A small seed becomes a big Tree, gives shed in summer and in winter all of the leaves of the Tree falls down to indirectly provide us more sunlight and the atmosphere becomes more warm.
Flower on threes give joyfulness to us. Fruits satisfy our hunger.

They (Trees) always take away polluted air (Carbon Dioxide) from the environment and in return they give fresh, purified oxygen.

Tree provide home to the Birds, Animals and Human Beings also.

Some tree have medicinal values also, their every part starting from the roots to the top are full of medicinal values, Neem (Botanical Name: Azadirachta Indica) is a very famous tree and best example of this.

Trees help in controlling temperature of the environment. You have noticed that the place where there are trees, are much more cooler and hygienic for living. That’s why people prefer to spend their life in regions which are away from concrete jungle of cities Like New York, New Delhi, Tokyo, Mumbai, London, Cairo and all other big cities.

Deforestation is normal these days, this is creating a lot of problems. Some of the hazards from deforestation are as follow:

1) Soil Erosion: The trees help in keeping the soil intact with their roots but when there is lot of cutting of trees, the soil is washed away with water during the rains. And during floods the it creates havoc. Due to soil erosion the water level also falls down.
2) Pollution: Trees help in controlling the pollution in the air and if their are no trees, we have to face more air pollution.
3) Lack of Pure Oxygen
4) Environmental Imbalance
5) Imbalance in the Food Chain of the Ecosystem.
6) Global Warming is becoming a major problem these days due to this. Due to this Glaciers are melting and the Sea Level is rising day by day. This is indirectly creating lot of environmental problems.

We consumers have become unwittingly hooked on plastic. Manufacturers have increasingly resorted to plastic in packaging their products. (Don’t you just love those deceivingly humongous packages that hold a tiny product when unwrapped leaving you with a big mess?) We buy them, unwrap the product, and discard the plastic. In the trash it goes to be carted to the landfills of America where it sits for hundreds of years before disintegrating. Sometimes it doesn’t even get there – it is discarded as litter along our highways and byways, on our beaches, in our streams, waterways, and oceans. Plastic is a big problem – bigger than we may even expect or of which we are aware. We must now address this problem seriously. It isn’t a simple one nor will it take extreme sacrifice to resolve. But we must begin now.

Plastic pollution has become an epidemic of environmental destruction. The facts are alarming and it is worldwide in nature. In the United States alone, consumers use $4 billion in plastic bags a year numbering in the hundreds of millions. It is estimated less than 5% are ever recycled. The rest end up in landfills – or worse, in our environment as litter – where they can take hundreds of years to decompose and even when they do so they are pollutant in nature. The chemicals of which they were made enter our water supplies in some quantity. They become harmful fodder for animals and birds.

Marine debris contaminates the world’s oceans. Sixty to eighty percent of this debris is man-caused plastic from littering ashore washed into the oceans via storm drains or rivers. Ocean currents carry this debris far and wide, sometimes thousands of miles from the source. It may not disintegrate for many, many years.

Marine mammals and birds confuse lightweight floating plastic as food and ingest it often times resulting in a prolonged struggle with starvation and death. (A sea turtle sees a floating plastic bag as a jelly fish, a sought after delicacy to the turtle. Eating it may eventually kill the already endangered turtle.)

Collection, hauling, and disposal of plastic bag waste create an additional environmental impact. An estimated 8 billion pounds of plastic bags, wraps and sacks enter the waste stream every year in the United States alone putting an unnecessary burden on our diminishing land fill space and causing air pollution if incinerated. These numbers are unfortunately growing day by day.

Some cities and states are recognizing the problem and are becoming proactive in solving it. San Francisco has initiated a policy whereby large retailers are encouraged to provide alternatives to plastic virtually discouraging plastic bags. Many other are doing the same including Boston recently considering possible city rules restricting the use of plastic bags.

However, the plastic bag makers are not going quietly into the night. The small town of Fairfax, California found that out when they decided to ban plastic bags in local stores. According to an article in E Magazine in their July/August ‘08 issue, “Plastic Industry Strikes Back”, the plastic bag makers threatened to sue whereupon the town retreated from immediately initiating the program. Other cities such as Oakland, Annapolis, and Philadelphia followed suit, intimidated by the threat, according to E Magazine’s rendition.

