The state of the ocean is grim. That’s the take-away I’m getting from this story about a sailor who went from Japan to San Francisco and saw a lot of trash and very little else. Not good. Not good at all.
There is short-term gain and long-term devastation being sown every day out there in the big blue. Wildly depressing.
Luckily, I have a short attention span.
Look, a squirrel!
Sadly, we may not have enough of them to get the job done… but my plan would be to find some American drunk drivers who are really good people at heart and we’d send those people to the beaches of the Caribbean to clean up all the plastic crap that is quietly washing up on the ocean facing coast lines of some wonderful places.
There’s a lot of it. Miles and miles and miles of coast line are silently being buried under blankets of discarded scraps and buckets and wrappings and packaging…
It occurs to me that it is bad now, but it is bound to get worse. In 20 years there is going to be even MORE of this crap and it is bound to accumulate in the places that are furthest from resorts, furthest from towns… the places I want to fish, places I want to soak my soul in.
Garbage in paradise. It makes me angry and it fills me with a bit of hopelessness because I know there are not enough drunk drivers in the world to clean up the mess we are making for ourselves. There are not enough people living on the little islands where this crap washes up to actually clean it up.
Is there no beautiful thing we cannot destroy on our own? Oil Sands, Pebble Mine, De-watered rivers, de-fished oceans and plastic lined beaches.
If you happen to be a secret billionaire reading this post… please hire an army of the un/under-employed and send them to make the beautiful places beautiful again. I’d really appreciate it.
