In a report out yesterday the U.S. Geological Survey presents stats from a 62-year-long study that show that “every ice front in the southern part of the Antarctic Peninsula has been retreating from 1947 to 2009, with the most dramatic changes occurring since 1990.” While the hows and whys of global climate change can be argued ad infinitum, in my experience nowhere is the change more evident than along the Peninsula. The USGS report adds statistics to my empirical assessment.
I’m writing today from home in a very, very wet Hudson Valley; we’ve endured three straight days of falling snow and rain (temperature hovering at 31 degrees F), which means the outside world now resembles a slush swimming pool. I just came in from an investigative slosh and can report calf-deep mush. The relevance of this warm snowfall in New York State in a conversation about Antarctica? With both air and sea surface temperatures warming all along the 1,000-mile long Peninsula, on many austral summer days the ice along its edges resembles what’s just outside my door tonight: Wet. Slushy. Soft. And disappearing fast. Here in the Catskills the temperatures will get into the 40s in the next few days; flooding is already a major concern. Which is exactly what is happening along the Peninsula during these past two decades too: Warmer air and sea temperatures means less ice cover, thus more evaporation and more precipitation in the form of sleet and rain. And we all know what rain does to ice, makes it disappear very, very fast.
I’m fully expecting my basement to flood in the next few days, which will be a drag. I’m also fully expecting the ice along Antarctic’s Peninsula to disappear faster than most scientists believe, contributing to a minimum global sea level rise of twenty feet by the end of the century or before, which will be a major drag. Especially for the 200 million-plus people around the globe who currently live less than three feet above sea level.
In its press release the USGS explained that the area covered by its six-decade-long study contains five major ice shelves, the Wilkins, George VI, Bach, Stange and the southern portion of the Larsen Ice Shelf. “The ice lost since 1998 from the Wilkins Ice Shelf alone totals more than 4,000 square kilometers, an area larger than the state of Rhode Island,” reports the USGS.
But for me the most worrying part of its report is this: “Retreat along the southern part of the Peninsula is of particular interest because that area has the Peninsula’s coolest temperatures, demonstrating that global warming is affecting the entire length of the Peninsula.” Which means what in regard to the planet’s big picture? Everyone should do what I’m going to do later tonight in preparation for tomorrow, which is find the tallest pair of rubber boots I can.
No ocean story has gotten more attention in the past couple years than the big (size of Texas!) garbage patch swirling around the North Pacific. Discovered just over ten years ago by my friend Captain Charles Moore, as he innocently steered his way back home from Hawaii after a sailing race, the patch’s press has prompted all sorts of inquiries about where it came from and how it might be cleaned up. The most interesting queries I get – often from people in the outdoor industry who already use plastic in their products, ranging from flip-flops to fleece – is how the patch might be scooped up and recycled. The best explanation I’ve read was this, from the Washington Post’s Green Lantern, written by Nina Shen Rastogi:
“(We) always thought the Garbage Patch was a huge, waterborne landfill — sort of like a massive hair clog in a big drain. In reality, it’s not so much an island of trash as a thin, soupy area of litter, mostly in the form of tiny flecks of plastic, studded here and there with old fishing gear and children’s toys. Even if you were to sail right through the Patch, the water probably wouldn’t look too remarkable, unless you scooped some up and looked at it closely. So cleaning this part of the ocean isn’t as simple as you might imagine.
“Because the trash is so dispersed, it’s not like we can just steer a big ship out to sea and pick up the Garbage Patch. Collecting all those small fragments of plastic would be extremely expensive. Plus, thanks to a variety of factors — from winter storms to El Niño — the Garbage Patch moves, making it hard to target effectively. Finally, in gathering up those little scraps, you also run the risk of catching — and killing — any marine animals living amid the debris, many of which are the same size as the plastic bits.
“For all these reasons, most organizations stress that the best way to keep oceans clean is to prevent garbage from getting there in the first place. (We) know of one group that’s actively testing methods for removing trash from the open seas: the San Francisco- and Hong Kong-based Project Kaisei. In the expeditions it is planning for 2010, Project Kaisei will focus on picking out big, derelict fishing nets, which can snare marine life in a process known as “ghostfishing.” It’s also planning to use modified purse seines — large nets used by commercial fishing operations — to collect the medium-sized pieces of garbage floating near the surface of the water. Finally, the project will continue to experiment with methods of gathering the smaller bits of debris.
“Kaisei — which receives some of its funding from a recycling trade organization — is also looking for ways to squeeze value from the trash it collects. Currently, the group is focusing on methods that use pyrolysis — in which heat is used to break down materials in the absence of oxygen — to transform the collected waste into fuel. Some experts, however, are skeptical that this particular solution will make economic sense.
