Peter Dykstra:  The 800-lb (cheap, plastic) gorilla in our oceans

Decades of warnings. A global environmental threat. Climate change isn't the only mess we're ignoring.

Save for one word, Walter Brooke (1914-1986) had an unremarkable career as a Hollywood bit player, usually as a mid-level military officer fighting Indians or Nazis.


But in the 1967 film The Graduate, Brooke slung his arm around the shoulder of a young Dustin Hoffman and offered a vision of the future:

'Plastics'

"Plastics"

Half a century later, Brooke's career advice looks more and more like an albatross around the necks of humanity – and for that matter, around the necks of albatrosses.

In 1950, 17 years before Brooke's career counsel, the world produced an estimated two million metric tons of plastic. By 2015, that had jumped to 380 million metric tons – more than humanity's own weight in plastic.

'Smog' of plastic

Trash floating in Lake Jackson, south of Atlanta, after a rain

www.11alive.com

An estimated 150 million metric tons of plastic now swirl in our waterways:

  • abandoned, miles-long driftnets that ensnare fish and seabirds;
  • drink bottles and soccer balls washed down storm sewers into rivers and lakes (see this news clip of runoff plastic in Lake Jackson, downstream from a half-million or so metro Atlanta homes);
  • single-use bags, straws, cups and cigarette filters by the billions;
  • long-lasting microbeads of plastic built into soaps and detergents;
  • and partly decomposed plastic bits that cloud the water and clog the bellies of fish, birds and marine mammals – a veritable "smog of the sea."

40+ years of warnings

Marine litter spoiling the view in Norway.

Bo Eide/Flickr

You can't say we weren't warned.

On April 5, 1989, a team of NOAA scientists presented an ominous, peer-reviewed work on the mounting dangers of ocean-borne plastic debris. Not surprisingly, their warnings went unheeded by all but a handful of marine scientists and activists.

I was feeling good about myself finding the 30 year-old plastics paper, and I mentioned it in the weekly segment I do for Public Radio International's Living On Earth.Then, the sleuths at a very useful web publication called The Revelator found others from the 1970's. That's how long we've known about the crisis we've been building.

Ugly death by plastic

Darrell Blatchley, director of D'Bone Collector Museum Inc., pulls plastic waste from the stomach of a Cuvier's beaked whale that washed ashore in Compostela Valley, in the Philippines.

AFP/Getty Images

Last week, an item worthy of the Guinness Book of World Records washed in from the Philippines, where the carcass of a Cuvier's beaked whale (really more an oversized dolphin than a great whale) yielded 88 pounds of plastic bags.

Like so many other environmental ills, the plastic pollution of the oceans is something we've known about for decades. Like climate change or ocean acidification, the solutions to plastics pollution are daunting. They don't involve the shutting of a lone drainpipe or smokestack. They involve altering the consumptive mindsets of nearly all of us about how we produce, consume, and dispose of plastics.

We've developed the ability to alter the acid/alkaline chemistry of the vast oceans, and we're filling them up with things inimical to life. Now all we have to do is develop the ability to stop ourselves.

***

Here's a trailer from "The Smog of the Sea," a new documentary on ocean plastics featuring musician Jack Johnson

climate desantis politics
Photo by Mick Haupt on Unsplash

DeSantis dismisses climate change, calling it ‘politicisation of weather’

Ron DeSantis began a whirlwind media tour around the launch of his 2024 presidential campaign with an interview on Fox News on Wednesday evening when the governor outlined his misconceptions about climate change.

Senator Whitehouse & climate change

Senator Whitehouse puts climate change on budget committee’s agenda

For more than a decade, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse gave daily warnings about the mounting threat of climate change. Now he has a powerful new perch.

Is Sadiq Khan really taking air pollution seriously?

London is killing us. That’s the conclusion of Sadiq Khan’s alarming new book, Breathe: Tackling the Climate Emergency, which he publicised last night at a 90-minute event held in the Royal Festival Hall.

connecticut transportation climate pollution
Photo by Derek Story on Unsplash

Zoning slows efforts to cut transportation pollution

Connecticut won’t achieve its 2030 climate targets if it leans on electric vehicles alone to lower transportation emissions. The state also needs to convince residents to drive less.

Clean energy experts are stretched too thin

“Stakeholder fatigue” threatens to tap the brakes on policy progress as many states move fast on decarbonization.

false spring climate impacts
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Gardeners beware: Climate change is setting a trap for you

More crop-killing “false springs” are bedeviling gardeners and farmers alike
washington heat pumps climate
Photo by Thom Milkovic on Unsplash

Washington state hits the brakes on landmark gas ban

Washington state building code officials voted Wednesday to delay the first statewide mandate for electric heat pumps in new buildings, dealing a blow to a landmark restriction on natural gas.

The surprising reason Coca-Cola is struggling to slash its carbon emissions

Coca-Cola has made huge strides in lowering its carbon footprint, but its biggest contribution to climate change is all of its branded refrigerators.
From our Newsroom
halliburton fracking

How the “Halliburton Loophole” lets fracking companies pollute water with no oversight

Fracking companies used 282 million pounds of hazardous chemicals that should have been regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act from 2014 to 2021.

President Joe Biden climate change

Op-ed: Biden’s Arctic drilling go-ahead illustrates the limits of democratic problem solving

President Biden continues to deploy conventional tactics against the highly unconventional threat of climate change.

oil and gas wells pollution

What happens if the largest owner of oil and gas wells in the US goes bankrupt?

Diversified Energy’s liabilities exceed its assets, according to a new report, sparking concerns about whether taxpayers will wind up paying to plug its 70,000 wells.

Paul Ehrlich

Paul Ehrlich: A journey through science and politics

In his new book, the famous scientist reflects on an unparalleled career on our fascinating, ever-changing planet.

oil and gas california environmental justice

Will California’s new oil and gas laws protect people from toxic pollution?

California will soon have the largest oil drilling setbacks in the U.S. Experts say other states can learn from this move.

Stay informed: sign up for The Daily Climate newsletter
Top news on climate impacts, solutions, politics, drivers. Delivered to your inbox week days.