Saturday, April 16, 2011

Floating Debris

[image from celsias.com]

Wow, kids, I just talked to my son Jon, and he told me about something that isn't on the nightly news - and it should be. He says the U.S. Navy reported a gigantic mass of floating debris from the tsunami in Japan, in the Pacific - "islands" of debris so large they pose a shipping hazard. The debris is expected to make its way across the ocean, hitting Hawaii within a year, and the entirety of our west coast - from Alaska all the way down to Baja - by 2013.

Then the debris is expected to wind up in the North Pacific "Garbage Patch", already teeming with garbage.

I looked online and found only one article about it at www.celsias.com/article/japanese-tsunami-sends-massive-debris-ocean

Citing researchers at the International Pacific Research Centre, the article says "Some estimates place the debris size at as much as two million square kilometres, twice the size of our province of Ontario." Wow.

Observers have seen whole buildings, cars and boats floating off the coast of eastern Japan. They say travelling across the ocean in storms will break up some of the debris, but some could make it across intact.

Sounds like a huge cleanup will be needed when that happens. Why isnt this on the news, one foolishly  wonders?

6 comments:

  1. Probably because they are too busy covering Sarah Palin, Dancing With The Stars (actual news now), and other detritus.b Right? Good catch; will check the link, and thanks. Still praying for all those folks, the sea life, the air... and the poor abandoned dogs.
    Amy

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  2. Actually I did see it on the news last week, Sherry...think it was Lloyd Robinson talking about it. Apparently, this will start hitting us in 2012...sounds horrendous, doesn't it?! This afternoon, I watched another piece about the massive island of platic debris that's gathering in the middle of the ocean. What a mess...we can't do much about earthquakes or tsunamis, but there's no excuse for all that garbage!

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  3. Floating Debris
    Flotsam and Jetsam

    We are all but
    Floating debris
    Upon the waters of life
    Have no idea where we
    Have been uncertain
    Where we are going

    We stretch out to full length
    We touch each other
    Fingers and toes entwined
    For fear we aren't really
    Here at all

    The echos of my screams
    Also float near me
    Bump into bits of plastic
    Feeds nothing
    Kills much

    Where are we going
    The destination
    Determined by the current
    And you say
    It is alive in each of us

    For perhaps even though
    Our journeys are unique
    We seek the same
    Final destination

    You chart the stars
    Count each one
    Assign names
    Lean back
    Float the flow
    I wait for you

    And we ask who is responsible for this? The responsibility is ours.

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  4. WOW!!! What a MIRACLE, to read this response! Annell, this poem is absolutely wonderful, it says it all, it restores faith to the discouraged, it makes me want to WRITE!!!!!!!

    Thank you SO much!!! Most beautiful thing I’ve read this weekend, and here it is on my site. WHU-HOO!!!!!!

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  5. I hadn't heard about this, Sherry. Thanks for making me more aware, as you so often seem to do!

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  6. Absurd...so absurd...

    Huge mess - huge story - no coverage.

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