Marine pollution; out of sight, out of mind

This blog is the first of two regarding the state of marine biodiversity.  In short, it is in a bad state due to overfishing, habitat destruction and degradation and climate change (which is likely to have an increasingly destructive impact).  In my first blog I will explore the ‘ultimate drivers’, the very root of the problem, of marine biodiversity loss and consider how these ultimate drivers differ from those affecting terrestrial (land) species.

It will be important to bear in mind 4 facts: 1) humans do not live in the ocean, 2) the ocean is very big and humans struggle to conceive of its full size, 3) a pollutant may have an effect a long way away from where the pollutant was released and 4) damage to the seas can be hard to see.  That humans do not live in the ocean has spared it of the habitat destruction which has occurred on land to make way for human settlements (with the exception of land reclaimation).  It also means that humans are less likely to notice damage to the marine environment and, as will be considered in my next blog, means that much of the oceans is not owned (unlike land).

For the rest of this blog I will consider pollution.  The problem with marine pollution is that it is so very easy to underestimate.  For one thing the sea is so huge it is easy for us to write it off as near-infinite with a near infinite ability to absorb and dilute whatever waste we discharge into it.  For example, according to a literature review of the dumping of munitions in marine environments, on 8 separate occasions, between 1945 and 1948, over 4,000 tonnes of munitions were dumped into the ocean http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/77CEDBCA-813A-4A6C-8E59-16B9E260E27A/0/ic_munitions_seabed_rep.pdf, page 79.  As the report states, these munitions have significant harmful effects on marine species.

Whilst humans may once have been able to discharge sewage and fertiliser into the marine environment when human densities were low, this can no longer be done without consequence.  When biological waste (sewage or the run off from fertilisers) is discharged in high concentrations then it acts as a fertiliser for algae resulting in algal blooms.  The algae die, are decomposed by bacteria which use all of the oxygen leaving no oxygen for the other species.  The result is a DEAD ZONE.  Our oceans have dead zones because of our actions.

In mentioning agricultural run off I have hinted at another part of the problem.  Fertiliser which runs of a field into a river can have an effect tens or hundreds of miles away.  This distancing of cause and effect means that individuals do not appreciate the effects of their actions and are therefore not in a position to reduce the ecological damage of their actions.  This is where science comes in, to provide evidence that A causes B, to educate the person responsible for A in the hope they will change their actions.  Let me take another example from the Marine Conservation Society website, Chinese lanterns (http://www.mcsuk.org/what_we_do/Clean+seas+and+beaches/campaigns+and+policy/Don't+let+go+-+balloons+and+sky+lanterns).  Chinese lanterns are fire and forget joy, you light them, admire them as they rise and then forget about them as they are carried by the wind.  Yet, that you have forgotten about them does not mean that they have magically disappeared from the world.  A few months back I heard on the radio that the coast guards had asked members of the public to alert them if they were going to release lanterns as members of the public had been mistaking them for flares and alerting the coastguard.  More recently I stumbled across an article explaining the damage they can cause to marine wildlife when they fall to rest on the ocean as litter.  Animals, turtles especially, mistake them for food, eat them and die when the balloons block their digestive systems causing them to starve.

That concludes this blog, let me repeat my main point once more, pollution which affects the oceans can originate many miles away and have effects which humans do not notice.  It is the role of scientists to establish the sources of pollutants which cause harm in the marine environment so that polluters are no longer ignorant and are accountable.  From here, the damage we cause to the oceans can be reduced.  In my next blog I will consider the economics of overfishing.

Losing Stars and Losing Species

Those who live in cities or large towns in the UK are likely to be accustomed to a night sky of just a few stars as a result of light pollution.  Just as light pollution has removed stars one by one from the night sky we see, extinction removes species from the world, forever, one by one.  Each time I spend a long period of time at home or university I forget what it is like to look up on a clear night and see a light studded sky with clouds of stars.  This feeling of wonderment makes up a part of the intrinsic value of a clear night sky, the value of the enjoyment or fulfilment gained not by using or consuming the sky but simply by enjoying it.  It is this value (applied to nature) which motivates most conservationists, it is also the value hardest to convert to a monetary value.

