
There Is No Island of Trash in the Pacific - r0muald
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/the_next_20/2016/09/the_great_pacific_garbage_patch_was_the_myth_we_needed_to_save_our_oceans.html
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InclinedPlane
Here's the problem:
[http://i.imgur.com/KW0d1qh.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/KW0d1qh.jpg)

That's a google image search for "pacific garbage patch", and about half of
the results are pure fiction. Photos of heavily polluted inhabited areas that
are not actually part of the pacific gyre. Many articles reproduce these
pictures from other sources and just assume they are photos of the garbage
patch (a typical "citogenesis" problem:
[https://xkcd.com/978/](https://xkcd.com/978/)).

This is very important because it bears directly on the credibility of
scientists and of environmental activists. Once you lose credibility you
rarely get it back. Many, many people (even some scientists, sadly) believe
that action is more important than truth. That "doing the right thing" is
paramount, even if you have to twist the facts a teensy bit to make them more
palatable to the masses. But the masses are fickle, and they pick up on these
things readily, with the result being a loss of credibility.

It's very difficult to always avoid the temptation of the easy, quick short-
term gain, but the importance of maintaining scientific discipline should
always override that impulse.

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ilitirit
What is the myth they are referring to?

I haven't been following any stories about the Pacific Gyre in the mainstream
media, but I've always understood it to be a region in the Pacific where
garbage seems to concentrate because of ocean currents. Much of the garbage
isn't visible as it floats just beneath the surface.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StNZ3XUBDYw#t=1m17s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StNZ3XUBDYw#t=1m17s)

~~~
InclinedPlane
The myth is that it's a particularly gross and garbage choked area. I've seen
many articles and comments about it which have used pictures of garbage strewn
Manila harbor as illustration, for example. The reality is that if you were in
the middle of the Pacific gyre you could look overboard and not perceive
anything special, because mostly it's an increased abundance of tiny pieces of
plastic, most of them floating under the surface. Unfortunately, like many
issues, people have a hard time caring about things unless they're fairly
blatant. It's a big reason why "charismatic megafauna" tend to be poster
children for endangered species.

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EGreg
Is the word "myth" here being used in the sense of being true but connected to
storytelling nevertheless?

Because the Great Pacific Garbage Patch really exists.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch)

 _The patch is characterized by exceptionally high relative concentrations of
pelagic plastics, chemical sludge and other debris that have been trapped by
the currents of the North Pacific Gyre.[2] Because of its large area, it is of
very low density (4 particles per cubic meter), and therefore not visible from
satellite photography, nor even necessarily to casual boaters or divers in the
area. It consists primarily of a small increase in suspended, often
microscopic, particles in the upper water column._

 _Research has shown that this plastic marine debris affects at least 267
species worldwide_

Also, overfishing is real. Colony collapse disorder is real and affects wild
bees. Monarch butterflies and others are becoming extinct. So are tigers and
many other species. (although the trend has been halted for tigers).

The human population explosion and energy use explosion that grew even faster
are the problem. Regardless of how efficient we get, we can't sustain such
population growth indefintely. And Capitalism is extremely efficient at
exacerbating negative externalities - whether factory farms, private prisons,
weapons manufacturers or manufacturers of anything (plastic etc.) the
incentive is to exploit negative externalities as much as possible to have
more customers pay more money faster. The collective effect is perpetually
increasing money velocity and increased velocity of exploiting externalities.

~~~
coldtea
> _Is the word "myth" here being used in the sense of being true but connected
> to storytelling nevertheless? Because the Great Pacific Garbage Patch really
> exists_

From TFA, which pretty much says the same thing with different words:

> _In fact, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch was barely visible, since it
> comprised mostly micro-garbage. It can’t be scanned by satellites, or scoped
> out on Google Earth. You could be sailing right through the gyre, as many
> have observed, and never notice that you’re in the middle of a death-shaped
> noxious vortex. The patch is such a wishy-washy phenomenon, with wishy-washy
> impacts, that its extent can’t be described with any certainty. (“No
> scientifically sound estimates exist for the size or mass,” notes the
> National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.)_

What doesn't exist and is a myth is the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" as
usually described in the media (the miles of visible floatsam, actual whole
garbage thrown in, etc).

~~~
EGreg
Just because the flotsam isn't visible doesn't mean it doesn't exist. The
concentrations of the garbage are quite high. And being microscopic, they're
very hard to clean up.

~~~
ajoy39
They're not saying it doesn't exist, they're saying it's been exaggerated to
death to the point where the actual thing doesn't resemble the myth at all.
There is no floating trash island, it's not "twice the size of texas", and in
fact as stated in the article no scientifically sound estimates to it's size
exist. The story was told as basically an iceberg of trash the size of a
continent in the middle of the ocean and that's not at all what it really is.
It exists, it's a problem, but it's not the mythical thing it's made out to
be.

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buovjaga
I guess we'll find out more soon:
[http://www.theoceancleanup.com/updates/show/item/announcing-...](http://www.theoceancleanup.com/updates/show/item/announcing-
the-aerial-expedition/)

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douche
You want to look at the largest instances of ocean pollution in world history?
Look at submarine warfare in WW1[1] and WW2[2]. Millions and millions of
gallons of bunker oil spilled out, not to mention all the chemicals,
explosives, and other bits of nastiness in contained in the cargo of those
ships.

[1] [http://www.naval-history.net/WW1LossesaContents.htm](http://www.naval-
history.net/WW1LossesaContents.htm)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ships_sunk_by_submarin...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ships_sunk_by_submarines_by_death_toll)

~~~
coldtea
Sounds like a lot, but compared to industrial pollution since WWII those are
probably just "drops in the ocean" (pun intended).

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h4nkoslo
Slate (especially their headline writers) is kind of notorious for a style of
smug contrarianism mixed with condescension. It's unreadable.

