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Our Oceans are Under Attack

Discussion in 'YachtForums Yacht Club' started by brian eiland, May 19, 2009.

  1. brian eiland

    brian eiland Senior Member

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    Jeremy Jackson, marine ecologist and environmental advocate, professor of oceanography at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, describes how overfishing, habitat destruction, global warming and other human-induced activities have contributed to a crisis in the health of the world's oceans.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZkwewR69w8&eurl=http%3A%2F%2F

    Its a long presentation so you might have to put aside a little time to view it. I've not had that time myself, but just a few quick excerpts I would reference as a preview: (use the time curser)
    ...skip the intro and go to time 11:00 minutes
    ...then jump to time 19:50 minutes
    ...then to 22:00 minutes


    On another subject thread I had written,
    Per the home page of your website and one of your foundation’s most basic goals, "may our children and our children’s children experience the magic of Dolphins playing with the ocean waves".

    We are currently at a real risk of this not happening!!…..we are on the brink of an environmental disaster that may very soon be inflicted upon our oceans, and by our own Navy in this case.....

    If we permit our oceans to become a cemetery, we may damage its alter ego the atmosphere and ultimately our planet itself.

    Our oceans are a precious resource, even beyond our own imagination. We need more qualified academics in pure oceanography....


    The health of our oceans affects us all on planet earth...
  2. AMG

    AMG YF Moderator

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    I understand your concerns, but isn´t this better discussed here?: http://forum.greenpeace.org/int/forumdisplay.php?f=3

    (A funny thing I just noticed, we joined the YachtForums at the same time and you just made your post nr 800 and I reached 3.000, perhaps time to retire...)
  3. brian eiland

    brian eiland Senior Member

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    That's an interesting site for many such discussions, and I thank you for posting it.

    Certainly as users of these oceans, all of the members here should have an interest in this subject as well, and that's why I posted it.

    See even I had never visited that site you referenced, and now as a result of your posting I have...the spread of information by way of the forums

    Oh NOO, Please don't retire!! You've contributed such a wealth of info and GREAT designs
  4. AMG

    AMG YF Moderator

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    Thanks Brian, you have been on top of many issues as well. I just have the feeling from past discussions on environment that we don´t have enough expertise to come anywhere...?

    So, can we hang on closer to the yachts it corresponds better to the YachtForums I think.
  5. brian eiland

    brian eiland Senior Member

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    I know what you are saying...often we get contributors that just have a bit too much time on their hands, and only feel a desire to put two cents in regardless of content.

    I will keep this in mind.


    Meanwhile I did find this contribution noteworthy (on another forum):
    He is also the professor emeritus of tropical ocean research at the Smithsonian....basically the guy everyone else answers to at one of the most prestigious establishments on the planet.

    The thing to really listen for throughout the presentation is his assessment of the inevitable outcome to mans interaction with the seas

    One thing DR J failed to touch on in the video is the reality that plastic outweighs plankton in the oceans as measured in:
    *1991....6/1 thats six floating bits of plastic seined from the sea for every on bit of plankton
    *2000....10/1
    *1008...? the new study is due out almost any day now and if the numbers follow trend we're looking at something between 13/1 to 15/1

    The filter feeders that keep the oceans water clear and clean are starving to death in an ocean, that although it may be packed with plankton, is so packed with plastic that they starve to death wasting there energy trying to digest the 10 bits of plastic they ingest for the one bit of plankton.



    I realize that boaters are such a SMALL percentage of this contribution of plastic, and likely they are more aware of the situation than non-boaters, so contribute even less. Maybe we need to be a bigger voice in getting the story out...the damage we boaters see.
  6. brian eiland

    brian eiland Senior Member

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    Jellyfish Blooms increasing

    Early action could be crucial to addressing the problem of major increases in jellyfish numbers, which appears to be the result of human activities.

    New research led by CSIRO Climate Adaptation Flagship and University of Queensland scientist, Dr Anthony Richardson, presents convincing evidence that this ’jellyfish joyride’ is associated with over-fishing and excess nutrients from fertilisers and sewage.

    'Dense jellyfish aggregations can be a natural feature of healthy ocean ecosystems, but a clear picture is now emerging of more severe and frequent jellyfish outbreaks worldwide,' Dr Richardson says.

    'In recent years, jellyfish blooms have been recorded in the Mediterranean, the Gulf of Mexico, the Black and Caspian Seas, the Northeast US coast, and particularly in Far East coastal waters.