Luckily the stars are not gone and are waiting to be seen by anyone who is willing to get to a remote enough location.  Many of the species already extinct have left no trace, some have left only skeletons and photos and films remain of the species to be forced to extinction more recently.  Yet, just as someone who lives their whole life in a city, by and large, we do not know what we are missing, what it would have been like to sit and see the world by day, to experience the wild nature, and by night to gaze at the full sky hundreds or thousands of years ago.  This ecological forgetfulness which I have considered in another blog (http://valuingnature.blogspot.pt/2012/07/falling-baselines-and-landscape.html) results in us inheriting a world containing less sources of natural wonderment than the one into which we ourselves were born.  Moreover, we consider the world in which we grow to be ‘normal’, how could we not when we have never known otherwise?

Eventually each human generation leaves behind a world more impoverished than the one it inherited and each successive generation is accustomed to a world of less natural wonderment than the generation before.  Next time you are in the middle of nowhere on a clear night, look up.  Enjoy that wonderment and just consider what the wonderment we have lost from the living natural world just as we have lost stars from the city night sky.  Conservationists try to stem this loss and even to reverse it where possible.  I believe this is a truly important cause.  I believe this due to my intrinsic (non-monetary) valuation of nature.

Exploring criticisms of 'Neo-environmentalism'

Having read Paul Kingsnorth’s article regarding ‘new environmentalism’, which was published yesterday in The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/01/neogreens-science-business-save-planet#start-of-comments, I would like to pick out and discuss a few points.  Firstly I would like to state now that I both agree with some points made by the author and disagree with others, infact I think that the author confused himself by treating two different views towards conservation as mutually exclusive whereas in fact they are not.  Secondly, I will be reiterating points which I have already made and will therefore include references to other blogs.

The author uses the term ‘neo environmentalists’ to denote scientists which ‘speak the language of money and power’ to create a ‘business friendly’ argument for conservation.  He states that conservation has failed to changes society’s values as economic growth still dictates the outcome of decisions which have environmental impacts.  In short, I believe that the author is referring to scientists who have recognised that in order to bring about effective conservation they must demonstrate to governments and large businesses that such conservation is economically viable.  For a good example of such a piece of science, here is an article posted on the BBC website on the 31^st of July http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19050796.  I think that it is useful to deem this approach to conservation a top down approach as it attempts to alter the decisions of a few institutions (by better informing these decisions).

The author contrasts this top down approach to conservation with his favoured approach, one of reconnecting people with nature.  He suggests that if people are exposed to nature as a part of their everyday lives then they will come to value this nature and therefore will be more inclined to conserve it.  In this way I believe the author is promoting a bottom up approach to conservation which focuses on altering the attitudes of individuals.  In reading the article I gained the impression that the author feels that the two approaches are incompatible as one promotes an economic valuation of nature and the other an intrinsic valuation of nature.  However, suppose an individual values nature for its own sake and therefore wants to conserve nature.  If this individual feels that they will be most effective by taking a top down, economic valuation approach then promoting an economic valuation of nature and holding an intrinsic valuation of nature are not exclusive.

I would also like to pick up on a few phrases which I believe the author used sloppily.  Firstly he states that under ‘neo environmentalism’ ‘the value of nature is measured by what we can do with it’. This is wrong.  The value of nature is based upon what nature does (and has always done) for us.  Secondly the author states that ‘neo environmentalists’ believe that growth has no limits.  This is not true, such scientists aim to ensure that economic growth is not pursued at the cost of natural capital. 

Lastly I would like to discourage the view that humans and scientists will act as ‘Gods’ managing the planet ‘rationaly’.  This view of nature as a garden created by and for humans does not reflect the current conservation movement which is towards large scale ‘re-wilding’ projects which aim to restore nature to a more pristine state.  If anything these projects move away from the role of humans as Gods present in historical conservation where small sites where micromanaged to achieve very specific (pristine like) habitats which would not occur without human intervention.

I have previously written blogs exploring attempts to value nature economically (http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4254055270310485372#editor/target=post;postID=7495951196544968614) and the importance of humans learning to value nature by being immersed in it (http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4254055270310485372#editor/target=post;postID=6075429287993672434 and http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4254055270310485372#editor/target=post;postID=8039094925610903687) and I would encourage you to read one of those if you found this blog interesting.  I may also pick up on some other points made in the Guardian article at a later date.