“Meanwhile, we ought to know a lot more about the Garbage Patch before making a decision as to whether large-scale cleanup operations are viable or even warranted. There are still a lot of basic questions that remain unanswered. For example, no one has accurately estimated how much garbage enters the ocean each year. And despite the oft-repeated claim that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is “twice the size of Texas,” we don’t really know the exact size of the Patch or how much garbage it contains.
“Nor do we fully understand the precise impact of ocean trash. It’s possible that, when all is said and done, we’ll decide it’s better to leave the Patch alone, rather than bringing all those bits and pieces back on land and dealing with a brand-new disposal headache. (Particularly when you consider all the emissions associated with fueling collection vessels.) Scientists do know that the marine debris can entangle or otherwise harm sea life: For example, animals may eat the garbage, which can not only lacerate their throats and stomachs but can also make them feel so full that they stop eating actual food. But it’s hard to say with certainty exactly how many animals are killed this way. Some of the garbage patches in the Pacific have more teeming ecosystems than others , whereas the larger Garbage Patch itself (the area between California and Hawaii) is a relative dead zone, biologically. However, no matter where debris resides, it can pose a threat to wide-foraging seabirds such as the albatross. And, because garbage patches move, they can also sweep trash onto land, endangering shore animals such as seals.
“There are even more questions about the risks posed by those tiny bits of plastic. It’s well-established that plastic can absorb certain toxic pollutants such as PCBs and DDT, and that those pollutants — if absorbed into an animal’s fat tissues — can work their way up the food chain. But according to Miriam Goldstein, who served as principal investigator on a recent expedition to the Garbage Patch, we can’t yet draw any firm conclusions about the plastic’s effects on human health. For example, while we do know that some fish species are eating these specks of plastic, we don’t know whether they’re doing so in numbers. We also don’t know whether ingesting bits of polluted plastic is enough to transfer those toxins from the plastic into the fish’s fatty tissues. (For that matter, there’s already plenty of PCBs and DDT in the water itself, so even if we could remove all the plastic from the ocean, we wouldn’t necessarily be fixing the toxic fish problem.)
“None of this is to say that plastic in the oceans shouldn’t be an area of concern. But unless the flow of garbage is stanched at the source, cleanup can only ever be a temporary solution.”
A month ago I reported on the first bluefin tuna of the year sold at auction during the first week of the year at the big Japan fish market Tsukiji, a 513-pounder sold for $177,000, to a trio of sushi entrepreneurs who split the price and the fish, which ended up on restaurant platters across Tokyo and Hong Kong.
Bluefin Tuna at Auction, Tokyo
If the EU has anything to say about it, much of its bluefin – which makes up the bulk sold in Japan — may soon be off-limits to the world market; last week France agreed to join the majority of the 27-nation union to list bluefin as an “Appendix 1” endangered species under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). With that, bluefin would be afforded the same protection as pandas and whales, effectively banning international trade in the fish. A final decision will be made in Doha next month, at a meeting of the 175 nations signatory to the CITES treaty.
The Japanese, obviously, will oppose the listing. The U.S. hasn’t yet weighed in officially. Bluefin in the same category as pandas and whales? It’s hard to believe, isn’t it? But the statistics are stunning: Since 1978 the bluefin population in the Atlantic has dropped by 82 percent, largely due to the global boom in sushi, a burgeoning demand in Japan. About one million big bluefin are caught each year (out of a total global population under four million) and eighty percent are sent straight to Japan.
Of course adding the fish to a list will hardly insure it’s future (think whales in the Southern Ocean, despite international bans on all whale hunting). It’s not a perfect solution. Banning bluefin will take a toll on fishermen around the world; experts also warn that the banning of trade would not end the sale of tuna in restaurants and stores. Of the other species, including yellowfin, skipjack, bigeye and albacore, the skipjack is the only one not suffering from serious population decline linked to overfishing. One problem with banning bluefin is that it will increase pressure on the other tuna species.
The U.S. fishing industry – especially the American Bluefin Tuna Association – is “strongly opposed” to the listing. Its executive director suggests it will lead to a sizable black market, “in fact, we believe a listing has the possibility of doing more damage than good.”
Anti-whaling ship the Bob Barker and a Japanese harpoon boat collided in icy Antarctic waters in the second major clash this year in increasingly aggressive confrontations between conservationists and the whaling fleet. The Tribune of San Louis Obispo has the best report I could find, reported by Rohan Sullivan.
No one was injured in the clash Saturday, which each side blamed on the other. The U.S.-based activist group Sea Shepherd, which sends vessels to confront the Japanese fleet each year, accused the Japanese ship of deliberately rammed the Bob Barker – named after the U.S. game show host who donated millions of dollars for the anti-whaling group to buy it.
