Off Hours: ‘All jacked up’ about protecting oceans

Except for a hot shower two or three times a month, I think water is probably at its best when frozen into small cubes and dropped into a glass or blender when making one’s adult beverage of choice.
I spent my younger years in Oregon, so I’ve had my fill of rain. I still love to swim, so I’m good with rivers, streams and lakes. But I’ve lost the passion I once had for surfing, and my attitude these days is that the real big body of water out there to our west is no place for a rookie like me — and I’m OK with that.
So it was way out of character when I agreed to an offshore outing with some friends a few weeks back. One of our pals is a marine biologist who keeps a boat in the Santa Cruz harbor. He doesn’t do much regular fishing these days, but he needed to collect some specimens and agreed to take us out because we promised to pay for the fuel. I joined the others under pressure and regretted it until we left the dock.
In the end, it was a fantastic day out on Cap’n Mike’s turf (that’s Mike Baxter, the Press-Banner’s “Let’s go fishin’” columnist). The fog was gone, temperatures were mild, there was very little wind and the fishing was good. Most importantly, though, the waters were calm. A fine time was had by all, but that one factor was probably key to making it good for me.
Another factor that made it fun was our friend the marine biologist. He’s become a real zealot, and at every opportunity, he turned the conversation to the damage humans are doing to the seas. A few guys nudged one another or rolled their eyes now and then, but others fed him cues and egged him on, entertained by his diatribe and happy to see him all jacked up.
We know he’s well-educated and well-experienced and not one to spout platitudes or use dramatic statistics just for effect. The teasing was good-natured, and we all took notice of what he said.
Start to finish, he was most effusive about two things: global warming
and the amount of plastic waste thrown or otherwise allowed to get into the open ocean.
He absolutely went off on (mostly) Republican politicians for using the term “climate change” and claiming it’s a natural phenomenon while ignoring the historical record and the overwhelming scientific evidence of human and industrial contributions to global warming.
Saying that the impact is most profound on the world’s seas and oceans, he showed us satellite pictures of the staggering melting of the Arctic ice cap over the past two decades. He explained how core samples of polar ice, which record environmental conditions dating back thousands of years, prove that dramatic and rapid change like what we are seeing now has only been seen in the past after sudden, massive and multiple volcanic events or meteor impacts. Thousands of square miles of reflective ice have disappeared from the Arctic, adding thousands of square miles of open water. The newly exposed sea surface absorbs the sun’s heat faster, which melts the ice faster, and on and on. The unprecedented ice melt is an ever-increasing feedback-loop.
Indeed, a United Nations climate report from 2007 that predicted melting ice would cause a 23-inch rise in sea level by the year 2100 — just 90 years — has already been revised to forecast a 36-inch rise. And that assumes we’ll take drastic action to cut carbon emissions quickly.
A rise in sea level of that magnitude will be catastrophic for places like New Orleans, most of Holland and all of Bangladesh. It’ll be pretty hard on Santa Cruz as well — Scotts Valley could become beachfront property again. Never mind the impact on weather and food production — close to 50 million people will be displaced by the encroaching sea.
Our friend was equally worked up about the plastic waste humans have introduced into the oceans. He had plenty of pictures of birds with bottle caps and hair clips in their guts and marine life with six-pack rings caught over their heads, but he was especially disgusted by the less-conspicuous and more far-reaching consequences.
The world’s oceans have several areas where slow, circular currents catch and hold debris, but the amount and makeup of that debris has changed dramatically in recent years. Now, the detritus is largely plastic. The northern Pacific Ocean area known as the Horse Latitudes is home to the largest of these floating trash masses, said to be twice the size of Texas.
Having sailed through it several times, he showed us photos of what can be found. There were plenty of recognizable things, such as shower shoes, plastic bags and pieces of Styrofoam coolers, but what was really disturbing were the water samples he showed.
Plastic does not biodegrade. For the most part, the floating debris in what he called “the great Pacific garbage patch” has broken down into small particles suspended at or just below the water surface. Carried on the currents, the particles are ultimately pulled into becalmed areas, where they accumulate into a toxic soup, killing sea life and passing absorbed poisons up the food chain.
Scooped in by plankton eaters and larger sea life, some of these everlasting plastic bits also end up in the stomachs of marine birds and animals, including sea turtles. The tiny pieces are routinely taken for eggs or other floating food and ingested by even the smallest sea creatures. No matter how small the particle, plastic is not digestible, and complications often lead to starvation or malnourishment.
The toxin-containing plastic pieces are also eaten by jellyfish, for example, which are then eaten by larger fish, which are consumed by humans — and at each step, the toxins and heavy metals are passed on.
It’s not likely we’ll bug our friend to take us out on his boat again any time soon, but the nice day, calm seas and good fish catch kept the reality check from being a total downer. I do think all of us returned to shore determined to reduce our use of plastic and to mind how we dispose of it.
• Steve Bailey of Boulder Creek has spent plenty of time in recreational activities. Contact him at

sb*****@cr****.com











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