Nothing wrong with dumping plastic waste in the ocean?

[greenbean36191]

Widespread regular testing for mercury in fish only started in the 80s or 90s in most states, but there was more spotty testing going back to at least the 50s. That's really only relevant though if you're interested in determining the historical baseline value of mercury before industrialization.

You don't need a long time series though just to attribute the presence of mercury to human activity. The distribution and response demonstrate that. You tend to see the highest levels localized around industrial areas, whereas more pristine areas tend to be less affected (though non-point-sources still contribute). That suggests that either humans have a propensity to develop industry near high mercury areas or our actions are a significant source. Remediation and control efforts have also successfully lowered mercury levels in many areas that have been highlighted as hot spots, which shows pretty unambiguously that the majority of the mercury, if not almost all of it, is from us.

Testing aside, we know that various industries are producing mercury and releasing it to the environment, but there is no known natural mechanism by which it's detoxified at anywhere close to the rate it's produced. If it's not going into the environment after it's released, what's happening to it?

 

[RicksReefs]

bacteria have evolved to eat mercury and turn it into cheez whiz?

 

[jaxspsreef]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13568624#post13568624 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ibnozn
Just curious, does the guy teach anything having to do with science or biology? Or is he a gym teacher or music teacher?

Funny I was thinking the same thing!

 

[Megalodon]

Other gems from this biology teacher...

- Excess CO2 is fine for the ocean as it doesn't actually drop pH. The ocean has enough buffering capacity to help it through any spike in atmospheric C02.

- Reef keepers don't know anything about buffering. All we know is we need to add a certain number of "drops" every so often.

- Algae cannot choke reefs.

- Even if reefs were destroyed, it's not a problem even worth mentioning. Reefs are temporary and come and go.

- The ocean's water parameters are always changing. There is no right or wrong level of anything in seawater. Life either must adapt or die.

 

[billsreef]

He should start reading some of the scientific literature for a change. Ocean pH has already dropped, it's not theory, it's already happened.

 

[RicksReefs]

this guy needs a refresher course in 6th grade biology, I doubt very much he'd be interested in keeping up to date with reality.

 

[rexdenton]

Re: Nothing wrong with dumping plastic waste in the ocean?

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13546711#post13546711 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Megalodon
I was just talking to a school teacher and got the lecture of a lifetime. Apparently I'm uneducated and ignorant for believing all the plastic floating around in the ocean is a bad thing. He claims that everything is food for something else... and that plastic is no different than any other natural waste product ocean life produces. He says it's the natural way evolution works... ie., lifeforms that can't tolerate the plastic will die, which is good, and that lifeforms that can eat the plastic will evolve. And trying to interfere with this is nothing more than meddling with nature.

What do you think? Crazy right?

Bring this article to your teacher.

http://www.independent.co.uk/enviro...at-stretches-from-hawaii-to-japan-778016.html
The biological half life of plastics is in the 'thousands of years' In Hawaii, beaches frequently get innundated with garbage from the Pacific Gyre, which rolls around the garbage patch unpredictably. Have your teacher google "Pacific Garbage Patch" or "garbage" and "gyre" as well as 'biological half-life of plastic".

It is both irresponsible and unsustainable to consistently believe that science technology, or natural evolution will solve man-made messes. Better to leave it the way you found it, as an approach to sustainability.

 

[BeanAnimal]

rex, the teacher's point is that the plastic is harmless, not that it does not exist.

 

[Megalodon]

More garbage from him... ocean water can naturally buffer itself from CO2 adequately. If not, a diatom bloom, visible from space, might be able to take care of most of it.

 

[billsreef]

:lol:

Should ask him were that diatom bloom is, since the ocean pH has already dropped.

 

[RicksReefs]

all the selfish newbies are hoarding it in their month old tanks.

 

[Megalodon]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14149671#post14149671 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by billsreef
:lol:

Should ask him were that diatom bloom is, since the ocean pH has already dropped.

