The LA Times has a comprehensive five-part series on “the crisis in the oceans.” Garbage and pollution from man enters the oceans, creates toxic slime that kills fish and sickens any one near it. This is excellent reporting, enhanced by videos, photos, and graphics.
Part 1. A Primeval Tide of Toxins
Runoff from modern life is feeding an explosion of primitive organisms. This ‘rise of slime,’ as one scientist calls it, is killing larger species and sickening people.
Part 2. Sentinels Under Attack
Toxic algae that poison the brain have caused strandings and mass die-offs of marine mammals â┚¬â€ barometers of the sea’s health.
Part 3. Dark Tides, Ill Winds
With sickening regularity, toxic algae blooms are invading coastal waters. They kill sea life and send poisons ashore on the breeze, forcing residents to flee.
Part 4. Plague of Plastic Chokes the Seas
On Midway Atoll, 40% of albatross chicks die, their bellies full of trash. Swirling masses of drifting debris pollute remote beaches and snare wildlife.
Part 5. A Chemical Imbalance
Growing seawater acidity threatens to wipe out coral, fish and other crucial species worldwide.
As long as the profit motive is allowed to reign supreme over the health of the planet, the destruction of the oceans will continue. 90% of the big fish are already gone. We don’t need environmental reform, we need a new economic system that doesn’t permit and encourage environmental catastrophe just so someone can make money.
[tags]polluted oceans[/tags]