The basis for the legal stance by the plastics manufacturers was that substituting paper was far more environmentally harmful than plastic bags. In that they are probably somewhat correct. Research shows that making paper bags as substitutes for plastic is even more wasteful of energy resources and emits more greenhouse gases making that choice one of prime consideration. However, are the manufacturers considering the overall polluting aspects of plastic in their arguments? No, apparently not – just the manufacturing aspects. And, to argue that plastic is somewhat less environmentally costly than paper is rather a disingenuous approach to the problem wouldn’t you say? Find a better way to package and, when using plastic, do not overdo the packaging – a far too common mistake.

In fairness, work is being done on a biodegradable plastic bag which appears promising. But not until the current uproar did this take place; again, industry is always behind the power curve based on their profit motive, bottom line approach to any problem. When enough pressure is applied, they have the talent and innovativeness to change

There have been numerous entrepreneurs jumping on this trend away from plastic into a more environ-friendly reusable bag for shopping, etc. The internet is replete with ads for various types of alternatives. Some are good, others complicate the problem for while the bag is reusable it is also another plastic product. As an example, one large chain, with more than one hundred supermarket locations in California, offer their customers a bag with the company’s logo on it for a low price of $.99 each. Two major problems with this though. First, the bag is made of polypropylene which is another pollutant cousin of plastic. Their bag does not appear designed for long term use, exceptionally sturdy or durable, and will undoubtedly be another discard on the way in short order to the landfill. Secondly, the bag is imported from China! Just what we need now – another polluting product from our biggest trade deficit rival. Must China solve all our problems?

What can we do as consumers? Well, let manufacturers and retailers know that you are watching them and their practices. Nothing ever happens until the buying public becomes active in solving a problem. Problems can seldom be legislated no matter what politicians say. In fact, many times legislation complicates the matter and results in more problems than the one legislatures tried to solve.

Most manufacturers and retailers have websites. Email them with your concerns and complaints. Write them letters. Get your local newspaper reporters involved. Bad press is the last thing a company wants.

Take individual responsibility. Even the small act of buying a canvas tote bag or two to take to the market can eliminate hundreds, maybe thousands of plastic bags over time.

I recently interviewed Mr. Frank Tinelli, aka ‘Go Green Bag Man’, and wrote an enlightening article on his own battle with plastic bags. Frank has recently begun making a reusable canvas tote shopping bag with goals in mind to make a difference in the war. He formed a business, Go Green Aid Company, which appears to be doing well and is a supplier of ammo in the plastic wars. Wish him well. It’s a start. His motto is ‘Go Green is More Than a Slogan; It’s a Lifestyle!’

No need to become a ranting and raving fanatic on this issue. We don’t need more enviro-whackos to go overboard on the problem. However, each of us can and should do something on a daily basis to reduce, reuse, and recycle. We have an increasingly fragile earth. As population increases by vast leaps and bounds – especially in Third World countries – the problem of polluting plastic will continue to plague us unless we take action as individuals now and each do some small part to reduce our dependence on it.

Have you done your part today? If not, please do.

In 2008, the effects of the rising sea level will be more obvious than ever, as global warming moves to the forefront of international concern. Especially, to the United States who has seen disaster.

When Hurricane Katrina hit the coastal city of New Orleans in 2005, the world watched with horror the devastation it created in an American city. As global warming continues, unforeseen levels of natural disaster will become increasingly common, while erratic weather patterns will plague our natural seasons. It is not a coincidence that one of the warmest years ever recorded all occurred between 1995 and 2006.

And scientists predict the rest of 2007 and 2008 will be even hotter. The extreme levels of carbon emissions released by human activities have reached all time high, a shocking 379 parts per million in 2005- the highest amount ever in the last 650,000 years! No wonder heat is getting trapped at incredible rates in our atmosphere.

So what does all this mean? As the earth’s temperature continues to rise, our natural reserves of ice caps and glaciers continue to melt. Scientists are already alarmed at the unprecedented rate at which the world’s frozen bodies are melting, from Greenland and the Antarctic to the glaciers of the Himalayas.

As more ice sheets and glaciers melt, more water gets added to the seas and oceans around the world, increasing their level in general. But it is also natural for water to expand upon warming. So not only will the sea levels rise, its waters will in fact take up more space as it heats. The large ice sheets have also traditionally worked as reflectors of the sun’s heat. But as the size of these sheets gets smaller, instead of reflecting the heat, it begins to observe it and melts ever faster.

