THE HUMAN OCEAN: 20th CENTURY CHANGES

 1A: THE HUMAN OCEAN:  20th CENTURY CHANGES

THE GARBAGE PATCH-Underwater image of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch which might look like a zone of death but there is still life here in what is called the "NEUSTON",  a floating ecosystems.  The important understanding here is that even though the plastic problem is notable and scary, the plastic is mixed together with living creatures.....SO lets thick about.......    How Plastic Cleanup Threatens the Oceans Living Islands

Population

In the relatively short span of time over the last half a century (my lifetime) the population on planet Earth has more than doubled.  I was born in 1959, and in that year the global population passed the 3 billion mark. By my 40th birthday in 1999, the number of people on Earth had doubled to 6 billion.  IN the last 19 years, we have added another 1.5 billion.  Currently there are about 7.54 billion people alive here.  We add about 10,000 an hour, 240,000 a day, or about 90 million per year.   Over a 1.5 billion people are starving.   People need to eat.

The oceans provided enough in the beginning of the 20th century when the population was less than 2 billion.   Advances in fishing technology with larger vessels and refrigeration allowed boats to start the global feeding frenzy.  The fish were free, and fleets driven for profit took as much as they could from the sea.  It still happens today but there are a lot less fish.  Stocks of migrating tuna will be depleted by 2050 so that commercial fishing for them will not be viable. 

Petrochemicals and Waste

By the time I was born there had already been major changes.   We had been burning fuel for 200 years and using newly synthesized petro-based "augmented" hydrocarbons intensively for 50 years.  We burn 10 times more now.  We have developed many more hydrocarbon based chemicals since then.  Near the time of my birth a woman ecologist by the name of Rachael Carson had amassed data and helped expose an enormous threat.  Hundreds of new chemicals had been developed, many of which were being added into the environment purposefully to eradicate pests with little knowledge about lasting effects.  Life died.  Birds took a serious hit.   Farm animals were falling over dead after drinking water tainted with DDT, a chlorinated hyrdocarbon.  DDT was finally banned in the U.S. in seventies, worldwide in 2001, but is still in the soil and sea.  And believe or not the DDT ban is still controversial, some say it could save millions of lives, those that die from Malaria.  Unfortunately these critics don’t get the fact that many more humans will die in the future if we destroy our environment.  It’s not just about humans. Ironic and sad is the fact that after banning DDT here in the US, the US companies that made it continued to produce it and sell it overseas for almost 30 years.  There are still large amounts of toxic chemicals introduced into the soil, lakes, rivers and oceans every year.  Another petroleum-based product is plastic.   Large and microscopic pieces are found in every ocean.  The tiny plastic particles mimic plankton and are ingested into the food chain.  80% of all plastic produced is designed to throw away, yet massive amounts don’t make it to the landfill.

Harmful Science?

IN addition to "science knowledge" advancements which have been positive to our human health and understanding, there are many examples throughout the 20th century (and before) where science led to bad things like certain chemicals and weapons of mass destruction.  Many corporations have profited and continue to do so from applications now known to be harmful.   One award winning 20th century scientist (unknowingly) played a large negative role for the whole Earth system.  The effects were realized long after his death.  I'm sure he was a nice guy and and if he did not make the chemical breakthrough someone else would have.   His name was Thomas Midgley.  He developed chloroflurocarbons for refrigeration which are now known to destroy the Earth's ozone layer.  And for the auto industry he developed a cure for engine knocking,   Unknowingly we began to pump millions of tons of lead into atmosphere by using what was called "ethyl" gasoline.  He eventually suffered from lead poisoning himself.  The lead in Ethyl gasoline helped cars run smoother.   In the 1960's, understanding of this global contamination problem helped pave the way for the "clean air act".  It was another scientist by the name of Clair Patterson in trying to develop a technique for age dating the Earth (Uranium-Lead age dating), realized that his lab and everything else (air, water, soil, and human bodies) was contaminated from the exhaust lead which had been accumulating for nearly 5 decades. The rise of lead levels accelerated after WWII during the great population boom.  Everybody had to have a car or two. Everyone was dying to drive and the exhaust was killing us.

Systems Understanding

Today we have a much broader knowledge of the Earth system.   We see the many connections.   An ecosystem can have millions of species including microbial forms.  All species play a role in the overall functioning of the system.  This is quite apparent in marine ecosystems where nearly all life depends, not only on the plankton, but also on the decomposer organisms that break down organic matter into nutrient molecules.   The plankton could not survive without this flux of nutrients brought into the surface waters by deep ocean currents.   If the nutrients failed to be produced by these microbial processes the whole food chain would collapse.   It is sometimes the smallest seemingly insignificant organisms that make it all possible.  Even after studying plankton for 100 years, scientists discovered a type of plankton in the late 1990’s that far exceeded all other plankton in the ocean.   Called bacterial plankton, it was so small that is had never been captured in the micro plankton nets used for capture.  They had been invisible before that time.   

We keep learning.  The science quest to understand our world will never end.  What I have come to believe based on my science learning is that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.  IT all works together.  Nothing works independently.  Humans are not unique in that sense.  We are part of the system.   We need the system.   We have taken and continue to take liberties with the health of our system.  In some ways certain applied sciences were allowed to run amok.  The chemist just knew how to make chemicals.  He wasn’t a biologist.   The chemical “industry” was out to make a profit, and they still are today.  IT is better now in ways than it was 40 years ago but the story continues and there are still serious areas of concern. We have learned much by our many mistakes.  Lets try to NOT make any irreversible ones.  And lets not miss the connection between most of the environmental problems, the use of petroleum, petrochemicals and related compounds including plastic.

