Take five. Here’s an at-a-glance chance to reconnect with or catch top stories you might have missed this week at EcoSalon:

1. Mixed and very strong reactions to new writer Libby Lowe’s article, Jesus, Enough With The Chicken, highlighting the new Chick-fil-A location in Chicago. Should there be a separation of chicken and state? Are human rights involved when it comes to a simple chicken patty? Read and weigh in on this “heavy sandwich.”

2. Abigail Doan on trashion: Condoms and Candy Wrappers: And We Wonder Why Anna Wintour Won’t Green Vogue has us all asking whether creative reuse is fraying the lines of sustainable design and glorifying “less than marketable fashion.”

3. Fears over child bullying, kidnapping and standard-issue psychopaths preying on our children are challenged with senior editor Luanne Bradley’s piece, Are The Kids Alright In 2011? Not If You Buy Into The Hype. Bradley writes: “Was it really safer back then? If you buy into recent statistics, kids are actually as safe or safer now.”

4. Can you green me now? Have you ever thought about how sustainable your phone network is? Stephanie Rogers investigates in her Digg-topping article, Verizon Vs. AT&T: Who’s Greener (We Know Who Works Better). Want to know who wins? Click and see.

5. Sea sluts and plastic patches. Foreign correspondent Stiv Wilson is a self-proclaimed two-timer, but not for what you’re thinking. Reflections from a Two-Timer, a thoughtful conclusion to the exclusive 14-week series chronicling his sailing journey in the South Atlantic Gyre may be over, but you can catch the entire series here.

Above image helloturkeytoe

The post The Friday Five, Vol. 1 appeared first on EcoSalon.

Last night – day eight? nine? – of an epic storm that has held us hostage out here in the South Atlantic, the wind hit 51.7 knots. 50 knots translates to about 60mphs and at that speed the wind is audible. Physical. Like a chorus of shrieking witches, the dark side of nature laughs at you, tossing you about like a toy. You can do nothing but watch the angry ocean, water spraying so fine it pixelates. If I look into the wind, I’ll pay for that luxury; pins and needles of rain burrow into my face, my pores. In a word, it’s awesome. To witness the raw power and force of the ocean in a frenzy is to be audience to the incomprehensible. No human made creation, perhaps with the exception of a nuclear bomb can show such fantastical energy.

At all times, someone must be on deck to watch over our vessel, looking to the horizon for other ships (we are in a shipping lane) and watching to see if the wind swings, increases – anything that might go awry.

I want to write about our research. I want to write the environmental story that we’re making here, but all I can do is talk about the weather. Talk about why humans will expose themselves to such vulnerability for the sake of science. But as I sit here below deck, dry and writing, my mind is distracted by the boat heaving up and down. I’m wishing I could be in my bunk, asleep. All I can think about is my fragile mental state, tired, so tired. Storms never last this long. Yes, I find beauty in watching this power, but to be this physically exhausted makes for an agitated state, one that makes writing, sharing – hell, just being – difficult. And there is no escape. Capetown is weeks away.

But perhaps I can get a bit lost in my words here as I describe the work we are here to do. I will try, enervated as I am; obsessed as I am with the weather.

We sample the ocean every 60 miles or so for plastic pollution. As I’ve noted before, this is the first expedition in the world to ever do so in the South Atlantic, and being a part this crew is exciting. Being a part of a new discovery is an honor. But the glory quickly fades once the sea acts up. The view from deck never changes with the exception of the weather, the clouds, and the moon phases. Each wave is different of course but they come and pass so quickly their shape is never committed to memory. Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink.

Even in these chaotic seas, where the state of the sea drives that which would normally float (plastic) down, we’re still finding more plastic than biomass in our sampling. The deployment and retrieval of the trawl is extremely dangerous. In this world, you don’t want to step to the edge of the boat. Though only six feet off the water, it might as well be the cliffs of Dover. In the space of a few seconds, the deck will rise and fall 20 feet, and that doesn’t account for the tangential, lateral movements, either. During the day, you can watch the ocean, and make your movements on deck based on anticipating what the next wave will do. But at night, mother ocean is a constant mystery. At any moment she can take you down. Hard. You simply don’t take chances. Falling overboard here is certain death.