Of course, this a disaster for the world’s ecology, it has already forced Polar bears to become an endangered species, but just as devastating for humans too. In India, scientists have already recorded an annual rise in sea levels at a rate of 3.14mm in Bay of Bengal, and as much as 10mm in the Khulna region of Bangladesh. It’s the same case in coastal towns and cities across the world. Its evidences have become clear in the US too. While the edges of Mangroove forests are already dotted with submerged forests in the Bermuda, as much as one third of the marsh at Chesapeake Bay’s Blackwater Natural National Wildlife Refuge is gone!

Major cities like San Francisco, Manhattan, to Mumbai are all at risk. Increasing sea levels will not just mean loss and erosion of land, but also more frequent occurrences of super hurricanes such as the one that drowned New Orleans or cause the Tsunamis of 2004.

Another humanitarian crisis that could be caused by the rising sea level is that they will also create an acute shortage of fresh water reserves on land. Scientists have confirmed that at this rate the Himalayan ecology in South Asia will now almost certainly face extreme floods followed by extreme droughts. And hundreds of millions of people in the region will experience water and food shortage.

When global warming was first discussed, it seemed like the consequences would be in many life times later. But today, within our own life time, the possibility of witnessing the havoc cause by global warming and the rising sea level has become distinctly clear.

With a record-high dumped wastes of 30.5 billion tons, the Yangtze River in China can be considered as a “giant toilet bowl” of Asia as waste production and illegal dumping in the area continue to worsen. Xinhua news agency reported the recent case of industrial, farming and human waste production in China has doubled compared a couple of decades ago with a 3.1 percent increase or 900 million tons of added trash being thrown in the river.

Experts are predicting the situation of Yangtze getting polluted will be more alarming in the coming days with the presence of Three Gorges dam trapping a bulk sewage that makes the river unsafe and may cause all possible threats to human health, particularly those living near the vicinity.

Even the Asian Development Bank was anxious about the fate of the Yangtze River and pointed fingers at the industrialization and urbanization activities as culprits to its pollution. It said the river has reached its alarming levels calling the proper authorities to do something about it. Based on the study of the Yangtze River Water Resources Commission, 2006 posted a seemingly high sewage dumping after its alert waste levels were raised by less than five percent.

Earlier this month, a Swiss-China report said the enormous pollution brought about by too much dumping in the Yangtze can be resolved if the Chinese government will be aggressive enough to take initiatives in restoring the river.

Fishing activities and survival of the unique species living in bodies of water were greatly affected by the waste dumping in Yangtze. In time, it is feared that the other sea creatures like the white-fin dolphin and sturgeon will totally be extinct.

Over the last few years, cold water corals have been discovered all around the world. These reefs are often found in deep water, which means they are inaccessible to all but scientists. Cold-water corals, just as their warm-water relatives are under serious threat. These mysterious and generally deeper living than their better known warm-water cousins in the tropics, are far more widespread and numerous than had previously been thought. Cold-water coral findings are not confined to waters in the northern hemisphere off places like Canada and Scandinavia, as many would think. Scientists have found thriving cold-water corals in waters off the coasts of more than 40 countries including Spain, Suriname, Brazil, Angola, Indonesia and the Seychelles.

Man-made threats
It seems odd that corals, which usually are found at depths between 200 and 1000 meters, should be in danger. In contrast to the shallow reefs in the tropics, deep water reefs are not directly threatened by, for example, tourism or pollution. The biggest threats to these deep cold-water reefs are still man-made, as most of them show signs of damage from heavy deep-sea fishing gear. Pipelines and petroleum exploration also poses a threat to these delicate reefs. As oil prices and profits are on the rise, and the world gets ever hungrier for oil-based products, the search for more oil is increasing. This will put a further strain on many coral reefs, both in cold and tropical waters. Warm-water coral reefs have a recreational value, too, for example, for scuba divers, of income for poor nations, by providing a focus for tourism in their area. Cold-water reefs also have economical value. They are important to fish stocks, and therefore, to the fishing industry, which makes it self-contradictory to continue with the use of destructive gear, for example, bottom trawlers. Both warm and cold-water coral reefs are important feeding grounds for fish, and provide habitat for numerous marine creatures.

