Image From the Internet Hive Mind
The order of human survival need is air, water, food … with shelter being mixed in depending on temperature, weather, and danger. I’ve created a little mnemonic for need to help me: three minutes air, three days water, three weeks food.
Just three days without water on a water planet, but the water available is mostly salt water. Fresh water is very limited. Only 2-3% of planetary water is freshwater, with half of that locked up in ice and snow and another chunk running underground accessible only through technology like wells. (Better Meets Reality) Then we need to limit that clean water total more by what humanity has contaminated. We need to clean our water cycle before that three-day window becomes too cloudy to see us through to healthy lives.
One of the places in need of cleanup is the ocean. For years humanity dumped trash into the rivers and ocean, and now we are paying the consequences. A lot of our trash floats – especially the plastics. And sun and time breaks it down on the surface of the ocean into microplastics. Why is the microplastics important? Needs One and Three mentioned above – air: ocean photosynthesis provides for 50% of the oxygen our planet needs for the planetary animal life to breathe (Conversation, The) and – food – 17% of our meat (Costello) and 2% of the calorie intake from all food sources (FAO). If the air (oxygen) goes away in the ocean, humans can continue to breathe on land just fine thanks to land plants, but all food sources in the oceans will go away.
And with microplastics being consumed by plants and animals in the ocean, those plastics are hitting our dinner plates now. Last year’s water bottle is this year’s tuna fish salad sandwich – yum!
We need to fix the mess we made in the oceans, in the rivers which run to the oceans (and provide ground water for humanity’s cities to drink), and in our streets – which wash into our storm water systems which dump into our rivers which run into our oceans. You remember my litter saga, something that I continue to participate in daily? Yeah, part of the reason I collect all the trash is to keep the bottles and plastic out of the storm water systems. My little part in keeping our water cycle clean.
(If you are not familiar with the difference between storm water systems and sewer systems, a good source is here: https://h2oc.org/blog/storm-drain-vs-sewer-whats-the-difference/ but the TL/DR version is sewer water is in a closed system from house to sewer plant, where the hazardous materials are reduced to “acceptable” levels, and a storm water system takes the rain water (and any containments it picks up in the lawns, streets, and parking lots) and dumps it into the nearest stream/water source to be carried to the ocean untreated. – sorry about this Rabbit Hole, but after working on the Soil and Water Board storm water is very dear to my heart.)
Humanity managed to clean up most of the air problems. Smog no longer is dissolving buildings with acid rain; people can travel through city streets without struggling for breath.
Next up on the Earth-cleaning list, water. That honey-do list includes the superfund sites, ground contamination, river cleanup, and ocean cleanup, especially the five ocean garbage patches. The Ocean Cleanup is working on both rivers and oceans. The initial thought was cleaning the oceans, but they quickly realized that if trash continued to run into the oceans, they were fighting a Sisyphus battle. Trash flowing from the rivers needed to stop too. Now the attack is two-prong: keep new trash from entering the ocean and removing the trash already in the ocean.
Water cleanup requires global assistance. The Ocean Cleanup thinks, with support, they can remove 90% of floating ocean plastic by 2040.
I spent a couple hours exploring The Ocean Cleanup website, and I think, if they get the help they need, they might succeed. Won’t that be something?
Explore this project of humanity at its best (by way of the Dutch) here: https://theoceancleanup.com/
Remember the Earth is our home and we don’t have another. Sure we might-can “Geoform” other planets some day, but, guess what, we could practice for that by geo-forming where we are right now. If we can’t fix it, when we know most of the basics of this environmental system, then why do we think we will do better with a blank slate.
Ah, that is it – we are comparing planetary environmental systems to a painted picture where a blank slate is easier to deal with than an penciled and inked piece by someone else. But that is a very poor comparison, better would be we are dealing with a running engine. Starting from a “blank slate” for an engine means we have to create all the parts, then assemble them, while each part is moving. Using our own Earth to practice on, troubleshooting an engine that we know the sound of … that is much easier. At this time, there is no Planet B.
We are better off Geeking the Science to keep this one humming along a little longer. Let’s get this “water hose” fixed in our planetary engine.
Biography
Better Meets Reality. “How Much Water is There on Earth? (Ocean, Fresh & Drinkable Water.” 18 August 2018, last updated 27 July 2022. (https://bettermeetsreality.com/how-much-water-is-there-on-earth-ocean-freshwater-drinkable/ – last viewed 11/10/2023)
Costello, Chrisopher, etal. “The future of food from the sea.” Nature. 19 August 2020. (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2616-y – last viewed 11/10/2023)
The Conversation. “Humans will always have oxygen to breathe, but we can’t say the same for ocean life.” 12 August 2021. (https://theconversation.com/humans-will-always-have-oxygen-to-breathe-but-we-cant-say-the-same-for-ocean-life-165148 – last viewed 11/10/2023)
FAO.org. “Food from the Oceans.” Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. 2017. (https://www.fao.org/family-farming/detail/en/c/1099024/ – last viewed 11/10/2023)
The Ocean Cleanup. “The Largest Cleanup in History.” (https://theoceancleanup.com/ – last viewed 11/10/2023)
H2OC Stormwater Program. “Storm Drain vs. Sewer: What’s the Difference?” 30 September 2020. (https://h2oc.org/blog/storm-drain-vs-sewer-whats-the-difference/ – last viewed 11/10/2023)