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.

Biofuel usage has increased considerably in recent years, mostly driven by government mandates to find cleaner fuel options. But a new UN report brings into question how environmentally friendly these biofuels actually are.

The report, from the United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) International Panel for Sustainable Resource Management, suggests that before we start patting ourselves on the back for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by using biofuels, we really need to examine more closely the environmental effects of producing ethanol and other renewable transportation fuels.

Using a life-cycle approach to the issue, the report states that further research is needed to discover the impact that producing biofuels has on a region’s biodiversity, land, air, waterways and numerous other environmental concerns.

Some biofuels, after all, are much more environmentally friendly than others. For example, using sugar cane derived biofuel has the potential to reduce emissions by up to 100 percent, but using biofuel made from palm oil on deforested land has the opposite effect.

Further research and debate about these differences, the report suggests, would not only help determine which energy crops to grow and where, but also provide clearer definitions and criteria for distinguishing the degree of sustainability of various biofuels.

Read full report here.

Image: twoblueday

The post UN Questions Green Credentials of Biofuels appeared first on EcoSalon.

We may be facing unprecedented world hunger caused by environmental degradation.

According to recent report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) prices may increase by 30-50 per cent within decades causing those living in extreme poverty to spend up to 90 per cent of their income on food.

Climate change – its impact on water supply, encouragement of invasive insects and plants and fueling of epidemics diseases – is the key reason that worldwide agricultural yields will fall.

The report talks about the need to change the way crops are grown, subsidized, and distributed but it also points to two surprising and elegant solutions.

Surprising, because they haven’t been talked about much before. Elegant, because both cannot only help feed a growing population, but also help slow global warming.

Solution 1: Addressing food waste

Over half the food produced today is wasted or discarded. In the US these losses are as high as 40-50 percent, with up to one quarter of all fresh fruits and vegetables in the US lost before they ever get to your refrigerator. In Australia, it is estimated that food waste makes up half of that country’s landfill. Almost one-third of all food purchased in the United Kingdom every year is not eaten.

Not only is this a tragedy for the world’s hungry, but it must be stopped because food decaying in landfills emits methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.

In addition, 30 million tons of fish are discarded at sea every year. Over one-third of the world’s cereals are being used as animal feed. (This is expected to rise to 50 per cent by 2050.) And we are growing grains to feed our autos instead of our bellies. The report suggests that salvaging the discarded fish alone could support a 50 percent increase in aquaculture.

The research also draws out the possibility of producing biofuels from discards like straw and nutshells instead of growing crops to produce them.

Solution 2: Increasing organic crop production in developing countries

Spin from agribusiness continues to promote the idea that genetically modified organisms and large doses of chemical fertilizers and pesticides are the only ways to feed a growing population.

But a survey of 114 small-scale farms in 24 African countries found that yields more than doubled where organic, or near-organic practices were used, with the in-yield jumping to 128 per cent in east Africa. Organic practices outperformed both traditional methods and chemical-intensive conventional farming. Organic methods improved soil fertility and helped the soil retain water and resist drought more effectively.

Since conventional farming methods also contribute more to global warming than organic methods, due to their reliance on petroleum inputs, and growing research suggests that organic farming can feed the world, we need global cooperation and financial investment in promoting organic farming worldwide.

And of course we need to deal with food waste. There have been many suggestions here at EcoSalon, but it can’t only be left up to individuals.

Image: iChaz

The post World Hunger: Climate Change, Food Waste and Elegant Solutions appeared first on EcoSalon.