Protected
Norway was the first country to implement protection measures for cold-water corals in European waters. In Norway, especially large amounts of the cold-water coral Lophelia have been detected. The presence of coral reefs along the Norwegian coastline has been known for quite a long time. The existence of these deep-water coral reefs has been known for centuries both by Norwegian fishermen and scientists, but it was not until recently that the scientists and the government became aware of how widespread and large the reefs were. Some of the cold-water coral reefs are huge structures. The largest Lophelia reef, which was discovered in the North Atlantic, is on the Sula Ridge off the coast of Norway. This reef is more than 13 km long, 15 meters high and up to 400 meters wide. Research on deep-water coral reefs by the Institute of Marine Research (IMR) in Norway started with a pilot project in 1997 to test methods for detection and mapping of the reefs. They have documented that about 30-50 percent of the Lophelia reefs in Norwegian waters have been damaged or impacted by trawling. The rising awareness of the necessity to protect the cold water reefs has reached international organizations, and the movement has gained momentum. The International Coral Reef Initiative (ICRI) arranged its third symposium on deep-sea corals in December 2005. These ongoing scientific missions have shed light on the global significance of this overlooked ecosystem. The symposium and other gatherings of scientists will help foster exchange of information and research results about the deep-sea cold-water coral reefs. In addition, the UN has engaged in work of protecting this valuable resource. In 2003, the UNEP Coral Reef Unit (CRU) established a cold-water coral reef initiative with the and the UK, and the World Wildlife Foundation (WWF).

Slow builders
Cold-water coral reefs are mainly found at depths between 200 and 1,000 meters. But they have been located as shallow as 40 meters, and in great depths as deep as 6300 meters. Cold-water coral reefs grow slowly, with a growth rate of 4-25 mm per year, while warm-water reefs can grow up to 150 mm per year. Additionally, the composition of the cold-water reefs consists of only a very few reef building species-only about six. Warm-water coral reefs are, on the other hand, com do not possess symbiotic algae as their counterparts do that live in the shallow reefs, which are exposed to sunlight. These corals feed on plankton and other organic matter. Even though they are out of reach of the sun, the cold and gloomy waters of the deep ocean are not void of living creatures. In addition to fish, crustaceans, fish, sea urchins and brittle stars also form a part of the rich and diverse community, which thrives on cold-water coral reefs.

On May 19, 2007, the Ministry of Agriculture confirmed that an outbreak of H5N1 in Hunan Province has occurred, prompting the slaughter of more than 11,000 heads of poultry. The provincial government immediately implemented an emergency plan, culling an additional 52,800 birds to prevent the spread of the disease. This was the country’s first reported outbreak in three months. Across this expansive country, millions of farmers are living in close proximity to billions of chickens. With the environmental conditions throughout China, it should come as no surprise that birds—and humans—continue to become ill.

Throughout history, China’s people have depended on the waters supplied by her seven major rivers for life itself. But over the last 20 years, water quality has deteriorated to a grave state. The Yellow River, long regarded by the Chinese as the birthplace of their civilization, has been so heavily overused for consumption, irrigation, and factory production that the amount of water flowing through this once powerful river has occasionally been reduced to a trickle. According to the World Bank report published in 2001, “China: Air, Land, and Water—Environmental Priorities for a New Millennium,” 40 percent of the water in large stretches of the Yellow River has been classified as “unsuitable for human contact, irrigation, and agriculture.”(1)

The list of river pollutants, lengthy and disgusting, includes industrial chemicals, heavy metals, dead animals, and untreated human excrement. Couple this with nuclear waste that comes from the river’s headwater in Tibet and the millions of dead chickens contaminating the groundwater, it is only a matter of time before more human outbreaks occur in China.

The Chinese State Environment Protection Administration reports that industrial animal farms have become a major source of pollution. In 1995, more than 1.7 billion metric tons of unprocessed manure was dumped into rivers that serve as water supplies.(2) In China’s second largest river, the Yangtze, conditions are much the same. More than 23.4 billion tons of sewage and industrial waste are dumped into the Yangtze each year. More than 15 percent of water samples taken in 2001 from the Yangtze were classified as “unsuitable for human contact.” That percentage has certainly increased since 2001, and will continue to climb with the westernization of the Chinese culture.