Turning a ship like this around takes a bit of time, at least a quarter mile, and by then, you’re lost in the dark swells, nothing but a head bobbing from a vantage of infinity. To avoid this, we’re all wearing harnesses and strapped to the deck at all times. We are safe from death by following a strict protocol, but injury is another matter. Even in the time it’s taken to write this, we’ve had a close call. Ten minutes ago, a rogue wave broke over the stern of the ship and took our crew member James, one of the pro surfers, aboard across the deck from the cockpit to the helm, washing him at least 20 feet. Clipped in, he’s alive.

For now, I’m dry below and I am writing my words. And I’m safe from a storm that will not end. But today, I don’t want to end this post here. To end now means to go back to the present moment. The wind. The waves. Prayer for a rising barometer. Prayer for a conversation where we don’t talk about the weather.

The post All We Do Is Talk About the Weather: Day 14 In a Transatlantic Plastic Tale appeared first on EcoSalon.

I’m now just over a week at sea, having left Angra Dos Reis (Anchorage of the Kings), Brazil on November 8th. Our crew is now some 1100 miles out, sampling the ocean for plastic pollution every 60 nautical miles or so. As I sit here, a storm rages outside, and uncharacteristically of the South Atlantic, the wind is coming from the South, not the North, Northwest. We have yet to find the trade winds, which makes our 72 foot sailing vessel heave and ho beyond comfort.

Thus far, we’ve found what we suspected would be in the South Atlantic. Plastic. The gyre, or what is popularly referred to as a ‘garbage patch’ is still about 600 miles from our position, and so far, we’re not finding a prolific amount in our samples yet, but that will most likely change as we get farther into the gyre. The weather will change, too, and we expect very light winds and very calm seas which should reveal the garbage out here in better detail. Big seas tend to hide the plastic, driving it down into the water column.

Chelsea, one of our scientists, is monitoring the water for pollutants and pollutant uptake in virgin plastic that she drags behind the boat. But her most groundbreaking work has proven that pollutants like PCBs, DDT, and PAHs that plastic absorbs in the marine environment can in fact transfer to a fish’s tissue after ingestion. So far, she’s proved this in her lab in San Diego, and is looking to repeat the experiment with samples taken from the field. In our case, that’s the middle of the ocean. The possible ramifications of this notion are startling. Throughout a predator fish’s life, she’ll eat thousands of fish, and if each one is polluted, that amount of pollution will biomagnify throughout the predator fish’s life. If that predator is say, tuna, and you’re eating a some sashimi with friends – well, you see where this is going.

Personalities and Killing Fish

It’s actually kind of funny, this crew; as is typical of our expeditions, we take a very diverse group of people and personalities in order to share different perspectives on this issue as we conduct outreach once we’re back home. But out here, what I love is that each person tends to approach the same moment or experience, differently. There’s Jody, our filmmaker, who barks in romantic Moby Dick Captain Ahab-isms and caught a fish yesterday. He had a fairly sizable Dorado (Mahi-Mahi) on the line, and he swore like a 19th century pirate in verse, excited by the ‘fight with the watery beast from dimensions that excite the imagination’ as he pulled it to the boat.

Meanwhile the scene is complimented by a just-awake Chelsea, who is pulling out a clipboard and donning latex gloves methodically in order to collect the liver and stomach of the fish for her research. Then you have Dale, the first mate Kiwi, who is verbally abusing me at the helm (when a fish gets on the line, you want to slow or stop the boat) the whole time this is happening. After we land it, he repeatedly and savagely stabs the fish in the head  (“die you c#nt bastard!”) trying to get the thing to die quickly. The constant vulgar barrage of words from Dale’s mouth towards me and the fish is essentially New Zealandish for “hey guy, I actually really like you.” (Special note here – if a Kiwi isn’t giving you an exceedingly large amount of crap, he doesn’t care for you – verbal abuse where he comes from is tantamount to a term of endearment.)

Then you have Rich, the Santa Cruz warrior poet who will look at the whole spiritual side of taking an animal’s life for food, and he’ll be respectfully thanking the animal for providing us with a meal. Also on the scene is the pro surfer from SoCal, Mary Osborne, videotaping the whole drama with an astonished or horrified look on her face, not used to this sort of primal ritual splayed out in front of her. As well, you have Anna, deeply saddened by the whole escapade, sensitive to the butchery in front of her.

What I love about being here, in the middle of nowhere, crammed into a tiny ship for a month is the purity of spirit that emerges in everyone sharing the experience. To be at sea for 30 days is no easy thing, and you’re counting on the people you’re with to keep you happy, healthy and alive. That interdependency is sublime. Yes, we’re all on an environmental mission, doing some crucial work, but there are a lots of hours in the day in which to play. Joke. Be. Kill fish. This precisely is why the sea calls to me and why I care for her health so. It’s why I’m here.

