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The Corroboree
Heretic

The Ocean Is Broken...

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www.theherald.com.au/story/1848433/the-ocean-is-broken/

saw this on another site ...

Warning - it is very depressing .

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Yeah I read that the other day too, it's a sad state of affairs.

We're running out of time to fix these problems, it's got to reach a tipping point at some stage.

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^^ With indicators such as those contained in the article it could be quite legitimately argued that we have already passed many tipping points..

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Yeah for sure mate.

I believe if we were to act now we could still clean things back up and get things on track so the oceans could heal themselves and re-establish the sort of biodiversity needed to keep it healthy. If we don't act we're going to see mass extinctions on a scale like a cataclysmic event very soon on the land and the sea. We are rapidly approaching the point of no return.

If the oceans die so will almost everything on the planet.

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As a surfer and a fisherman this is heartbreaking as i feel a deep connection to the ocean. As a human being i am disgusted this was allowed to happen. But things wont change until people realize that huge corporations are the governments, and only care about increasing profits.

28 Signs That The West Coast Is Being Absolutely Fried With Nuclear Radiation From Fukushima

Fukushima-Radiation-450x270.jpg




Fukushima Radiation

The map above comes from the Nuclear Emergency Tracking Center. It shows that radiation levels at radiation monitoring stations all over the country are elevated. As you will notice, this is particularly true along the west coast of the United States. Every single day, 300 tons of radioactive water from Fukushima enters the Pacific Ocean. That means that the total amouont of radioactive material released from Fukushima is constantly increasing, and it is steadily building up in our food chain. Ultimately, all of this nuclear radiation will outlive all of us by a very wide margin. They are saying that it could take up to 40 years to clean up the Fukushima disaster, and meanwhile countless innocent people will develop cancer and other health problems as a result of exposure to high levels of nuclear radiation. We are talking about a nuclear disaster that is absolutely unprecedented, and it is constantly getting worse. The following are 28 signs that the west coast of North America is being absolutely fried with nuclear radiation from Fukushima…

1. Polar bears, seals and walruses along the Alaska coastline are suffering from fur loss and open sores…

Wildlife experts are studying whether fur loss and open sores detected in nine polar bears in recent weeks is widespread and related to similar incidents among seals and walruses.

The bears were among 33 spotted near Barrow, Alaska, during routine survey work along the Arctic coastline. Tests showed they had “alopecia, or loss of fur, and other skin lesions,” the U.S. Geological Survey said in a statement.

2. There is an epidemic of sea lion deaths along the California coastline…

At island rookeries off the Southern California coast, 45 percent of the pups born in June have died, said Sharon Melin, a wildlife biologist for the National Marine Fisheries Service based in Seattle. Normally, less than one-third of the pups would die. It’s gotten so bad in the past two weeks that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared an “unusual mortality event.”

3. Along the Pacific coast of Canada and the Alaska coastline, the population of sockeye salmon is at a historic low. Many are blaming Fukushima.

4. Something is causing fish all along the west coast of Canada to bleed from their gills, bellies and eyeballs.

5. A vast field of radioactive debris from Fukushima that is approximately the size of California has crossed the Pacific Ocean and is starting to collide with the west coast.

6. It is being projected that the radioactivity of coastal waters off the U.S. west coast could double over the next five to six years.

7. Experts have found very high levels of cesium-137 in plankton living in the waters of the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and the west coast.

8. One test in California found that 15 out of 15 bluefin tuna were contaminated with radiation from Fukushima.

9. Back in 2012, the Vancouver Sun reported that cesium-137 was being found in a very high percentage of the fish that Japan was selling to Canada…

• 73 percent of mackerel tested

• 91 percent of the halibut

• 92 percent of the sardines

• 93 percent of the tuna and eel

• 94 percent of the cod and anchovies

• 100 percent of the carp, seaweed, shark and monkfish

10. Canadian authorities are finding extremely high levels of nuclear radiation in certain fish samples…

Some fish samples tested to date have had very high levels of radiation: one sea bass sample collected in July, for example, had 1,000 becquerels per kilogram of cesium.

11. Some experts believe that we could see very high levels of cancer along the west coast just from people eating contaminated fish…

“Look at what’s going on now: They’re dumping huge amounts of radioactivity into the ocean — no one expected that in 2011,” Daniel Hirsch, a nuclear policy lecturer at the University of California-Santa Cruz, told Global Security Newswire. “We could have large numbers of cancer from ingestion of fish.”

