First Aid for the Ocean

The oceans cover 71 percent of the Earth’s surface and contain 97 percent of the Earth’s water. Less than 1 percent of the Earth’s water is fresh water, and 2-3 percent is contained in glaciers and ice caps. The oceans contain 99 percent of the living space on the planet.

https://www.oceanicinstitute.org/aboutoceans/aquafacts.html

At the moment, we have inflicted a lot of damage on the ocean. Toxic agricultural runoff (even plain dirt from improperly managed farmland flowing downstream can create large dead zones in the ocean https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/pollution.html), oil spills, overfishing, plastic pollution, noise pollution, acidification https://www.nrdc.org/stories/ocean-pollution-dirty-facts from warming ocean temperatures, and more have damaged the health of the ocean.

The Bering sea, one of the most important parts of our oceans, is dying. If it were a human, it would be on all kinds of life support right now. We need to give it that life support, STAT.

https://www.popsci.com/alaska-bering-sea-climate-change/

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/pace-of-bering-sea-changes-startle-scientists

https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/content/bering-sea-appears-largely-ice-free-noaa-20

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/05/vanishing-bering-sea-ice-threatens-one-richest-us-seafood-sources

Healing the ocean is about saving our own lives, so let’s get right on what needs to happen and what each one of us is capable of doing.

Ideally we’d do nothing to the ocean for about 100 years, other than cleaning some plastic out, but that is not possible. So, how do we realistically make things better for the many plants, animals, and oxygen producing bacteria in the ocean? Since our survival is tied to the ocean in many ways https://earthsky.org/earth/how-much-do-oceans-add-to-worlds-oxygen, how do we treat the ocean better so we can survive?

Let’s look at some of the main challenges we face and what we can do, what a strong effort by us humans might look like:

Overfishing:

The causes of over-fishing are many, including a free-for-all type fishing season which causes fishermen to desperately gather as many as possible. And let’s not forget the people who are eating and buying the fish.

First, the laws: Change to a fishing rights system, as described here. https://www.edf.org/oceans/how-turn-around-overfishing-crisis This has already cut overfishing way down in areas where established, and resembles traditional fishing methods from centuries past, where it was in everyone’s interest to maintain their fish supply. In past decades people have done good work on this, preventing certain important species from going extinct. https://www.nrdc.org/stories/can-anything-be-done-stop-overfishing

Give generous re-education and several years’ worth of living expenses to fishermen who want to switch to a different line of work. Perhaps offer early retirement to any fishermen over a certain age, like 50 or 55.

Second, the personal aspect: Many, many poor people around the world rely on fish as an important part of their diet, and countries like Japan, which eats about 10% of the world’s catch of fish, have almost no other choice than to do so, as they are so short of land on which to grow crops. However, if you are able, try cutting your consumption of fish radically. Do you eat a tuna fish sandwich every week? Make it a once a month special occasion. Do you like to go out for sushi all the time? Research fish fraud and scare yourself with the DNA results in some tests https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/biology-prof-shocked-to-find-body-louse-mislabelled-fish-in-sushi-dna-analysis-1.4378016, then save up for the highest quality sushi meal possible once or twice a year instead.

Do you like eating fish fingers/fish sticks? Cut it down, but don’t get rid of that option entirely.

By reducing your fish consumption, you will also be eating less mercury and other toxins from the ocean, improving your mental and physical health long-term.

OR, switch to fresh water fish caught/farmed in a sustainable manner. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish_farming

Any of these options will take a significant amount of pressure off the ocean and allow ocean dwellers to bounce back quicker and rebalance to healthier numbers.

Currently annual global consumption of fish is about 154 million tonnes, or 338,800,000,000 lbs a year.

Let’s aim for a 25% or greater reduction in total ocean fish consumption for ten years, then re-evaluate. If you’re in a country like the USA, where people only eat about 15 lbs of fish per year, then try to cut down by half (or replace half with sustainably farmed freshwater fish). If you’re in a country like Japan, where people eat ten times that much fish in a year, consider reducing your fish consumption by about 10% (or replacing 10% with sustainably farmed freshwater fish). This is about investing in the future, not drastic deprivation. We will continue to eat well, with some tweaks!

Agriculture:

Here is a video which shows the incredible beauty as well as cleverness and effectiveness of a regenerative agriculture type of farm. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regenerative_agriculture and https://richsoil.com/sepp-holzer/sepp-holzer-permaculture.jsp and https://modernfarmer.com/2016/04/permaculture/ are some other useful links to learn about ways to grow food that do not damage the earth or the oceans. I also recommend doing image searches for “permaculture” and just enjoying the pictures that come up!

Oil spills and noise pollution:

No more drilling for oil in the ocean. Ever. It’s too risky and we don’t want to use oil any more, anyway. Regarding noise, once we cut down on the number of flights across our skies, that will cut down a lot on the noise pollution that effects marine life in such harmful ways. We will also have far, far fewer ships on the ocean, because we will no longer be transporting much oil by tanker – or commodities by ship – the goal is to produce most things each region needs in that same region.

The goods and services we currently export by sea are causing problems like this:

World’s 15 Biggest Ships Create More Pollution Than All The Cars In The World
Both the companies and we the consumers who create the demand are at fault for this.

It is reasonable to expect to import/export about 10% or 20% of local production so that people in England can have bananas, people in China can have Italian marble, and people in the Sahara can have apples. That is one of the good things about modern life! We are going to reshape our expectations, though, and stop growing cotton in one area, shipping it to another to be woven in a factory, then shipping it to a different area to be sewn into clothes, before shipping it off yet again to a port to be transported to a warehouse – where it will then be divided up and go by vehicle to hundreds of different locations. It’s perfectly possible to grow, manufacture, and warehouse all in the same spot. If we only send absolutely necessary things overseas and by air, we will save immense amounts of greenhouse gas emissions. Amazon Prime two-day shipping is a very bad indulgence and is almost never actually necessary – before you click that button, ask yourself is it worth killing a penguin, a polar bear, or your dog or cat (yes, pets are in great danger from climate change too).

https://www.marineinsight.com/environment/effects-of-noise-pollution-from-ships-on-marine-life/ and

Underwater Noise: Consequences
have more information about why noise pollution is bad for the ocean. Or, simply imagine that while you are at work today, someone spends all day following you around and shouting in your ear. That is what a lot of marine life feels like right now.

Plastic pollution:

As listed on https://adultstrike4climate.home.blog/stitches-plastic-transportation-business/, here is how we will tackle plastic pollution affecting the ocean.

First priority, stop all new plastic pollution using these techniques:

  1. We need to strictly regulate labeling so that it’s easier to sort plastic for recycling.
  2. We need to install systems to easily gather, sort, and distribute waste similar to what Sweden is doing https://sweden.se/nature/the-swedish-recycling-revolution/
  3. Glass bottles should have more regulated sizes so that food manufacturers use the same bottles as each other. Make it easy to return bottles to the grocery store or numerous other locations and have a machine return a few cents to you. For a minimal environmental cost the bottles are then returned to central facilities and cleaned and sterilized before being re-sold to manufacturers.
  4. All plastic should be plant-based and compostable unless the manufacturer can prove it needs to be petroleum-based.

Second, various ways are being invented on a regular basis to remove plastic from the ocean.

https://4ocean.com/the-4ocean-bracelet/

https://theoceancleanup.com/

These are just some of the ideas and tools being invented! Are you able to support one of these, or urge your leadership to do so? Do you have a great invention?

Repairing and creating new coral reefs:

See https://adultstrike4climate.home.blog/trees-easy-parts-first/, where I talk about the subway car coral reefs and using hempcrete for reef building and storing carbon. Let’s restore as many of the dying reefs as possible and create many new ones!

Our oceans are incredibly good at nourishing life of all kinds. Let’s step back just a little and make room for them to do just that.