He says we don't understand the ability of seawater to buffer itself. Wow.

And even if there is a mass extinction, none of it will matter in a few million years anyway. Mass extinction has happened before, therefore it's sad, but oh well, if it happens again, it's not really important, bla, bla, bla...

 

[billsreef]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14150418#post14150418 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Megalodon
He says we don't understand the ability of seawater to buffer itself. Wow.

Wow indeed. That means a whole lot of Phd. marine scientists I know are clueless, either that or he his. I'm betting he's the clueless one

 

[Megalodon]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14150585#post14150585 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by billsreef
Wow indeed. That means a whole lot of Phd. marine scientists I know are clueless, either that or he his. I'm betting he's the clueless one

I told him the acidity of the ocean has already dropped.

This is his response...

I have a suggestion: educate yourself. Newsflash... everything IS going to die. There's not a thing you can do about it. You can't make anything live an instant longer than they're supposed to. The primal rule of life on this planet is "adapt or die". It's true for everything, even helpless little feather-dusters. Assuming for the moment that the oceans are becoming more acidic, why do you assume that it is something civilized nations can control? Humans JUST started paying attention in the last 50 years and you imagine your handwringing is a big step in preventing it. You seem to think that some human ... will be able to snap their fingers and reverse the perturbation (look it up) of the last 3 centuries of human growth. Your problem is that you don't even know if it is unnatural. You appear completely ignorant to the fact that the oceans are dynamic and are assuming again, that any change is bad. You think you're some kind of pro because you have some cichlids in your tank and go running to the bait store for advice every time you feed them...jeez- the trick would be to kill them by accident.

I haven't even had my cichlids since I've met him. Sold them a long time ago.

 

[billsreef]

 

[zooty]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13549909#post13549909 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by coralnut99
This line of thinking came from a schoolteacher?

There's a gazillion viewpoints on what's right and wrong with regard to what's truly a hazard to the environment.

But the fact that this came from a schoolteacher just leaves me speechless.

Pretty much agree with this.

Crazy people teaching our children

 

[BeanAnimal]

Sadly, there are as many "green" fruitcakes teaching things that are just as absurd.

Yes... crazy people teaching are children and crazy people running our governments and media...

 

[Beaun]

Human induced evolution is NOT survival of the fittest as we know it. To say that something will be able to eat plastic is not what the argument should be about. It is wether our impacts on nature should be reduced or not. Human induced evolution is rarely a good thing (It has yet good as far as im concerned).

My wife is a science teacher, and it offends me to think that someone would say this in a school setting. This teacher obviously doesn't understand the theory of evolution or how it works, he shouldn't be teaching subjects he doesn't fully understand.

 

[BeanAnimal]

Man is part of nature, therefore anything man does (good or bad) is natural. The evolution that man's actions cause is not any different than the evolution caused by any other event in the universe.

The "teacher" in question is playing devil's advocate and snaring many of you in your own logical traps. He has made some very valid points.

He is clearly of the perspective that man has the ability to nuke the entire planet and cease to exisit. If and when that happens, mother nature will simply chug along towards a new path and future regardless of what "we" did.

Man has decided what is "ideal" and what life and/or creatures are important. The earth itself is void of feeling or emtion and could care less what happens. It has been a ball of fire and a ball of ice. It will be both again before long.

I ask again, is this "teachers" any worse than the uninformed "teacher" who blindly preaches "green" junk science?

 

[rldavisou]

I read Alan Weisman's book, "The World Without Us," and he talks about this very thing while discussing all the plastic waste that floats around the South Pacific Gyre (google it). He compared plastic waste to cellulosic waste. When organisms first began to produse cellulose, there was nothing that could break it down. It's been a long time since I read it, but Weisman said something like 100,000 years before the first decompsers of cellulose appeared. Plastic molecules are more complex than cellulose, so wouldn't it logically follow that it would take AT LEAST that long for plastic decomposers to appear (naturally)?