But Japan’s Fisheries Agency said the activist boat caused the collision by suddenly approaching the harpoon vessel No. 3 Yushin Maru to throw bottles containing bad-smelling butyric acid at the Japanese ship. The agency accused Sea Shepherd of “an act of sabotage” on the Japanese expedition, noting that it is allowed under world whaling regulations as a scientific expedition. Conservationists call the annual hunt a cover for commercial whaling.
Neither side’s account could be verified. Video shot from the Bob Barker and released by Sea Shepherd shows the two ships side-by-side moving quickly through the water. The ships come closer together and the Japanese ship then appears to turn away, but its stern swings sharply toward the Bob Barker. The collision is obscured by spray, but a loud clanging noise can be heard before the vessels separate.
Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson said a 3-foot-long, 4-inch-wide (1-meter-long, 10-centimeter-wide) hole was torn in the Bob Barker’s hull, but it was above the water line and was not a threat to the ship. The Japanese agency said Yushin Maru sustained minor damage to its handrail and hull.
Bob Barker, famous for hosting “The Price is Right” for more than 30 years, said he had spoken to Watson about the collision and was happy to continue supporting the Sea Shepherd leader. “I hope he is able to bankrupt them,” Barker told The Associated Press. “He wants to sink this Japanese whaling ship economically. He wants to make it so they can’t afford to continue to business. I’m all too happy to be able to support him.”
Barker described the $5 million he donated for the purchase of the ship as “one of the best investments I’ve ever made.”
Saturday’s collision was the second this year between a Sea Shepherd boat and the Japanese fleet. On Jan. 6, a Japanese whaler struck Sea Shepherd’s high-tech speed boat Ady Gil and sheared off its nose. The Bob Barker then came to rescue the crew of the Ady Gil, which sank a day later.
Sea Shepherd and the whalers have faced off in Antarctic waters for the past few years over Japan’s annual whale hunt, with each side accusing the other of acting in increasingly dangerous ways. Sea Shepherd activists try to block the whalers from firing harpoons, and they dangle ropes in the water to try to snarl the Japanese ships’ propellers. They also hurl packets of stinking rancid butter at their rivals. The whalers have responded by firing water cannons and sonar devices meant to disorient the activists. Collisions have occurred occasionally.
On Saturday, the Bob Barker found the whaling fleet for the first time since the Ady Gil clash, Watson said. Watson said by satellite telephone on Saturday that the Bob Barker took up a position behind the Nisshin Maru – the Japanese factory ship where dead whales are hauled aboard and butchered – so the four harpoon vessels could not reach it. “The harpoon ships started circling like sharks,” Watson said from his ship, the Steve Irwin. “They were making near passes to the stern and the bow of the Bob Barker, then the Yushin Maru 3 intentionally rammed the Bob Barker.” Welders aboard the ship were patching the hole, and the Bob Barker would resume its pursuit of the whalers, Watson said.
The Japanese fisheries agency said the Bob Barker came to too close to the Yushin Maru 3, which “immediately moved away to avert a collision, but it was grazed in its tail area.” The governments of Australia and New Zealand, which have responsibility for maritime rescue in the area where the hunt is usually conducted, say the fight between the two sides is becoming increasingly dangerous.
We had good luck this past weekend, at the Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival, where they screened both TERRA ANTARCTICA and the brand-new WHAT WOULD DARWIN THINK?
TERRA was given the festival’s “Grand Prize for Best Film” (the Jury: Jon Bowermaster takes us with stunning images on his sailing boat and kayak right into the beauty of the seventh continent. A place, not many of us will ever have the chance to see. He delivers a subtle message about climate change as we visit various research stations. The funding acquired for this film shows in professional visuals and a round delivery.)
And DARWIN was given the prize as “Best Environmental Film” (the Jury: The message is clear in this film stuffed with beautiful shots of all the famous Galapagos species such as the turtles, iguanas and marine life. Simply too many people are pressuring the 3% of the island that is accessible for the public. Tourists and the people depending or co-depending on tourism “visiting” nature to death.)
I’ve obviously seen the films many times now, in small editing rooms, various computer screens and on big screens and each time out I pick up small things I hadn’t seen previously. More interesting each time out is watching and listening to the audience, getting a sense of what they respond to in each, what they laugh at, what they moan at, when it is that they start looking at their watches.
While the two films are quite different, set in two very different environments, they share one common theme: Both are pristine environments threatened in part due to man’s rapacious desire to put his/her footprints … everywhere. In both places booms in tourism have both benefited and put at risk environments that we love. The challenge for the very near future is to figure out how to both protect these special places while at the same time making them just accessible enough that visitors can come, see and return home as ambassadors for protecting them.
This coming weekend both films show at the prestigious San Francisco Ocean Film Festival, at Pier 39 on the Embarcadero. (TERRA at 1 p.m. on Saturday, DARWIN at 4 p.m. on Saturday.)
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