Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Absolutely Terrifying



These are our oceans. Just think about that for a minute. We are literally drowning in vast oceans of plastic trash.

Seriously, do human beings really want to go extinct? Have we just decided that this is it, that we've had a good enough run, and now it's time for the next species to pick up the slack? Plastic now covers 40% of our oceans - a full quarter of the Earth's surface is loaded up with garbage, plastics designed to never decay, never rot, never break down. Previous civilizations have their monuments. Egypt had its pyramids. Greece had its Parthenon. Rome had it Coliseum. And we have millions of tons of plastics.

Add in the overfishing of our oceans, the rising global temperatures - thanks to the plastics' papa, fossil fuels - coral bleaching, and rising levels of acidity, we are literally killing the oceans themselves. Within our lifetimes, all life contained in the oceans will be extinct. Good lord, this is absolutely terrifying.

P.S. I should also say that I found another photo of a gull carcass, and I wanted to post it here, but it was just too damned chilling and horrifying for me to even look at. I'll describe it for you. There are a pair of bird wings. And instead of a dead bird, there's a huge pile of plastic garbage shaped like a bird. There goes my appetite.

No comments: