Ocean pollution from microplastics, partially combusted carbon and toxic chemicals are annihilating ecosystems and causing bio-climatic climate disruption. Without the planet's life support system—a healthy ocean—we will not be able to survive the loss of nature over the next 20 years, nor will it be possible to stop catastrophic climate change. It's time to implement real solutions and take action
The reason given is climate change; I suspect atmospheric pollution is the primary cause. 99.82% of the global land area is exposed to toxic levels of particulate matter 2.5 (PM2.5)—tiny particles in the air that are linked to lung cancer and heart disease.
Atmospheric particle pollution and the toxic chemicals carried by the particles are also likely to be toxic to the trees. It is absolutely right to be hugging these 3,000-year-old trees because they are unlikely to survive the next 30 years.
The report gives the impression that this has just started to happen when, in reality, the alarm bell has been ringing for 40 years and we are now approaching the end point.
The public and academics have suffered from shifting baseline syndrome, and the world thinks everything is okay. Nothing could be further from the truth. Nature is heading for a crash, and very little is being done to stop the destruction.
A secondary mass delusion is that it is all caused by carbon dioxide and that it can all be solved if we reduce carbon emissions. The anthropogenic production of carbon dioxide is responsible for perhaps 10% to 25% of climate change. The primary factors are pollution from black carbon particles and plastic combined with lipophilic toxic chemicals. For example, black carbon soot makes the snow at the poles darker, making it absorb more heat, which makes the snow even darker as the black particles concentrate on the surface of the snow. This is a self-reinforcing loop that could be responsible for more than 50% of snow and ice melt.
The wastewater from 6 billion people and industrial waste from 80% of all companies in the world is discharged untreated. Pollution is killing nature.
The third delusion, especially for most people living in cities and high-income countries, is that nature does not matter. Why is coral important? What does it matter if all the copepods die?. If either of these two events occurs, 90% of humanity will be lost. The explanation will be given in my next post.
Marine life is the root of the food chain and the life support system for the entire planet. The oceans regulate the climate and control our atmosphere through bioclimatic factors.
Climate change is anthropogenic, and carbon dioxide is implicated, but is relatively minor in comparison to the destruction of nature on land and marine life in the world’s oceans.
In 2022, we crossed the Atlantic Ocean in our sailing vessel Copepod, along with 30 other yachts, collecting water samples from the surface of the Atlantic Ocean every 12 hours at approximately 15 degrees north from the Canary Islands to the Eastern Caribbean. It was the largest citizen science project to measure microplastic pollution and plankton productivity from the ocean surface. More than 5000 samples were collected and are still being analysed. The results confirmed that plankton levels were 90% lower than expected, and pollution from plastic and partially combusted carbon gave up to 1000 particles per litre of water from the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, levels 50 times more polluted than expected. Thermal plastic and lipophilic toxic chemicals float on the surface, but most oceanographic research measure water quality below 5m, so the pollution is entirely missed.
Our research and citizen science was slammed by the academic establishment and misrepresented. A recent report published in Nature is now beginning to ask the same questions, published by one of the laboratories that criticised our research.
The food web on land is like a pyramid, with plants and herbivores at the base. In marine ecosystems, plants and zooplankton are also on the base, but the pyramid is upside down. This means that a small change at the base can have a huge impact at the top. This is called trophic amplification of phytoplankton decline; a phytoplankton decline of 7.5% will result in a drop in fish biomass of 19%. Plankton populations are changing; there has been more than a 50% decline since 1970, and our measurements show a 90% decline for the Equatorial Atlantic.
We have linked the decline to pollution, which has resulted in an increase in temperature and a reduction in cloud formation, as explained in our report.
We know that black carbon pollution in the Arctic causes 25%+ of all snow and ice melt due to the darker colour of the snow. Pollution is also impacting aerosol formation and cloud colour. Aerosols and clouds also carry pollution from the ocean to every square metre of the planet. This is why every litre of rainwater now contains plastic and toxic chemicals.
80% of the world has zero effluent treatment for municipal and industrial toxic waste. When will we learn that the solution to pollution and climate change is not to defecate and destroy nature and the life support system for the planet?
The Zeta potential, or electrical charge potential, of a particle in suspension will dictate how the water molecules line up and inter-react with each other; it changes the molecular topography ( https://lnkd.in/eHv6Q3zu ) and all the chemical reactions.
The charge will influence how easy it is for water to pass through desalination membranes; it will control the amount of energy required to pump water through pipes and blood flow through your veins and arteries. It will even regulate the transport of water and molecules across cell membranes.
The simple act of moving water will increase its potential to the point where the water will become self-sterilizing. By way of example, fast-flowing water will always have a lower bacteria concentration than slow-flowing water. If you exercise, the redox potential and oxygen content of your blood go up, and health benefits are self-evident
Zeta potential also controls how nutrients and waste are transported across semi-permeable membranes in all cells; it dictates how bacteria can absorb nutrients, and it controls the ability of any organism to osmoregulate.