The influx of rural peasants into cities has stretched the sewage infrastructure beyond capacity. The operators of most new buildings report that the structures are connected to sewers, but none of the waste is being treated; up to 80 percent of raw sewage is still released directly into the water supply.(3)

In Northeast China, the Liao He River is the principal waterway flowing to the Yellow Sea from Shenyang, the capital of Liaoning Province. In 1999, this river was classified as “only suitable for industrial purposes that do not involve direct human contact with the water.”(4) Surely, it is far more contaminated in 2007. It should be no surprise that Liaoning Province has been the location of many reported human cases of avian flu and many large outbreaks among poultry over the last three years.

Beyond the severe problems of contaminated water, China is home to nine of ten cities indentified as having the worst air pollution in the world. Respiratory diseases linked to air pollution are the leading cause of death among both children and adults throughout China, according to a November 1999 report by the World Resources Institute, Urban Air Pollution Risks to Children: A Global Environmental Health Indicator. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and pneumonia are the leading contributors of death in adults and children, respectively.(5)

Air pollution has been blamed for health ailments among millions of Chinese residents, including lung cancer and decreased immune function. The air is so bad throughout southern China that women in Yunnan Province were found to have the highest rates of lung cancer ever recorded: 125.6 cases per 100,000 women. Compare this to the national averages for lung cancer among U.S. women tops out at 6.3 persons per 100,000.(6)

The symptoms and diagnoses of the patients hospitalized and then confirmed to have bird flu have been catalogued by the WHO. All patients developed symptoms of fever, cough, respiratory distress, and pneumonia. Conditions for developing pneumonia can include inhaling fumes and other toxic airborne particles. To expel the congestion, an overabundance of mucous must be produced, creating the perfect environment for the rapid replication of the invading organisms. If the mucous contains a mixture of dioxin and other chemicals, the likelihood of death from influenza could be exponential.

Considering that chronic lung disease and pneumonia are among the most common causes of death in China, the identification of H5N1 may have had little to do with their demise. Perhaps the cause of their pneumonia was environmental toxicities complicated by the presence of H5N1.

Poultry and ducks have been killed by the hundreds of millions over the last four years and yet, outbreaks continue across China and Southeast Asia. Until the underlying causes are addressed and a massive environmental clean up is undertaken, poultry and human outbreaks will no doubt continue to occur.

_____________________________________

REFERENCES

(1) Outbreak of bird flu in central China village. www.chinaview.cn

(2) Dooley, Erin E. “Reviving China’s Ruined Rivers,” Environmental HealthPerspectives 110 (2002)

(3) Nierenberg, Danielle. “Industrial Animal Agriculture—the next global health crisis?” World Society for the Protection of Animals, November 2004.

(4) Schmidt, Charles W. “Economy and Environment: China Seeks a Balance,” Environmental Health Perspectives 110 (2002).

(5) Table: Changhua, Wu, et al. “Water Pollution and Human Health in China,” Environmental Health Perspectives 107 (1999).

(6) O’Neill, Marie S, et al. “Health, Wealth, and Air Pollution: Advancing Theory and Methods,” Environmental Health Perspectives 111 (2003).

(7) Schmidt, Charles W. “Economy and Environment: China Seeks a Balance,” Environmental Health Perspectives 110 (2002)

One might have hoped that China would have learned some lessons about pollution by watching America’s expansion problems over the decades, but China’s explosive growth has brought its industrial pollution problem to a level that will require some drastic steps to fix. That’s the bad news. The good news is that Chinese officials seem to be ready to take steps to reduce the country’s pollution problems before they get totally out of hand.

The Pearl River

One of the most promising clean-up projects is being undertaken on the Pearl River, which is China’s equivalent of the Mighty Mississippi. The Pearl’s headwaters are in the Tibetan foothills, where the river begins its 1,375-mile journey to the South China Sea. Nearly a third of all Chinese goods designed for foreign export are manufactured along the Pearl, which means that the river has suffered a heavy toll over the years. However, the Chinese government has spent billions of dollars to build new sewage treatment plants and to move heavy industry out of the country’s major cities. Although there has been a marked improvement in the river’s water quality, there’s still a long way to go before the Pearl will conform to Western standards or those of other prosperous Asian nations.

Greenhouse Gases

China’s growth explosion has some environmentalists predicting that the country may surpass America as the world’s largest producer of greenhouse gases within the next two decades. This is in large part to the rise in the standard of living of the average Chinese citizen, who can now afford to buy an automobile for transportation. In fact, Chinese consumers are buying nearly 24,000 new cars every day.