The post To Catch Plastic and To Kill a Fish appeared first on EcoSalon.

Still, poor weather persists. Isn’t it supposed to be the onset of summer? Last night on watch, Marcus, Chelsea, Mike and Anna experienced heaving seas, sideways rain and wind gusts over 30 knots. By the time Bonnie, Rich, Mary, Max and I got on watch, conditions had eased a bit, but the wind drives into the noon hour.

We’ve been in the mid-twenties ever since leaving Brazil. As we gain longitude eastward, conditions should improve. But right now, we’re confronted by low pressure systems spinning around Cape Horn and after 72 hours of this, the crew is ready for some sun and some organized seas.

With this wind, we could be in Capetown within a couple of weeks. But of course, this isn’t a race. We’re sampling every 50 miles for plastic pollution, but with these messy sea states, getting good samples is difficult. The plastic that floats is not neutrally buoyant, but it’s close, so when sea state goes up, plastic is driven down into the water column. Best case conditions are calmer, flatter seas for a more accurate picture of density. When the wind goes over 25 knots and the seas get ugly, we cease sampling, and either hove-to (a technique in sailing where the sails are backed to keep the nose into the wind, but slow down the boat’s progress), or sail in the opposite direction having marked the next sampling area, turning around to find it again when the weather has passed.

After about 10 more samples, we should be getting into the high pressure for quite some time until conditions will most likely worsen as we approach Africa. It’s important to keep from getting a gap in our data because this expedition is the first ever to sample this area of planet earth, and much like how Algalita’s work in the North Pacific was the impetus for Scripps to conduct work there, it’s our hope that our work here will inspire oceanographers the world over to concentrate not just on the northern hemisphere, but understand that this issue of plastic pollution is global.

For the few trawls that we have conducted, it’s clear that plastic is an issue here, too, even though we’ve yet to reach the accumulation zones, i.e. the gyre. Each gyre has its own DNA of garbage and we’re interested to see what Africa and South America’s offerings will be. We’re also wondering if it will be denser or lighter based on several vectors. How will lower GDP of countries affect their garbage impact on the ocean? How many watersheds contribute? What kind of plastic pollution will see? Will lack of waste management infrastructure for processing plastic affecting how much gets dumped? It all remains to be seen.

From the sailing side of things, we have yet to repair the mainsail as the sea is too choppy to get the sewing machine on deck or trust ourselves with large needles doing careful work. For now, we sail with the smaller staysail and the big Yankee. Or Jenny, as it’s called in the States.

The crew that’s been battling seasickness seems to finally be getting the upper hand on it. That’s good news. No more misery. Soon, we’ll all be enjoying enforceable mid afternoon dance parties aboard sea dragon.

The post Sea Dragon Day 3: Plastic Dreams appeared first on EcoSalon.

The team assembled, we’re making last minute preparations for our month-long journey into the heart of the South Atlantic Gyre. In total, we’ll spend some 30 days at sea looking to discover (or hopefully not) the South Atlantic Garbage Patch. Yesterday, we shot press images of our team in a bay at Ihle Grande, one of the most beautiful places this writer has ever seen. Taking a quick ferry around the island, we searched for waves with pro surfers Mary Osborne and James Pribram, two 5 Gyres ambassadors looking to spread the word about plastic pollution to the surfing community when they return.

Hiking up through the jungle, then down, on a path that would be a nightmare if it started to rain, we found a wide open beach with pure clean water and beautiful waves. It was my job to get photos of them, but for this surfer, there are few things on earth harder than watching people having a blast while surfing. Soon, I got my shots, and had a go.

We awoke to a beautiful morning of clouds over the stiff jungle peaks and readied the boat for our trip to Angre Dos Reis (anchorage of the gods) where we’ll pass immigration, fuel up, and do last minute fresh food shopping. Fresh food will be a distant memory in a week’s time, as very little survives in a hot, salty climate for a length of time.

This will be my longest journey at sea; some four or more weeks without land, a reality that both worries and excites me. Our team is dynamic, heavy on science, activism, and pro athletes with great networks for the cause. We’ve got events scheduled on the other side with the South Africa press, and we’re hoping for strong media attention. Our mission is to demonstrate that this is a global problem, not something that just exists in the North Pacific.