    'Mounting evidence suggests that open-ocean ecosystems can flip from being dominated by fish, to being dominated by jellyfish,' Dr Richardson says.'The most dramatic have been the outbreaks in the Sea of Japan involving the gargantuan Nomura jellyfish which can grow up to 2 m in diameter and weigh 200 kg.'

    The new research, by Dr Richardson and colleagues at the University of Miami, Swansea University and the University of the Western Cape, has been published in the international journal; Trends in Ecology and Evolution, in time for World Oceans Day on 8 June.

    'Fish normally keep jellyfish in check through competition and predation but overfishing can destroy that balance,' Dr Richardson says. 'For example, off Namibia intense fishing has decimated sardine stocks and jellyfish have replaced them as the dominant species.'

    Climate change may favour some jellyfish species by increasing the availability of flagellates in surface waters – a key jellyfish food source. Warmer oceans could also extend the distribution of many jellyfish species.

    'Mounting evidence suggests that open-ocean ecosystems can flip from being dominated by fish, to being dominated by jellyfish,' Dr Richardson says 'This would have lasting ecological, economic and social consequences.

    'We need to start managing the marine environment in a holistic and precautionary way to prevent more examples of what could be termed a ‘jellyfish joyride’.'



    An outbreak of giant Nomura jellyfish off the coast of Japan in 2003 made life difficult for local fishermen. Image credit – Y.Taniguchi, Niu Fisheries Cooperative. CSIRO Release Ref 09/96

    ...interesting science site http://www.csiro.com.au/

    Attached Files:

  7. Pascal

    Pascal Senior Member

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    amazing picture!

    the world is full of people cashing in on fear... starting with global warming and Mr Global Warming Jet Flying Big Mansion Al Gore...

    then you also have those cashing on the fear of oil running out and telling us to use food for fuel even, yes, I'm talking about a scam known as Ethanol.

    the planet has always been thru its cycles, not much we can do about it except watch a few "activists" experts cashing in.
  8. Marmot

    Marmot Senior Member

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    Hey, corn is passe' as an ethanol feedstock, we've moved on to algae and such. And to keep on topic, some jellyfish have an energy density (kj per gram of dry mass) equal to about half that of green algae.

    Researchers are making great progress so let's not use old technology as an excuse to trash current research. Who knows, we might be burning jellyhol in our boats soon. I used to work on a boat that burned fish oil so caqn atttest that nearly anything is possible and might even be practical.
  9. OutMyWindow

    OutMyWindow Senior Member

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    The future is now, it won’t be long before diesel engines are replaced with aquariums, and engineers with eel fishermen. :eek:
    _____________________________
    ____________________

    Electric Eel Used To Power Christmas Tree
    by Justin on December 3, 2007
    in Miscellaneous, Renewable Power

    In Japan, there’s an aquarium with an electric eel in it. And the eel’s electrical power is being used to energize the lights on a Christmas tree. It’s clean energy right? Each time the electric eel at the Aqua Toto Gifu aquarium touches a copper wire in its tank, it sends power that lights up globes decking a Christmas tree
  10. HMI

    HMI New Member

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    Actually this is very easy to understand. It does not require a phd .

    1) The population of the earth is increasing exponentially.

    2) There is a finite amount of resource on the planet. This includes food, water, shelter, and "energy". Competition for these resources will increase as the population increases, and more people demand a higher standard of living. Take China as an example.

    3) As the population increases so does consumption and it's by-products. A portion of these by-products are harmful to our health and to our the environment we live in.

    4) The solution would be to lower our population growth, find sustainable methods of energy and food production, and lower our standard of living.
  11. AMG

    AMG YF Moderator

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    If we reverse what you said here and accept that all people (who doesn´t have it) want a good standard of living. Then the birth rates use to go down and many developed countries have negative population growth today.

    Then we start to care more for nature and sustainable energy and so on, why I think there is hope if we allow more people to get a better life. :)
  12. woodwright

    woodwright New Member

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    hi folks
    Im kinda new round here but I saw this thread and thought Ild chime in
    there is a new documentary out called
    "end of the line"
    basically detailing the state of the oceans

    http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2920114/the_end_of_the_line/

    in a nut shell we better think up something fast if we want to be eating seafood in the future

    cheers
    B
  13. brian eiland

    brian eiland Senior Member

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    Some Good News !!