Drinking Water

The Chinese government has been inundated by concerns from citizens about the quality of their drinking water and their farmland as industrial growth and mining continue to boom at an unprecedented rate. Government officials realize all too well that they must try to maintain some control over the explosive growth if they hope to remain in power. The creation of an EPA-style agency, called the State Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) was meant to be a step in that direction, but it has so far had a spotty success record at best, because its real power is at the provincial level, and most Chinese provinces are more concerned with improving the living standard of their citizens than with environmental protection.

The Pearl River project will give China an opportunity to show the world their commitment to clean water, and water quality has improved over the past five years, but there’s still a long way to go. For instance, a recent study found high levels of toxic metals in the Pearl River estuary, including shrimp that contained sixteen times the recommended level of cadmium.

There are some other encouraging developments beginning to take place, including a growing number of green groups that are being formed on China’s college campuses. It’s yet to be determined when and how China’s waterways will conform to worldwide quality standards, but it appears some promising efforts are underway.

Copyright © 2006 Jeanette J. Fisher

Needless to mention, this is a very complex and sensitive subject. However, anyone over 50 years old can remember a childhood where the environment was quite different.

The world’s population insane dependence on fossil fuels (while there are acceptable and non-polluting alternatives) is basically killing our clean and environment, and us with it.

What is Oil Pollution?

Oil pollution is simply the spilling of crude or refined petroleum product into the environment. There are some staggering statistics that follow.

These are statistics from the 1995 Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition, and have not been updated. It is estimated that the overall totals have increased two or three fold.

•Accidental spills from ships : 140 Million tons

•Routine maintenance of ships and equipment: 511 Millions tons

•Air pollution in the rains (entering the seas): 348 Million tons

•Land disposal of fuels entering the seas: 1,374 Million tons

•Natural seepage (from sea sources) 234 Million tons

The above does NOT include China or India statistics. A total of 2,607 Millions of tons of petroleum had ended up in the environment (estimated in 1995). Now 11 years later, the total is estimated to have trippled, and we are witnessing a gradual increase in Earth temperature due to global warming, other alarming changes in the weather, pollution traces found in both the environment and animals (and plants) in the wild.

Despite the MARPOL rules (marine pollution act by the United Nations), and other legislation, oil pollution continues. A recent survey by marine toxicologists have confirmed alarming amounts of damage to the livers in a wide spectrum of marine fish and mammals. Almost all fish sampled had high levels of heavy metals in the tissue (crude oil contains a great deal of heavy metal, vanadium among them, which is toxic to most animals).

The bottom feeders and marine crustaceans (also living on the bottom of the sea) had an equally high level of absorbed heavy metals and other pollutants (PCB and Dioxin for example).

The natural microbes and small aquatic life that can biodegrade the oil (into water and carbon dioxide) are overwhelmed and cannot cope. There is a lack of available nutrients in areas that surround oil spills, and pollution sites.

One sees large groups of whales or dolphins beaching themselves, and puzzled scientists to explain why. It doesn’t take much to figure it out. Whole species of plants and animals are disappearing on a regular basis.

Oil pollution can not be solved by legislation, or by being more careful. So much oil pollution enters the atmosphere, and then the environment, the only measure that we can take is to immediately reduce our dependency on fossil fuels. Places like California in the United States has already taken the first steps, but has not gone so far as outlawing the fossil fuel.

Knowing that there are fuel cells which can burn clean hydrogen, there are electric engines and solar cells to run the ubiquitous automobile. There is wind and wave power to create clean and non-polluting sources of electricity. Sadly the interests of big business are coming before the safety of the human race.

While sitting in my dentist’s office last week, I happened to pick up a copy of the October 2007 edition of National Geographic Adventure, ‘The Green Edition’. While casually leafing through it I came across an interesting half page article (page 68) concerning plastic islands in the middle of our oceans – floating garbage patches thousands of miles from land covering vast areas.

The subject of the short article was an individual named Charles Moore, a transpacific sailor of note. Moore was and is the Captain of the Oceanographic Research Vessel Alguita. It seems that Captain Moore was returning from a transpacific race in 1997 to his homeport of Long Beach, California when he noticed an unusual phenomenon – these islands of plastic – in the middle of the Pacific Ocean in an area commonly referred to as ‘the doldrums’.