Here we go.

The post Special Investigative Series: Sea Dragon Sets Sail, Day 1 appeared first on EcoSalon.

Rio de Janeiro

It’s day one of a three-and-a-half month sailing adventure from Rio de Janeiro to Capetown, where I’ll spend three to four weeks at sea and a month in South Africa before sailing north to Walvis Bay, Namibia and back again to Montevideo, Uruguay. I’ll be with a dynamic team of scientists, activists, professional sailors and surfers, and seasoned documentary filmmakers. I’m supposed to make sure we have the money to do all this, bringing sponsorships and grants and documenting the whole thing in words and pictures. Yup, it’s me again, out in the world looking for plastic trash in yet another oceanic gyre. If you’re asking, “What the hell is a gyre?”, read on.

Gyre 101

The nonprofit I work for is The 5 Gyres Institute. Unless you’re living in a cave (which you aren’t), you know that our single-use-synthetic-everything lifestyle wreaks havoc on our land. You may also know that this lifestyle is destroying our oceans, and maybe you’ve even heard of something called The North Pacific Gyre…or, more accurately if less academically put, The North Pacific Garbage Patch.

A gyre is a swirling vortex in the ocean formed by opposing trade winds at higher and lower latitudes that are affected by this thing from science class called the Coriolis Effect. Basically, the Coriolis Effect makes these winds bend in an arc because of the earth’s rotation and thus, you get a massive circular wind pattern whose energy is transferred to the sea. And it’s big, like North America big. (And, you now know what a gyre is, which means you know more about this than most people.)

I often explain it in simpler terms: A gyre is a toilet bowl without a drain. Anything that comes off land or ship will likely enter it, spinning towards the center. Plastic, because it’s so resilient, will remain in the ocean for thousands of years. And, while there has been much hype about the North Pacific Gyre and the Texas-sized trash heap that resides there, what about the other four?

There are four more giant plastic gyres.

In fact, there are 11 such gyres, but “The 11 Gyres Institute” isn’t as sexy. (Kidding aside, the other six are much smaller, but eventually, we’ll go to them, too.) There are five major subtropical oceanic gyres in the world: North and South Pacific, North and South Atlantic, and Indian. The 5 Gyres organization is interested in looking at the other four  The New York Times doesn’t know about. (Sailing across the North Atlantic last year, we found acres upon acres of junk in another gyre. It was horrendous enough to compel me to quit my previous job; I’m now plastic trash at sea guy.)

As a surfer, I was also weary of the years of plastic trash washing up on my home beaches of Oregon.

Fast forward to today, as I am preparing to sail more of the world with some of the smartest people I’ve ever met. We’re hunting for garbage. How bad is it? The pill to swallow is more like a single use latte lid: Not one of us will ever walk any beach in the entire world during our lifetimes and not see plastic washed up on it.

The South Atlantic Gyre

In a week’s time I’ll sail from Rio to Capetown aboard our vessel, The Sea Dragon, operated by expedition partner, Pangaea Explorations. For this project, we’re essentially joined at the hip for several years and thanks to sponsorship by ChacoUSA, Patagonia, Quiksilver Foundation, and EcoUsable water bottles, we’re solvent and will be able to document what’s never before been studied: A subtropical oceanic gyre for plastic pollution. Plastic garbage in the ocean isn’t just a North Pacific issue, it’s a massive global environmental problem on par with climate change. Yes, it’s that bad.

It is also almost unspeakably sad. Sea turtles and marine mammals get entangled in the standard six pack rings and choke to death; countless birds ingest tampon applicators and syringes and desperately feed these toxic items, regurgitated, to their hungry young.

Plastic in the ocean absorbs persistent organic pollutants that enter via runoff and watersheds from land. Plastic is like a sponge for these pollutants: Poly Aromatic Hydrocarbons (from the oil from cars), DDT, PCBs, flame retardants, you name it – plastic is so effective at absorbing this stuff that fragments of plastic have been shown to have a million times higher toxicity than the ambient sea water around it.

Fish eat plastic, and the real concern is that these toxins are transferring to fish tissues and bio-accumulating up the food chain all the way up to that spicy tuna roll. If you drew your own blood and did a toxicology screen on it, you might be surprised to find these contaminants in your very own bloodstream.