    German-born, Port Lincoln fishing baron, Hagen Stehr's success at breeding southern bluefin tuna in captivity has been declared Time magazine's second best invention of 2009.

    The magazine named the 'Clean Seas' breakthrough as second only to NASA's Ares 1 rocket, in its list of the 50 Best Inventions of 2009.

    The Clean Seas' concept of breeding southern bluefin tuna at its Arno Bay hatchery on Eyre Peninsula came in ahead of inventions and innovation, including the AIDS vaccine.

    'At 8.47am on March 12, fish history happened in Port Lincoln, Australia,' the magazine said. 'A tankful of southern bluefin tuna began to spawn, and they didn't stop for more than a month.'

    A delighted Mr Stehr said: 'By coaxing the notoriously fussy southern bluefin to breed in landlocked tanks, Clean Seas may finally have given the future of bluefin aquaculture legs (or at least a tail).'

    'We are excited by its commercial potential and the potential to provide a sustainable source of quality seafood for a protein hungry world - particularly at a time when wild tuna stocks are under threat from over-fishing,' he said. The Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna last month cut
    Australia's share of the world quota from 5265 tonnes to 4015 tonnes.

    Clean Seas is due to start commercially breeding southern bluefin tuna by Christmas.

    More at http://www.stehrgroup.net/company.htm

    by Jeni Bone
    http://www.marinebusiness-world.com/index.cfm?nid=64420

    _________________________________________________________
    TIME MAGAZINE'S TOP FIVE INVENTIONS OF 2009:

    1- NASA's Ares rocket: A 100m-long rocket that, within a few years, will be ready to launch a manned spacecraft into the cosmos.
    2 - Tank-bred tuna: Hagen Stehr's company worked out how to breed southern bluefin tuna in captivity.
    3 - The $10 million lightbulb: Philips launched an LED bulb that emits the same amount of light as old-style bulbs but uses less than 10 watts and lasts for 25,000 hours.
    4 - The smart thermostat: The EnergyHub Dashboard can talk wirelessly to various appliances in your house, telling you how much electricity (or gas) each one is using.
    5 - Controller-free gaming: The gamer's body becomes the controller with Microsoft technology that allows console game characters to be controlled by your body and voice.

    Attached Files:

  14. brian eiland

    brian eiland Senior Member

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  15. revdcs

    revdcs Senior Member

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  16. Emerson

    Emerson New Member

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    The doctrine of Malthus (AKA Malthusian catastrophe), this is information we have had for about 212 years. It's actually one of the things Darwin built his theory off of (and no, not in a Ben Stein way). What is inevitable is that some kind of correction will happen. This same situation has happened again and again probably as much as a million times in our own lineage. If some of us take action to correct then we will loose out to those of us who do not, and then next time it happens no one who would take action to correct will be around.

    Catastrophe is inevitable, but so is survival of something.
  17. brian eiland

    brian eiland Senior Member

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    Surfing Dophins, Wonderful

    Greg Huglin: "The first time I saw dolphins surfing the waves I was completely blown away. I was in South Africa filming white sharks and happened to stop in a small town where a shop was advertising dolphin and whale watching boat tours. I went along and after that I spent three months every year for the next six years filming and photographing the dolphins."

    http://www.ultrafeel.tv/surfing-dolphins-greg-huglin/


    ...hope our children's children get to see this
  18. brian eiland

    brian eiland Senior Member

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    RTW Sailor bemoans state of oceans

    Very interesting article in today's Globe and Mail about a Canadian sailor who took part in the Velux 5 Oceans race.

    Really sad commentary if you compare his current observations to earlier experiences, particularly the extent of over fishing he witnessed.

    ...quite a few other interesting posting HERE
  19. brian eiland

    brian eiland Senior Member

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    The more I thought about this link being just a newspaper article, the more I thought this link would be worthless in a couple of weeks, so here is that article:

    It was easy to wake up in the morning, when he first began crossing the world in sailboats 17 years ago, says Derek Hatfield.

    “There was the sound of porpoises and dolphins that had come to play. They were always there in the morning,” said the former RCMP officer, who has just finished third in the Velux 5 Oceans race.

    A round-the-world race – 30,000 nautical miles and 3,000 hours at sea alone – is promoted by marketers as a sailor’s ultimate challenge. But it provided the ultimate shock for the former Canadian sailor of the year.