12. BBC News recently reported that radiation levels around Fukushima are “18 times higher” than previously believed.

13. An EU-funded study concluded that Fukushima released up to 210 quadrillion becquerels of cesium-137 into the atmosphere.

14. Atmospheric radiation from Fukushima reached the west coast of the United States within a few days back in 2011.

15. At this point, 300 tons of contaminated water is pouring into the Pacific Ocean from Fukushima every single day.

16. A senior researcher of marine chemistry at the Japan Meteorological Agency’s Meteorological Research Institute says that “30 billion becquerels of radioactive cesium and 30 billion becquerels of radioactive strontium” are being released into the Pacific Ocean from Fukushima every single day.

17. According to Tepco, a total of somewhere between 20 trillion and 40 trillion becquerels of radioactive tritium have gotten into the Pacific Ocean since the Fukushima disaster first began.

18. According to a professor at Tokyo University, 3 gigabecquerels of cesium-137 are flowing into the port at Fukushima Daiichi every single day.

19. It has been estimated that up to 100 times as much nuclear radiation has been released into the ocean from Fukushima than was released during the entire Chernobyl disaster.

20. One recent study concluded that a very large plume of cesium-137 from the Fukushima disaster will start flowing into U.S. coastal waters early next year…

Ocean simulations showed that the plume of radioactive cesium-137 released by the Fukushima disaster in 2011 could begin flowing into U.S. coastal waters starting in early 2014 and peak in 2016.

21. It is being projected that significant levels of cesium-137 will reach every corner of the Pacific Ocean by the year 2020.

22. It is being projected that the entire Pacific Ocean will soon “have cesium levels 5 to 10 times higher” than what we witnessed during the era of heavy atomic bomb testing in the Pacific many decades ago.

23. The immense amounts of nuclear radiation getting into the water in the Pacific Ocean has caused environmental activist Joe Martino to issue the following warning…

“Your days of eating Pacific Ocean fish are over.”

24. The Iodine-131, Cesium-137 and Strontium-90 that are constantly coming from Fukushima are going to affect the health of those living the the northern hemisphere for a very, very long time. Just consider what Harvey Wasserman had to say about this…

Iodine-131, for example, can be ingested into the thyroid, where it emits beta particles (electrons) that damage tissue. A plague of damaged thyroids has already been reported among as many as 40 percent of the children in the Fukushima area. That percentage can only go higher. In developing youngsters, it can stunt both physical and mental growth. Among adults it causes a very wide range of ancillary ailments, including cancer.

Cesium-137 from Fukushima has been found in fish caught as far away as California. It spreads throughout the body, but tends to accumulate in the muscles.

Strontium-90’s half-life is around 29 years. It mimics calcium and goes to our bones.

25. According to a recent Planet Infowars report, the California coastline is being transformed into “a dead zone”…

The California coastline is becoming like a dead zone.

If you haven’t been to a California beach lately, you probably don’t know that the rocks are unnaturally CLEAN – there’s hardly any kelp, barnacles, sea urchins, etc. anymore and the tide pools are similarly eerily devoid of crabs, snails and other scurrying signs of life… and especially as compared to 10 – 15 years ago when one was wise to wear tennis shoes on a trip to the beach in order to avoid cutting one’s feet on all the STUFF of life – broken shells, bones, glass, driftwood, etc.

There are also days when I am hard-pressed to find even a half dozen seagulls and/or terns on the county beach.

You can still find a few gulls trolling the picnic areas and some of the restaurants (with outdoor seating areas) for food, of course, but, when I think back to 10 – 15 years ago, the skies and ALL the beaches were literally filled with seagulls and the haunting sound of their cries both day and night…

NOW it’s unnaturally quiet.

26. A study conducted last year came to the conclusion that radiation from the Fukushima nuclear disaster could negatively affect human life along the west coast of North America from Mexico to Alaska “for decades”.

27. According to the Wall Street Journal, it is being projected that the cleanup of Fukushima could take up to 40 years to complete.

28. Yale Professor Charles Perrow is warning that if the cleanup of Fukushima is not handled with 100% precision that humanity could be threatened “for thousands of years“…

“Conditions in the unit 4 pool, 100 feet from the ground, are perilous, and if any two of the rods touch it could cause a nuclear reaction that would be uncontrollable. The radiation emitted from all these rods, if they are not continually cool and kept separate, would require the evacuation of surrounding areas including Tokyo. Because of the radiation at the site the 6,375 rods in the common storage pool could not be continuously cooled; they would fission and all of humanity will be threatened, for thousands of years.”
Edited by bℓσωηG

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nobody thinks this has been sensationalised?

