
The ocean is broken - stfu
http://www.theherald.com.au/story/1848433/the-ocean-is-broken/?cs=12
======
iterationx
This is one tiny piece of a lot of troubling fukushima news

[http://www.okcfox.com/story/23728488/scientists-puzzled-
as-r...](http://www.okcfox.com/story/23728488/scientists-puzzled-as-rare-sea-
monsters-wash-ashore)

[http://www.vancouversun.com/travel/Sudden+disappearance+sard...](http://www.vancouversun.com/travel/Sudden+disappearance+sardines+serious+economic+ecological/9034961/story.html)

[http://rt.com/news/fukushima-apocalypse-fuel-
removal-598/](http://rt.com/news/fukushima-apocalypse-fuel-removal-598/)

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/fukushima-...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/fukushima-
plant-could-be-sickening-killing-ringed-seals-in-
alaska/2011/12/28/gIQATdPhMP_blog.html)

~~~
andor
Fukushima is very troubling, but at least it was only an accident. The
overfishing mentioned in the article is systemic.

~~~
functional_test
The article also mentioned the other effects of the tsunami: telephone poles,
styrofoam, pieces of buildings, etc. were all still floating. Again, an
accident, but it's hard to deny that it's preventable; at least one town was
saved by a sea wall that was relatively inexpensive to build [1].

That said, overfishing is probably the worse problem since it's not tractable
to enforce regulations (since police aren't on site to ensure that there isn't
too much "extra" catch thrown back, etc.). At least it would be possible to
mandate the construction of seawalls.

[1] [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1386978/The-
Japanese...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1386978/The-Japanese-
mayor-laughed-building-huge-sea-wall--village-left-untouched-tsunami.html)

------
javajosh
In general, I want a little more evidence than this before declaring global
catastrophe.

For example, I'd like to get confirmation of the problem from NOAA[1],
particularly the NMFS[2]. Alternatively, Green Peace[3] would no doubt be one
of the first organizations to raise an alarm - they care about the ocean, and
presumably gather signals from many sources. I want confirmation because the
simple fact is that it's impossible to get a comprehensive picture of the
Pacific's health from one voyage - there are too many variables at play.

The skeptic in me questions the tacit assumption (the one that makes the OP's
observations so troubling) that _the entire Pacific is normally teaming with
fish_. However, I assume that fish travel in schools, and that fish density is
wildly variable. E.g. there are normally vast swaths of the Pacific that are
"dead". Indeed, anyone going out to fish for sport knows that fish aren't
uniformly distributed, and they don't stay in one place. In the open ocean,
these schools are vast, but so are the dead zones when there are no schools.

That said, not being in the field, I'm not sure how we gauge the health of an
entire ocean from a "supported biomass" perspective. Nor do I know anything
about who would be responsible for officially raising an alarm about global
catastrophe. Or if they did, what we could do about it. It seems like the only
thing we really _could_ do is reduce the rate at which we harm the ocean,
rather than dumping into it.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Oceanic_and_Atmospher...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Oceanic_and_Atmospheric_Administration),
[http://www.noaa.gov/](http://www.noaa.gov/)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Marine_Fisheries_Serv...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Marine_Fisheries_Service),
[http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/](http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/)