Enter Chelsea Rochman, a scientist I’ll be with at sea who studies this issue. She’s working to see if there is a one-to-one connection of toxic plastic to fish tissue. Already, we have anecdotal evidence that it happens; a lawsuit was recently filed in the Superior Court of California suing the makers of fish oil supplements for not disclosing the high levels of PCBs in the pills. But we don’t have enough data yet.

For the next three-and-a-half months, I’ll be writing about what we find, what life is like at sea studying this stuff, what we’re really doing to our oceans. I will be transmitting my reports via satellite connection, and EcoSalon’s editors will be filing the articles on my behalf.

Until next week, here in Rio, I’m sitting on the seventh floor of a rather elegant hotel that I’ve treated myself to for the first two nights I’m on this adventure. Life after this will be unpredictable and rougher, a life I’m accustomed to and love, so this place with its ocean view and safe place to store my camera equipment and drink cold beer is a splurge for me.

Already, in the span of seven hours I’ve been offered sex, a “friend” to take me to a club, cocaine, and weed. I think that’s what happens when you’re an American traveler by yourself wearing big sunglasses and Vans drinking espresso in a café in the land of pleasure. (No, I’m not one for any of these things.)

I’m sad and happy about what is to come. Until next time.

The post Her Name Is Rio, and There Is Plastic on the Sand appeared first on EcoSalon.

Yes, that’s an N.W.A. reference. Here’s another, less controversial one:

“Once a journey is designed, equipped, and put in process, a new factor enters and takes over. A trip, a safari, an exploration, is an entity, different from other journeys. It has personality, temperament, individuality, uniqueness. A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all the plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.”  – John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley

I’m barely getting through my days right now without the aid of antiquated gangsta rap and John. I’m in the hustling trenches. Wake up. Write, then market. Phone call, email, phone call, email, wait, wait, email telling you to wait, phone call, rinse, repeat. Support our mission! Give us money! Yes, you’ll get pro photo assets. Yes, we’ll shout you out. Yes, we work with the UN, yes, big media is going to cover it. Yes, we’ll rock your brand as long as you give a demonstrable, objective crap about the earth. We’re here. We’re epic, we’re leaving soon. Give us money.

This is my life for the next four weeks. It’s good, though: I believe in what I do. Perennially on the road, I’m fund hunting via iPhone (I once filled out a 12-page grant application on it). Red into the black, that’s my mission. Float the boat.

So, no reports this week from far flung locales. I’m at home doing the dirty work that makes this plastic trash studying in the ocean work possible. And I’m antsy. I can’t hunch over my computer saying “I need to do more yoga” one minute longer, reading about Sun Chips ditching their compostable bag because it’s just too noisy. Or Coburn, the small-minded bastard, not having an issue with shark finning. It’s crazymaking. Forget ethical integrity so we can snack quietly and enjoy a tipple of exotic broth.

November 1, I leave for Rio De Janeiro, Brazil to join my 5 Gyres team to prepare for our departure to Capetown, South Africa, aboard our trusty lady, The Sea Dragon, to study plastic pollution in yet another oceanic gyre. Then I’ll hang in South Africa doing events and presentations (and surfing) for the month of December. Next, it’s up the coast of Africa to Walvis Bay, Namibia, to an island named St. Helena, then to Montevideo, Uruguay. I’ll be “home” February 11, 2011.

The crew will consist of our usual suspects and we’re in the throes of selecting the fresh meat. Sailing across an ocean is no joke, and you need to vet your crew if you’re going to occupy a 72 by 15 foot space for 30 days straight. And our ship is a working vessel. No whiners or dilettantes allowed. We take journalists, artists, pro surfers, industry reps, students, teachers – if you come back and fight for the cause, then it’s worth you seeing something that very few people on earth even imagine exists: A plastic trash vortex in the middle of the ocean.

If you’re a plastic warrior and have some skills, talk to the Ed. at EcoSalon and I’ll get you on the ship. It’ll change your life. It did mine.

These are the areas we study. What you’re looking at here is a computer model of buoys that drifted in the ocean for 10 years, pinging their locations everyday. This is their path. The gyre, as we say, is the red parts. Some are more concentrated, some are more diffuse. All have an incredible amounts of plastic in them.

If you have an interest in this subject (which I so warmly refer to as our little marine disaster of incomprehensible scale), I’m going to be reporting via satellite on what we find “out there” in an area of the world’s ocean that has never been studied for plastic pollution a few times a week.

Stay tuned. And fight everyday. Even just a little.

The post F@$K tha Plastique, Goin’ Straight South Atlantic Bound appeared first on EcoSalon.