The zeta potential is related to and influenced by many mechanical, chemical, and physiochemical interactions. Water chemistry is also all interconnected; for example, if you change the pH or monovalent to divalent cation ratio, this will impact the redox potential, zeta potential, water clarity, and bacterial activity.
The surface water of the world’s oceans (71% of the planet) now has 10 to 1000 microparticles of plastic and partially combusted carbon per litre. The surface microfilm, or SML skin, is a semi-permeable membrane, and it is being destroyed, and over the last 60 million years dissolved divalent cation concentrations have dropped 500%
The rate of gas diffusion for water, carbon dioxide, and oxygen into the atmosphere has increased by as much as 50%. Water vapour represents 70% of all greenhouse gases; the SML regulates cloud formation, and the reflection of solar radiation has profoundly changed for the worse.
The ocean surface SML layer is now scarred, and unless it is repaired, carbon mitigation will be a waste of time. Resource should be spent on the elimination of pollution and regeneration of nature, the life support system for the planet
COP28 has become a disgrace managed by the energy sector, but maybe if they realised that carbon was not the main issue but the ecological catastrophe that is unfolding over the next 20 years, then maybe their resources would get behind the elimination of pollution and regeneration of nature. This is our best hope for the future, but almost nothing is being done to save the planet’s life support system.
Where we are now… · 80% of all rainwater now contains microplastic and toxic chemicals; only rainwater generated from the transpiration of water from trees will be clean. · 99% of our atmosphere is now beyond the WHO safe limit for PM2.5 particles · All oily fish, such as tuna, are toxic · All fish over 2 m length are toxic · All dolphins and whales have heavy metal and PCB concentrations 50 times higher than would cause brain damage in humans · All Baobab trees in Africa are dying · Human life expectancy is dropping in high-income countries due to toxic load · 90% + of cancer is caused by exposure to toxic chemicals and substances; this applies to humans as well as all of nature · 80% of all insects on the planet are dead, and 100% could be gone in 20 years · Human fertility will also have dropped to zero by 2050 in high-income countries, which will solve many of these problems. · Most of climate change is caused by water vapour and aerosols, but we focus on carbon dioxide, which is a minor greenhouse gas. · All toxic chemicals and plastic will eventually return after a few weeks or years and fall as toxic rain back on land to contaminate all our drinking water, soil, crops, and all of nature. · Ocean acidification, current level pH8.03, by the time it drops to pH7.95 by 2045 under RCP8.5, there will be a massive regime shift and we will lose all the seals, whales, birds, fish, and food supply for 3 billion people. Seawater becomes toxic with dinoflagellate phytoplankton, and the atmosphere may also become toxic due to the algae.
What will it be like in 20 years? · It is unlikely that the planet will be able to sustain more than 10% of humanity and we will have catastrophic climate change, irrespective of carbon neutrality, due to Ocean acidification and loss of the planets biological life support system
Is there a way out of the mess? Yes, but the window of opportunity is closing.
Everyone must make a living, but when it could result in the destruction of a unique ecosystem for the world, there are limits. Many people haven’t even heard of sea cucumbers; they are echinoderms related to sea urchins and starfish and have the appearance of a large cucumber, slowly moving over the seabed and rocks, sucking up organic matter like a vacuum cleaner and cleaning all the surfaces of wast The fishery for sea cucumbers is open for 2 months every year in Galapagos, with 1 kg of the animal selling for up to 2,000 USD to China. Because of the huge amount of money involved in the trade, fishing continues, despite protests from marine biologists. There used to be 170 sea cucumbers per 100 m2, but now there are less than 7, and the population is on the brink of extinction.
The sea cumbers keep the rocks clean, removing sand and detritus, which allows macroalgae, bivalve molluscs, barnacles, and coral to become established. Without the rock ecology, there will be no marine iguanas, sea turtles, seals, or fish. A unique ecosystem is being destroyed, and the loss to the economy from ecotourism will be millions of times greater than the value of the sea cumbers.
Sea cucumber soup, along with shark fin soup, is killing the oceans and the planet’s life support system. I wonder what Charles Darwin would think.
Life is being sucked out of the planet…… Climate change is a self-fulfilling prophecy that encompasses the annihilation of nature. We will be able to survive climate change, but we will not be able to survive the loss of nature over the next 20 years. It is now time to implement real solutions and take action.
We know that if we had not destroyed more than 50% of the marine ecosystem, we would not have elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations.
However, we continue to destroy the marine ecosystem, even in precious locations such as the Galapagos. 30 years ago, the marine ecosystem was in good condition, the shark fin industry moved in, and a high percentage of the apex-level predators were killed. We know that when you remove sharks, all animals and plants suffer. The same situation happened in Bocas del Toro in Panama, and now most of the fish have also gone. There are other reasons, such as pollution, but at least we should be able to stop destructive fishing.
The pelagic fishing industry and the quest for shark fin soup continue around the Galapagos, Ecuador, Costa Rica, and Panama. Hundreds of foreign commercial fishing vessels are sucking the life out of the oceans; they are sucking the life out of the planet and any chance of a sustainable future.
