BT Edmonton Blogs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7rNYzSH-BA  This link gets you to a report by CNN on their show called “News to Me”.

 http://vimeo.com/3251574  This link is to a 12-part video.  Viewing time is a little more than an hour.  It was shot by an online broadcast network VBS.

   This story may not be new to you, but here’s hoping it will stir a new emotion.  In this case, plastics are the root of all environmental evil.

    Six years ago, a sea captain noticed an enormous stretch of garbage floating in the Pacific Ocean.  He, Charles Moore, was more than a thousand miles off shore.

   It’s not a dumping ground in the sense that people are flying or boating by and throwing their refuse into the heap.

   The garbage is trapped in a circular course by winds and currents, and is getting bigger.

It’s in an area called:  the North Pacific Gyre (pronounced JIRE).

    A Gyre is a giant rotating area.  The gyre’s rotation is drawing in the waste material from across the North Pacific Ocean, including the coastal waters off North America and Japan.

The actual size is unknown,…but some estimate it’s twice the size of Texas, and is floating between California and Hawaii.

   The garbage has been given a name of shame.

   The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is 80 percent plastic, and has been estimated to weigh more than 3 million tonnes.

   In some of the video, you see a toothbrush, bendy straws, and lots and lots and lots of pieces of plastic bags.

   Scientists are not totally surprised by the Great Garbage Patch.

   Back in 1988, it was predicted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.     Researchers were measuring the amount of plastic in the North Pacific Ocean, and predicted that someday ……there would be more.

In fact, they were even said the area hit would be the North Pacific Gyre.

On Earth Day, may we learn from Gandhi who said:

“Be the change you want to see in the world”.