[3] [http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/](http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/)

~~~
cbennett
You are right to be skeptical in the fact that anecdotal evidence from a
yachting voyage could establish a general case for mass bio-mass (or lets just
say a sub-set of bio-mass, like catchable fish) decline, and your point that
large portions of the Pacific are normally dead-zones is true because of the
way that anoxic regions can develop due to oceanic circulations of nutrients
and dissolved oxygen concentrations.

But, you might be concerned to learn that the NOAA typically only reports on
mass die offs fairly close to US shores, at least within our EEZ zone- because
they are only adequately funded to do so- [1] is an example of such a report.
There is no well-funded transnational environmental authority that can make a
reliable 'alarm' about the potential of mass common-water oceanic die-offs
(think 'tragedy of the commons'); Greenpeace is more of an advocacy
organization than a scientific or monitoring authority.

One thing we can indirectly empirically gauge is the size of these large
garbage patches at sea simply via imaging. In fact NOAA has put together a
fact sheet on this [2], although it is rather simplistic. What we can glean
from this is the fact that they are real, quite large, and if you look at the
map it looks as though the OP's voyage passed through it at least once if not
twice. Which would explain much of what he saw, but not necessarily the
consistency (pervasiveness) of the dead zones observed..

Finally, just food for thought (er.. perhaps bad choice of words.. haha) that
there is a sort of conflation in the article about the long-going decline of
fish stocks and accumulation of garbage due to dumping and the more acute
poisoning/death of fish stocks due to radioactive leakage from Fukushima in
the areas off-coast Japan specifically. There is academic evidence [3] that
large fish, specifically tuna, are acting as vector to transport large amounts
of spoiled biomass as far afield as California. How much of the biomass die-
off does this explain? I have absolutely no idea, but since both issues are
quite concerning in their own right we should probably keep tabs on both..

[1] [http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/30/1227489/-Mass-
Aquat...](http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/30/1227489/-Mass-Aquatic-Die-
Offs-in-FL-NOAA-Declares-2nd-Unusual-Mortality-Event-Since-April)

[2]
[http://marinedebris.noaa.gov/info/pdf/patch.pdf](http://marinedebris.noaa.gov/info/pdf/patch.pdf)

[3]
[http://www.pnas.org/content/109/24/9483.short](http://www.pnas.org/content/109/24/9483.short)

------
DanielBMarkham
When I read these types of articles, I always end up doing a bit of mental
translation in my head to make sense of it.

The ocean is obviously not "broken". It is a large body of salt water covering
the majority of the planet's surface. It still exists as a liquid, therefore
it's still an "ocean"

A more useful translation of the title is "The ocean had a lot of artistic
meaning to me in the past. A recent trip demonstrated to me that this artistic
value is now gone"

Very difficult to get clicks for, sure, but at least with the modified title I
can pick it up and know what to do with it.

It's a shame the author had this experience. I too like the birds and water
without debris. I wonder, though: is the state of the entire ocean the same as
this author indicates? Or might he be using a bit of artistic license and
hyperbole to emphasize his loss?

I feel that he's probably stretching things quite a bit for effect, but that's
fine. After all, the point is his emoting to us and us understanding his
feelings. I was able to feel what he was feeling. Very well done.

The problem here, however, is trying to have some sort of public policy
discussion based on what amounts to a poetic interpretation of reality. Just
what is the ocean supposed to do? Look pretty? Purify our air? What job do we
assign the ocean that it can then fail or succeed at? Do we owe some
consideration to a large body of water that we don't to, say, a rock? Or is
the ocean's "job" just to keep us alive?

These are subjective questions. Different people can have widely different
answers to them. We make a mistake when we jump from a nicely written article
about one man's personal loss at his view of the changing state of a large
body of salt water and deciding what's right or wrong for everybody else in
the world.

So I liked it, but with caution. Many readers will be unable to both
appreciate the author's loss and keep in mind the context of these types of
works. It all just bleeds together to them.

~~~
mindstab
It has nothing to do with "artistic meaning". The ocean's are acidifying and
being over fished at the same time. The entire ocean ecosystem is collapsing.
Soon there will be no fish, the ocean will be fully of jelly fish. Ecosystem's
dependant on the "old way" will be next up to start collapsing.

Oh right, and we need the ocean as a carbon sync and it generates most of the
oxygen on the planet.

But yeah, it's all about the art. Nothing to do with the ocean being an
incredibly complicated delicate life support system for the planet that we are
breaking...

~~~
001sky
Nice story, but the "ocean is broken" is still linkbait. Its not in any way
true as a statement or even as a concept. The article is _a_ story about "how
my pre-conceived notions" are broken, signed--The author. That hurts the
credibility of the author, and diminished any (actual) point he was trying to
make.

------
mrcactu5
Yep. Everytime I through it down the trash or toilet I wonder where it's going
for about a minute. Then I forget about it.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch)
[http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isla_de_basura](http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isla_de_basura)

------
Shivetya
Time to build a million year wall around this plant, deep enough to protect
the aquifer and big enough to keep it from the ocean and the ocean from it.

~~~
Turing_Machine
No, more like "time to learn how to do arithmetic", such as how little
something like Fukushima amounts to when diluted in a volume the size of the
Pacific Ocean.

The Soviets used to dump scrap ship reactors into the Arctic Ocean whole. Many
of them, and over a long period of time.

~~~
null_ptr
It all adds up, and over a long period of time.

~~~
Turing_Machine
Not really.

The ocean already has 4.5 billion tonnes of uranium in it. That's the
equivalent of 45 MILLION reactors.

And of course the Fukushima reactor wasn't dumped in the ocean whole to begin
with.

------
bokchoi
Relatedly, here is an excellent article on ocean acidification by the Seattle
Times:

[http://apps.seattletimes.com/reports/sea-
change/2013/sep/11/...](http://apps.seattletimes.com/reports/sea-
change/2013/sep/11/pacific-ocean-perilous-turn-overview/)

~~~
bcl
Not really. Here is Cliff Mass' response:

[http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2013/10/ocean-acidification-
an...](http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2013/10/ocean-acidification-and-
northwest.html)

~~~
bokchoi
And their response to his response:

[http://blogs.seattletimes.com/seachange/2013/10/12/expert-
cr...](http://blogs.seattletimes.com/seachange/2013/10/12/expert-critique-of-
seattle-times-sea-change-project-ignores-the-science/)

