mailto:roundtable@wamc.org
Human garbage, as we know, is everywhere in the ocean and very easy to confuse with "real wreckage"*. When I was teaching in SE Alaska in 1970-2 (Prudhoe Bay, Alyeska Pipeline, post earthquake), I used to go to the outside, stone-pebble shore.
Even then, with half today's population and a tenth the
plastic-capacity, at the high tide line on the Pacific coast of Alaska
was a foot-wide trail of cigarette butts, tampons, the occasional
Barbie doll part and plastic thingies amongst the natural driftwood,
skeletal remains and "real wreckage".
First time I saw it, I quit smoking on the spot. Now, we know, almost
habitable, human-created continents of garbage float in the Pacific. In
fact, there are cute proposals afoot to inhabit and commercially
re-cycle them! Enough, already!
Perhaps we need a broadcast flotsam tax. Couldn't the media figure out a
way to make helpless millions of victims of war** as visible as 200
crash victims who put themselves at known risk when they fly on a jet
... or travel in a car ... anyway?
*Roundtablers were discussing flight 370 -- for the 16th? time.
**http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/03/30/opinion/30kristof-quiz.html?hp&rref=opinion&_r=0
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