[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?
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.
ReplyDeleteAmy
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!
ReplyDeleteFloating Debris
ReplyDeleteFlotsam 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.
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!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteThank you SO much!!! Most beautiful thing I’ve read this weekend, and here it is on my site. WHU-HOO!!!!!!
I hadn't heard about this, Sherry. Thanks for making me more aware, as you so often seem to do!
ReplyDeleteAbsurd...so absurd...
ReplyDeleteHuge mess - huge story - no coverage.