The fight to save the ocean environment and reverse some of the damage of the past does not get easier with each passing year.  With the increasing demands placed on our planet by the exponential population increase, we are still in a precarious environmental state.  Our hydrocarbon consumption is measurably changing the character of our atmosphere. Oceans dissolve a whole bunch of extra CO2, which makes them become more acidic.  They are absorbing a lot of extra heat as well.  The system is being stressed.  Creatures have a harder time fighting to survive as they try to adapt to rapidly changingconditions.  The loss of keystone species can precipitate a trophic cascade, or ecosystem collapse.  It has happened before on smaller scales, but messing with the basic food source for all the life in the ocean could precipitate an ocean-wide system collapse.   We can see it beginning to happen, but its like trying to stop a fast moving train. 

WE can all make a difference, starting by learning and sharing the truth. The oceans are near and dear to our hearts.  We see only a tiny bit of what goes on near the shore and on the surface.   Many of the important things to know about the ocean have remained largely unknown for some time.  Thank you for being part of this class and spending some of your energy learning the truths that have come to light in recent decades.   I believe that change will only come from knowledge and education, so I appreciate you being part of the process.

A bit of History--

WATCH:  Pesticides - DDT- Rachel Carson - Silent Spring

YouTube URL:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ipbc-6IvMQI

THE TOTAL HUMAN FOOTPRINT

How many Humans did you say?    When we talk about the impact of the humans alive today on Earth we also should ask the question "how many have come before us?  An interesting analysis of the number of Homo Sapiens that have lived on Earth is presented on this page.   This author uses 50,000 years in his calculation, but his estimates would be significantly higher if you used 180,000 years as our species' age.

READ:  The  TOTAL HUMAN FOOTPRINT   (from the population reference bureau)  

Study Questions

· How many Humans are alive right now?   How many total have lived in the last 50,000 years?

Doubling time? 

· The rule of 70 is used.......70 divided by the annual growth rate (in %) get you years for doubling time

· IF you had $10,000 dollars that made 10% annual interest, 70/10=7,  IN 7 years you will have $20,000

· Between 1960 and 2000 the population doubled, what was the average annual growth rate?

. Test you basic algebra  70/x=40, solve for X,  What the average growth rate?

Practice Writing Scientific Notation

· BE able to write scientific notation.

· How would you write the current world population in scientific notation (power of 10)?

· How about the population of the United States?

· Here is a link to the the current population data.    WORLD CENSUS BUREAU

YouTube URL:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXUkameA0r8

The Great Acceleration 

 Global change data indicate a dramatic acceleration in both human population and global change rate following World War II.   

SKIM:    The trajectory of the Anthropocene: The Great Acceleration

  a 2004 article by Will Steffan et al 

PLEASE STUDY the following summary

The Great Acceleration (from the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme)

Go through the slides to see how the data graphs compare to each other and to see the types of data that show off this change.

Study Questions

· What year is highlighted in most all the graphs as the beginning of the great acceleration?

· In what time frame did most of the change data "first" begin to increase?  (earlier than the 20th Century)

· What is the "Domino effect"?

1B: Chemical Pollution in the ocean....

The following overview from the Ocean Health Index gives the basics of estimating chemical ocean pollution. It is kind of technical but see if you can get the drift.  There are several easily extracted bullet points.  There are land-based sources and ocean-based chemical pollution sources. In the overview they describe methodology to estimate the flow of toxins into the ocean globally.  If you scroll to the bottom of the page you can see an info graphic (sometimes they help).

READ:         Chemical Pollution @ Ocean Health Index

Study Questions

· What is a "chemical" in the context of this paper?

· What are the three types of chemical pollution in the ocean? 

· Name a couple of land-based sources of chemical pollution?

· Are they able to distinguish between the really bad chemicals and the good ones from this study?

· Besides the 3 main types of chemical pollution what other obvious pollution type is included in the "Clean Water" goal?

Also at Ocean Health Index

CHECK OUT:    GLOBAL SCORES on Chemical Pollution

.........SEARCH

· Investigate and see if you can find the country with a high score and another with a low one.   You want a high index score and a low rank to be a good country.

In the news.....

......the dissemination of chemicals banned in the seventies has reached the deepest parts of the ocean. Chlorinated and Brominated hydrocarbons, a kind of persistent organic pollutant, made there way through the food chain.

READ:   Recent News from the Deep Sea-A BBC published story on toxins in the deep sea

Study Questions

· Where and how deep in the sea did investigators sample?

· What do we call the depth zone of the deep ocean trenches?

READ:    

Lets dig a little deeper and read more about POP (persistent oraganic pollutants) and their profound effect farther up the food chain in Cetaceans, whales and dolphins. Bioaccumulation  is a process where toxins are concentrated up the food chain.  Orcas in Puget Sound have been dying due to auto immune disease brought on by these PCB chemicals.

"the levels of PCBs that accumulate in the bodies of some whales, dolphins and porpoises are so high that under US law, they could meet the criteria for being defined as toxic waste"  WDC

READ:       Summary of PCBs and the threat they pose to marine mammals

Study Questions

· How long have PCB's been around?

· How much PCB does the government allow in Cow's milk?

· How does Cetacean blubber play a role in the physiological processes involving PCB?

· Why are whales and dolphins poorly adapted to deal with PCB's

· Can PCB's be passed from mother to daughter via breast milk?

· What are some of the physiological problems that Cetaceans can experience?

· Is there are possibility that chemical pollution can cause Mass "Die Offs" of Cetaceans?

WATCH:  An Immortal Poison: The history of PCBs, an excerpt.

.......and  PCBs in Whales