settled to the bottom."

These are good starting points for additional research, because if microplastics are causing problems, such locations should show the effects most directly, he added.

In the meantime, taking steps to reduce plastic debris - large and small - is a good idea, Helton said. "I don't think there's any right amount of plastic to dump in the ocean."

(c) 2008 Discovery Channel
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26994478/

New York Times: No More Plastic Bags

September 30, 2008
EDITORIAL
No More Plastic Bags

Westport, Conn., this month became the latest of a handful of communities to ban some plastic bags. The bags, which have only a brief, useful life, can survive forever in landfills and are of enormous concern to not only environmentalists but local officials who are running out of places to put their trash.

Westport’s ordinance will take effect in six months and applies to bags dispensed at checkout counters. Others, like dry cleaning bags, will be exempted. The aim is to reduce litter and encourage customers to tote their groceries in reusable cloth bags.

The town’s stand is laudable but will have only a limited effect on what is, after all, a statewide problem. The Connecticut Legislature rebuffed a proposed statewide ban last year. Massachusetts and Maine considered similar bans and also backed down.

Americans use and dispose of at least 100 billion bags every year. Although the plastics industry points out that plastic grocery bags are made more from natural gas than petroleum, natural gas is not a renewable resource and contributes to global warming. And about only 5 percent of all plastic bags are recycled nationwide. The rest end up in the trash, hanging in trees or floating in water where they menace marine life.

There are other possible remedies, including a constructive idea that has taken hold in Ireland. In 2002, Ireland became the first country in the world to impose a tax on plastic bags. Use of the bags dropped by 90 percent, and proceeds from the tax went to environmental causes.

If Ireland is any guide, tax laws may have greater impact on human behavior than recycling laws. Tax law could also be written to apply to an entire state, thus eliminating the need for town-by-town bans.

VOA: Volunteers clear trash

But those little bits of garbage have a huge cumulative impact. Ocean Conservancy President Vikki Spruill says every year, volunteers around the world clear away tons of trash that pose a serious threat to the marine ecosystem.

"To give a very specific example," she says, "a sandwich bag that seems innocent when it's being packed into your lunchbox, when it's discarded of improperly and ends up in our waterways and ultimately in the ocean, can be mistaken for a jellyfish. Something like a sea turtle, for example, sees that bag, eats it, and it results in death."

Read More

Walmart should do more!

Wal-Mart aims to curb plastic bag use

Fri Sep 26, 2008 12:52pm EDT

RK (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc will give out fewer plastic shopping bags, and encourage shoppers to reuse and recycle them, as the retailer aims to slash its plastic bag waste by a third worldwide by 2013.

The plan is expected to cut the equivalent of 9 billion plastic bags from stores each year, and eliminate more than 135 million pounds of plastic waste globally in the next five years.

The world's largest retailer said on Thursday it aims to reduce plastic bag waste by 25 percent in its U.S. stores and 50 percent in other countries.

"If we can encourage consumers to change their behavior, just one bag at a time, we believe real progress can be made toward our goal of creating zero waste," said Matt Kistler, senior vice president for sustainability at Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart's U.S. stores will begin selling a new 50-cent reusable bag in October, and its baggers will be trained to pack bags more efficiently. Earlier this month, its Mexico stores introduced reusable bags that cost one-third less than the previous ones.

The move comes amid a global push to curb the use of plastic bags, which environmentalists say can take up to 1,000 years to disintegrate and pose threats to marine life, birds and other animals.

GLOBAL TREND

Earlier this year, San Francisco became the first U.S. city to outlaw non-biodegradable plastic bags from large supermarkets, and the state of California has enacted a law that requires large stores to take back plastic bags and encourage their reuse.

China, which consumes 37 million barrels of crude oil each year to manufacture more than one trillion plastic bags, has banned the use of ultra-thin plastic bags, which are typically used once and then thrown away.

Countries such as Rwanda and Bangladesh have introduced plastic bag bans, while Italy is due to introduce a ban by 2010.

While environmentalists cheered Wal-Mart's campaign, some said it doesn't go far enough.

"We applaud their efforts, but 33 percent by 2013 is not a very aggressive goal. It's doable ... by 2010 or 2009," said Stephanie Barger, executive director of Costa Mesa, California-based Earth Resource Foundation, which runs the "Campaign Against the Plastic Plague."

A Wal-Mart spokesman referred comment on the plan's timing to the Environmental Defense Fund, the retailer's partner in developing the plastic cutback plan.

"I think the way they're going about it is the way that works for them," said Gwen Ruta, vice president for corporate partnerships at EDF. "They're going to try lots of different things, see what works best and move forward, but against clear, very measurable goals and timeline."

EDF said it has worked with Wal-Mart since 2005, when the retailer began to pursue green initiatives in earnest.

Ruta said Wal-Mart has been looking at different ways to cut down on plastic bag use, from training its baggers to pack bags more efficiently or possibly redesigning the bags.

(Additional reporting by Nichola Groom in Los Angeles; editing by Gunna Dickson, Richard Chang)

© Thomson Reuters 2008 All rights reserved

Use it or lose it

That's My Bag, Baby
Reusable shopping bags not so green if you don't use 'em
Posted at 11:08 AM on 26 Sep 2008

These days, you can't swing a dead cabbage without hitting a reusable bag. The darlings of the environmental movement (totes, not cabbages) are increasingly being provided free or cheap to green-minded consumers. And they serve a good purpose: four or five reusable bags, used at least once a week, can replace the use of 520 plastic bags each year. But if not used for their intended purpose, the bags are hardly an environmental boon. Cotton and canvas bags can require a lotta water and energy to manufacture and may be colored with toxic dyes. Nonwoven polypropylene totes require about 28 times as much energy to produce as standard plastic bags. Bags made from recycled material often cost more than those without. And perhaps most important, shifting ingrained shopping habits is easier said than done, as anyone knows who has forgotten to tote their totes to the store. That may take a while to change; as one marketing professor points out, it's not yet taboo to be seen carrying a plastic bag.

source: The Wall Street Journal