High Country News (the Western state newsmagazine featured prominently in our conversation with author Paolo Bacigalupi) produced this disturbing collage of the contents found in the stomach of a beached whale. It amounts to an incredibly powerful argument for reducing the amount of trash we are pumping into our ecosystem.
Comments
Paul M. Davis wrote on 06.07.10, 7:23am:
This is horrible. The oil spill is bringing rare attention to the problem of ocean pollution, but it is enormous and ongoing. Brings to mind the "trash islands" that have formed in oceans around the world: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/science/10patch.html
Dan Netto wrote on 04.11.11, 3:15am:
Recently High Country News produced this disturbing collection of the contents found in the stomach of a beached whale. It was really atrocious news regarding our ecosystem. It amounts to an incredibly commanding argument for reducing the amount of trash we are pumping into our ecosystem. Our oceans are becoming the dumping site for all the activities of humans. I hope everyone is aware of the huge dead zones, places in the sea where there's not enough oxygen to support life. Currently there are over 400 dead zones across the globe with ones as large as 27K square miles. One big factor for this is chemical run off from industrial agriculture.
Don't forget the huge dead zones, places in the sea where there's not enough oxygen to support life. There are over 400 dead zones across the globe with ones as large as 27K square miles. The dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico is 6-8K square miles. The number of reported dead zones tripled between 2003 and 2008. One big contributing factor is chemical run off from industrial agriculture. Nitrogen is the main problem.