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I believe if we were to act now we could still clean things back up and get things on track so the oceans could heal themselves and re-establish the sort of biodiversity needed to keep it healthy.

Sad as it is i recon we probably passed that point 10 or 15 years ago.

And even if we could repair the damage that's already been done, governments & industry are only concerned with economic benefits & profits so its full steam ahead to extinction.

Time to break out the home brew & enjoy the view i recon.

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Yeah I was trying to put an optimistic spin on things. I hadn't even considered the radioactivity issues.

Corporations and the world banking system are going to kill us all in their lust for money. Governments are partners in crime with corporations and then there's China which is like a corporation,banking system and government all rolled into one behemoth earth killing machine.

It makes you wonder how dire things will have to get before humanity wakes up and smells the shit, maybe it will never happen.

Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got 'till it's gone. Pave paradise and put up a parking lot. :(

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A very interesting article written about this story from a completely different and highly credible perspective - http://theconversation.com/is-the-ocean-broken-19453

Conclusion - the ocean is not (yet) broken and we each have a role to play (individually and collectively) in ensuring that our ocean remains unbroken. Well worth a read

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Personally i find the most credible evidence is seeing the effects in person.

Like when the environment dept issues a press release saying that 2 turtles were injured during a resent power boat race but we found 4 dead washed up on the beaches just on my small patch. Or when the hundreds of dead cormorants washed up on the beaches died during their migration as though it was normal for them to cark it en masse from exhaustion.

Or when it takes 3 1/2 days to sail across a anoxic zone it paints a pretty grim picture. I'm not sure if the complete lack of animals is the most disturbing or the nasty nasty odor.

Not to keen to take the boat out any more :puke:

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There will always be bureau double-speak - it has existed since bureacracies began.. And yes Moreton Bay has a one-way ticket to being a cesspool. When you have clearance of massive tracts of wetlands and coastal vegetation and rampant urban sprawl that is what you are assured of... And with 40000+ha of land to be developed for more sprawl in coming years things ain't gonna get better.

For me it was most heartening to read Carlos Duerte's article that there is still hope for our oceans. This objective appraisal of the state of our oceans by one of the global leaders in oceanic science carries more weight with me than the subjective and emotional writings of a sailor. The point that Carlos makes about the article causing people to give up hope for the oceans is compelling. A narrative that presents the facts objectively can do much to motivate and mobilise individual and collective actions to maintain our life support systems.

Whatever that was that was linked to above about Fukushima was not factual nor credible. There are huge risks associated with the ongoing mess at Fukushima and our Pacific Ccean is receiving lots of toxic radioactive materials, but sensationalism does not help..

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Agreed Moreton Bay pretty much is already a cesspool already :(

I gave up hope of saving ourselves (let alone the ocean) long ago. Too much greed & arrogance to see clearly. Along with the firm belief that "it wont happen on my shift" mentality

I dont doubt Carlos knows more than most, but face it, you either paint a rosy picture or you wont have a penny of funding real quick.

As much as we like to believe the contrary I dont believe for a minute that anyone has the slightest clue just how complex the oceans actually are, Carlos included.

Or any idea how far we could push the envelope before we see global changes that our kind will regret.

And for every warning we get that we have pushed things too far there will be a learned article (or three) debunking it until we have obviously taken things way too far, as humans are inclined to do. After all we actively reward risky behaviors that take things to the brink. The closer to the edge the bigger the profit.

I dont know how much if at all Fukushima has contributed to the appearance of dead zones, yachties have been seeing them semi regularly for a good decade or more now. The dead zones are definitely becoming more common & much much bigger the last year or so.

Greed is the root cause of this dilemma & like any other disease the only way to cure this disease is to just let it run its course.

Edit for my crap spelling

Edited by shortly

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Hi Tarenna, I am reminded of this written last year. Can't find the original article.

http://www.shaman-australis.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=33329

Posted 08 September 2012 - 03:09 PM

 

Just as overfishing impoverishes the life of the sea, the forgetting impoverishes our own lives



Mine-Oyster--Dredging-Boa-008.jpg
Oyster dredging in Chesapeake Bay. Photograph: Corbis


Researching the history of ecosystems, it is not long before you make an arresting discovery. Great abundance of the kind that exists in the tropics - or existed until recently - was once almost universal.

