When news started coming in of whales washing up on beaches, even along the Southeast coast of England where I lived, I was forced to confront a side of the story I never knew. A story of just how huge our impact on the seas had become. These animals washing up with their stomachs filled with plastic was devastating not only because of their incredible intelligence, but because they even help keep the entire ocean alive.
- Ali Tabrizi (Film maker, Seaspiracy) -
I voraciously pursue information and knowledge; I love history and spend a lot of time learning and understanding about the past - it helps make sense of the present - but I look for knowledge and understanding across a vast array of topics. I read a lot, am very proud of my personal library that could only be described as extensive, however I watch documentaries also.
Today I want to highlight one I recently watched that surprised and horrified me and which further cemented a long-held belief that humanity are destined for ultimate failure.
The documentary is called Seaspiracy (available on Netflix) and is about the ocean - it covers many issues and highlights fallacies and misperceptions, conspiracies and...well, I guess if you're interested you'll watch it and see for yourself.
Let me drop a few facts below though:
- Oceans hold around 80% of all life on Earth.
- Oceans absorb four times more carbon dioxide than the Amazon rainforest.
- Whales are pivotal to phytoplankton fertilisation.
- Around 85% of our oxygen comes from phytoplankton.
- The great Pacific garbage patch (plastic) is 1.6 million sq. kilometres in size.
- Around 50% of that plastic garbage is fishing gear, lines and nets.
- Commercial fishing sets enough long-line for fishing each day to wrap around the planet 500 times.
- 11,000 to 30,000 sharks are killed every hour opposed to the 10 or so humans sharks kill per year. Sharks keep the ocean clean.
- Some 40% of marine life pulled in by commercial fishing each year is thrown overboard as by-catch (unwanted species).
- Dolphin friendly labels on tuna fish cans are not accurate.
- 300,000+ dolphins, porpoises and whales are killed as by-catch yearly.
- Annually 1,000 sea turtles are killed by plastic but 250,000 are captured, injured or killed by commercial fishing in the USA alone.
- Studies show the oceans will be virtually empty by 2048.
These are just some of the facts researched and outlined in the documentary and should be confronting to every one...but context will be needed...which you'll get by watching the ninety minute documentary - The thing is that one element leads to another, dominoes falling so to speak.
There's much more revealed in the documentary like how a halibut fisherman would bring in about 1.2 tonnes per day in 1830 and these days (even with modern fishing techniques) it's about 1.2 tonnes a year because the population is decimated and on the verge of extinction...but the fishing of them continues. Eradicating a species from the food chain and a delicate ecosystem has implications for the entire ecosystem (and planet usually), like sharks or whales for instance. It's untenable.
As I said, there's much to unpack from the documentary; you'll see if you watch it.
It was a confronting documentary for many reasons such as how commercial fishing is destroying the oceans (and the planet), how commercial enterprise supports and thrives from that destruction with impunity whilst fabricating concepts like dolphin friendly tuna fish can labels to make them look responsible, and how governments lie and deceive about ocean conservation zones and so much more. You know, only 0.5% of the oceans of the world are conserved form commercial fishing; unsustainable and reprehensible.
Look folks, I know people have to eat and that's something I was left thinking about...the population of humans on the Earth and how it's unsustainable. Yes, I believe there's too many people, I'm not afraid to say it.
Ok, so we fish-out the oceans - we'll just eat food from the land right? But meanwhile we are busy with deforestation and covering the land with concrete, cities for people to live in...is it feasible to think the world could survive without harvesting from the sea and that we won't simply over-use the land to compensate? We better learn fast I think, the implications of not doing so won't go so well for humanity. And that's not even to mention the carbon dioxide absorption/oxygen issue.
Oh, and for those who suggest we eat insects or only eat plant life...great...until there's no insects or plant life left either. Overuse of something is never going to work well, it's unsustainable.
Countries make a huge issue of banning plastic straws when commercial fishing is causing so much damage, companies make tuna can labels but continue to throw unwanted species caught in commercial fishing back into the ocean (they're not alive when thrown back folks), lay waste to the seabed with drag-net fishing nets and a multitude of other evils...it's take take take, and that is not sustainable.
It's not for me to list everything here especially considering the ninety minute documentary will give you the facts (and images) of the reality of the situation. My recommendation is you watch it, ninety minutes of your day, and see for yourself.
You can find out how to get more information at the Seaspiracy website here if you would like to investigate a little more deeply and get the latest news, events or updates.
I'm not a scientist so have not done the research on the things I've seen in this documentary but with the (limited) understanding I have gained through reading and other means I feel I'm somewhat qualified to have an opinion, which is that human beings since around the 1850's (and possibly even earlier) have been overusing the planet's resources, behaving irresponsibly and greedily without care for the future, and with relative impunity, money talks right?...also, that it cannot continue unabated without serious ramifications. People may say, humans have to eat, that is of course a known fact but emptying the oceans and dropping the forests without a thought to how that impacts the future is unsustainable and there will be a reckoning.
Whether you agree or not doesn't matter, whether I am right or not is inconsequential...time will reveal the truth of the matter - maybe this generation or maybe the next will see it and have to deal with it - make no mistake though, humans will find out in years to come what we have done to our planet.
If you have any thoughts or comments please leave them below and if you happen to watch the documentary and want to comment on it specifically please do so below or write your own post.
Design and create your ideal life, tomorrow isn't promised - galenkp
[Original and AI free]
All images in this post were taken by me - Cairns Aquarium, Queensland, Australia