My first blog feature on Climate Shifts was about marine debris. I wanted to get the word out there after recent Pacific travels. The usual litmus test encouraged me: does my family know about this issue? They didn’t. So, the video I had made for an academic class entered the YouTube world for Mom and blog-followers alike.
My first blog as an official contributor is about public awareness. Both Good Morning America and Stephen Colbert have spotlighted this issue in the past few months. But there really has been no mass response to the overwhelmingly apparent problem. Today, CNN presents a long form video piece on pacific “plastic soup” featuring Capt. Charles Moore whom some accredit with discovering – what the media has dubbed – the “garbage patch.” The man has salt in his hair but not too many citations to his name. And, surprise: he didn’t discover it. Biologists at Midway Atoll have been quantifying the peculiarly abundant presence of plastic in the north Pacific since the late 1960s.
As an aspiring scientist myself, I’m struck by the lack of scientific faces in these media pieces. The anthropogenic blame here is undeniable and disturbing. While many scientists are going on the front lines defending climate change, other phenomena of global environmental change are being left in the periphery.
The task asked of scientists is different than that of defending climate change. Instead of sound science and strong arguments, the issue needs eloquence and persistence in communicating the growing body of science assessing the ecological effects of marine debris. Fortunately, the three letters “PhD” still command a level of respect and recognition from mass audiences. It may be this recognition that can draw the “garbage patch” problem fully out from the periphery of the public consciousness.
Note plenty of rubbish on the Great Barrier Reef even in the far northern, supposedly ‘pristine’ part – see Haynes, D. 1997 Marine debris on continental islands and sand cays in the Far Northern Section of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, Australia. Marine Pollution Bulletin 34, 276-279. There’s been some action by GBRMPA on preventing dumping in the Marine Park since then so perhaps things may have improved since David Haynes did this work?
This is because the science on marine debris – unlike that of climate change – is not really in yet. Though there’s plenty of evidence for megafauna that, for example, entanglement is bad, we have very little evidence on the impact of microplastic, which is what makes up the vast majority of the debris in the North Pacific Gyre. We’re working on it!