With a very few exceptions, every major ecosystem had a megafauna; every major ecosystem witnessed vast migrations of mammals, birds or fish; every major ecosystem possessed an abundance of animal life orders of magnitude greater than current abundance in the temperate nations. In some cases the ecosystems these life forms created were a world apart from those we now know.

Take, for example, the North Sea. Olsen's Piscatorial Atlas of the North Sea, English Channel, and St. George's Channels, published in 1883, marks an area of the North Sea the size of Wales as oyster reef. (I am indebted to Prof Callum Roberts, whose magnificent book The Unnatural History of the Sea reproduces this map). This area is far from any coast: it would have been among the least exploited regions.

By then, trawling in the North Sea had been taking place for at least 500 years (the first written record in England dates from 1376). Given that there is no obvious difference in habitat between the region marked on the map and many other parts of the North Sea, the most likely explanation for the distribution mapped in 1883 is that the oyster beds had been fished out and broken up throughout the more accessible areas.

As the first Europeans to arrive in Chesapeake Bay (on the Atlantic coast of the United States) discovered, oysters can form reefs in shallow seas at these latitudes wherever the sediments are stable enough to permit them to settle. They cement themselves to the seabed and to each other. Much - perhaps most - of the North Sea basin is likely to have been lined with a continuous bed of oysters.

If this is the case, then three things follow. The first is that the oyster reefs, which are complex and craggy, provided microhabitats for a great range of species, both sessile or mobile, which are now rare or almost nonexistent in the North Sea. The second is that the oysters would have stabilised the sediments over which they grew: waves and currents would not have been able to perturb the mud or sand or gravel beneath. The third is that the oysters would have filtered particles from the seawater.

According to a paper published in Science, in Chesapeake Bay (where we know more about the original nature of the ecosystem, as large-scale exploitation began later) there were sufficient oysters to have "filtered the equivalent of the entire water column every three days." The likely result of all this is that the North Sea, which is now soupy and grey, would have been clear.

This, of course, is speculative, as major fishing efforts long predated good record-keeping. Other changes are better documented.

A paper in Nature uses government fisheries reports dating back to 1889 to estimate the extent to which fish populations in the North Sea have been depleted. Instead of simply charting the amount of fish caught there, which creates the impression that the decline of fish populations has been moderate, it divides the fish caught by the amount of fishing power used to pursue them: the size and catching ability (larger engines, better nets, electronic fish finders) of the boats being launched.

When the British government first started gathering data, sail trawlers were beginning to be displaced by steam. After 500 years of trawling, the ecosystem was likely to have been gravely depleted. Even so, the researchers found that when fishing effort was taken into account, fish populations declined not by 30 or 40% in the 118 years following 1883, as the scientists advising fishery managers had assumed, but by an average of 94%.

In other words, just one-seventeenth of the volume of fish that existed in 1889 survived into the first decade of the 21st century. Fish stocks, they found, collapsed long before the amount of fish being landed declined: the landings were sustained only by ever more powerful boats, with ever more effective gear, scouring ever wider expanses of sea. Haddock, they found, had fallen to 1% of their former volume, halibut to one-fifth of 1%.

There is plenty more to tell: in the 1920s and 1930s big game fishermen pursued bluefin tuna off Scarborough on the Yorkshire coast. In 1933 the biggest tuna caught anywhere on Earth to that date was taken there.

Before our river systems were dammed and weired for industry in the middle ages, all of them supported almost unimaginable runs of migratory fish: not only salmon and sea trout but also shad, lampreys and giant sturgeon, swarming up from the all the seas surrounding us. In the 11th century, and probably long before, there was a coastal whaling industry in England: many of the world's largest whales, including a species now extinct in the Atlantic region - the grey whale - came this way.

Our marine life was likely to have been as rich and abundant as that of any other sea. But this great exuberance has not only been depleted beyond recognition; it has also been forgotten. Just as overfishing impoverishes the life of the sea, the forgetting impoverishes our own lives.

George Monbiot
www.monbiot.com

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Whitewind.

The phenomenon about which Monbiot is speaking is that of shifting baselines. It's briefly summarised on Wickedpedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shifting_baseline

and exemplified here:

http://esciencenews.com/articles/2009/02/17/historical.photographs.expose.decline.floridas.reef.fish.new.scripps.study.finds

http://www.psmag.com/environment/fish-stories-the-ones-that-got-away-3914/

And Shortly's on the button - we were passing the point of FUBAR about the turn of the millenium. It just takes a while for spaceship Earth to manifest the change in its course.

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