    The ocean may be vast but not boundless. Hatfield fears that the once-lauded bounty of fish could run out. “The demand for fish is going up but the supply is going down,” he said.

    He saw an estimated thousand fishing boats harvesting fish off Argentina, and more boats whaling in once fish-rich waters off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland.

    “And countries are using ‘scientific research’ as a ploy for killing whales,” said Hatfield. There’d been hundreds of humpback whales when he first went to sea, but the number has dwindled.

    He’s now greeted by silence in the morning instead of dolphin chatter. Hatfield, of Mahone Bay, N.S., looked out over the bow of his 60-foot ECO yacht, day after day, and saw the evidence that between overfishing and pollution, the numbers of dolphins and whales has diminished startlingly. In the past year, he saw no whales and only three dolphins is his last transatlantic crossing.

    “I’ve made 17 or 18 transatlantic crossings and it’s definitely waning,” he said yesterday at the offices of Velux Canada Inc., where he made a debriefing appearance. “I’m not a scientist and I don’t know what happened to them, but it’s definitely reduced from before,” said Hatfield. “I can only assume overfishing and pollution.”

    He said he consumed about 5,000 to 6,000 calories a day – from freeze-dried packets and containers of protein drink – and likened the sailing to training for a marathon 5-6 hours a day. He ‘showered’ using packaged wet napkins.

    Hatfield finished third overall behind American Brad Van Liew and Britain’s Chris Stanmore-Major, but the more important numbers he discovered “were in the rape and pillage of the oceans... There should be more disdain,” he said at the construction engineering company which is making an effort to be environmentally sensitive with specialized windows and doors.

    “My former career was as an RCMP officer, and I was a trained observer. To me, it’s a travesty what’s happening with our oceans. They may look huge, but the world is finite if I can sail around the world in 87 days.”

    Hatfield, 57, is the lone Canadian to twice complete solo circumnavigations of the world. He finished the final leg from Charleston, N.C., to France in fourth spot but was third overall, beating Poland’s Zbigniew Gutkowski to the podium. Hatfield is one of about 125 helmsmen who have made two solo sails around the world.

    “My goal was to have the best Canadian finish going around alone (he did that) but the best moment was getting around Cape Horn (the tip of South America) where I’d been stopped before. For a sailor, it’s like getting to the top of Mt. Everest: there’s still a long way to get down to safety, but this is the place where I’ve got stopped before – capsized or had to put in for repairs at Argentina. It’s treacherous. There’s only 20 to 30 days of good sailing around Cape Horn, and luckily we hit one of them,” Hatfield said.

    He said he will take on the round-the-world challenge again, although he’d prefer to mentor a young Canadian sailor.

    Hatfield sailed in a 60-footer called Spirit of Canada – an Eco Class 60 signed by supporters and sponsored by Active House, which is a consortium of companies involved with Better Living environments – against five solo sailors from Britain, Poland, Australia, Belgium and the United States. The boats relied on wind, electricity and solar energy for fuel
  20. brian eiland

    brian eiland Senior Member

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    The results, Moore said, “suggest that dolphins are possibly managing bubbles routinely to avoid decompression sickness, also known as the bends. Humans likewise manage 'silent bubbles.’” Only a minority of human divers that get bubbles, he added, get the bends.

    Moore said it was the observation of bubbles in deceased beaked whales that led to the current study. “In routine decompression, the animal exhibits normal physiology and experiences few bubbles,” he said. “But acoustic stressors, such as sonar, seem to change normal bubble management.”

    “Beaked whales are stranding atypically when exposed to sonar,” Moore said. “The beaked whale mortality events have led the current generation of marine mammal physiologists to revisit the question of how marine mammals manage the issue of lung gas being compressed as they dive deeper,” he said. “Above the depth of alveolar collapse, a depth at which the gas-exchange surface of the lung is no longer inflated, increasing pressure with depth can cause gases to dissolve in the body; the gases then come back out of solution as they resurface. If this decompression is uncontrolled, bubbles can form. In humans such bubbles can cause joint pain that is relieved by 'bending' limb joints - hence the popular name. It was thought that marine mammals were immune to such problems, but the beaked whale cases reopened this assumption to fresh scrutiny.”

    article here.... Woods Hole Oceanographic Study

    I had previously written about this sonar problem with our marine sealife here:
    http://www.yachtforums.com/forums/4907-post11.html