Done with my
Seahorse Latitudes woodcut! These Longsnout
Seahorses make the Sargasso their home. The Sargasso is a large sea that
is bound by 3 strong ocean currents. Unfortunately, the movement of the
currents make all of our plastics pile up creating the North Atlantic
Subtropical Gyre which is basically a landfill at sea. I wonder if
plastic mining will be in our future?
The wonderful critters of the Sargasso depend on us. As more of the ocean is littered with trash, oceanographers wonder when the entire ecosystem will start collapsing, or has it already occurred? How much plastic an a pelican eat before it starves, it's stomach full but unable to digest anything? How much petroleum can pass through the gills of a seahorse before it is poisoned? Do we really need that item in a blister pack from the store? What about the people making the plastics that are thrown immediately away when we bring an item home? What is their fate?
I am reading
Moby Duck right now by
Donovan Hohn
which is about his path of following a container ship that spilled into
the ocean that was filled with plastic bath toys, he actually visits a
trash gyre (there are multiple places in the ocean where currents
converge creating multiple gyre's in the sea), goes to a remote beach in
Alaska and sees the debris washed
up on shore and visits a factory where plastic "things" for American
consumers are made. It is quite a good read, and does make me question
the fate of plastic, and of all the animals that make the Sargasso their
home or any other watery wilderness. I hope that we don't ever see our
ocean kissed goodbye, for then, any land dwelling animals surely could
not survive. That is unless we colonize the moon.