I had previously come across some information on this unnatural occurrence while doing research for other plastic pollution articles. However, I passed it by as not very reliable. This recent browsing happenstance piqued my imagination in that it was prominently featured in a magazine of impeccable credentials. There had to be something there – something I could sink my teeth into. Not many of us are ocean going sailors who might see this abomination up close as did Captain Moore. But apparently these islands exist – huge mid ocean garbage dumps created by plastic and other waste discarded at sea or washed into it from land, driven by wind and currents to mid ocean where they join up to form this mass of pollution.

Captain Moore describes his first hand observation of this in his article “Trashed…Across the Pacific Ocean, Plastics, Plastics Everywhere” published in Natural History magazine in November 2003. In that interesting piece he relates his first observance: “It was on our way home, after finishing the Los Angeles-to-Hawaii sail race known as the Transpac, that my crew and I first caught sight of the trash, floating in one of the most remote regions of all the oceans… as I gazed from the deck at the surface of what ought to have been a pristine ocean, I was confronted, as far as the eye could see, with the sight of plastic… It seemed unbelievable, but I never found a clear spot. In the week it took to cross the subtropical high, no matter what time of day I looked, plastic debris was floating everywhere: bottles, bottle caps, wrappers, fragments….” In the National Geographic Adventure article he says “The gyre (doldrums) is windless and calm, so anything that floats ends up there. We motored through shampoo bottles, bags, fishing nets. This went on for days, which got me concerned. … There are five similar gyres in the world, and it’s pretty likely they’re also contaminated.” Moore has since returned to the area several times, done further study, and estimates the accumulation of floating debris including plastic at more than seven million tons. (Moore is the founder of and a researcher for the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, a nonprofit group “dedicated to the protection of the marine environment and its watersheds through research, education, and restoration”. They could use your support. Visit them at www.algalita.org)

Shocking! As I further explored the problem my immediate reaction to this information was “Why have I not heard more about this?” The plastic pollution of our oceans has apparently been known to researchers for years. Sometimes I think the scientific community fails to adequately educate the general public concerning these types of things. They ‘research’ and then do more research spending considerable effort and resources. Whatever and whenever they publish, it is mostly confined to scientific journals that the reading public rarely, if ever, sees. I am convinced of the people’s willingness to help solve any problem if they are given the straight, nonscientific version of it. (There is nothing more boring to read than a scientist’s report replete with scientific terms generally not known to the ordinary person.)

Apart from the obvious fact of these floating garbage dumps being unsightly, there is the less than obvious effect they are having on marine life. A floating plastic bag, mostly transparent in the sea water, becomes a meal for the unsuspecting sea turtle that recognizes it as a jelly fish – a delicacy to the turtle. After eating it, the plastic bag becomes lodged in the turtle’s digestive tract and it is indigestible. This may – and does – prove fatal. Sea birds consume floating plastic such as bottle caps. Dead birds’ intestines have been examined and found to contain these and other plastic debris which was the probable cause of their deaths. Plastic and other trash in our oceans is estimated to be killing more than a million sea birds and 100,000 mammals and turtles each year according to United Nations reports. Scientists relate that plastic in the marine ecosystem has more than tripled in the last 40 odd years and its effect is yet to be fully determined. We do know that it is not a positive one.

There are too many other damaging aspects to various other marine mammals, birds, and sea life to list here in detail. Research online will reveal the scope of the problem for those interested in learning more.

Since we have been making plastic in any large amounts for only about forty years, this is a rather new problem – one that has escaped our attention while it has truly become unique in its scope and breadth. We can’t ’see’ it in our daily lives. It is out to sea and therefore unthreatening to us on land. We sometimes see plastic debris washed onto our beaches and organize cleanups. Just imagine the logistics – and expense – of organizing a cleanup of the vast Pacific Ocean? There are millions of tons of this material out there – an impossible task.

However, we can do something while here on terra firma. Use less plastic: substitute reusable canvas bags for your store’s plastic bags while shopping. Do not discard plastic where it can wash into the ocean or other waterways such as rivers and lakes. Let manufactures know you are not happy with excessive use of plastic in packaging. (Ever buy something in a big plastic package only to open it to find a tiny item which has been over packaged? Then we discard that packaging to the landfill where it will take perhaps hundreds of years to disintegrate – or worse, discard it into our streams, rivers, and oceans where it will eventually join up with other debris to form more and larger islands of plastic.)

In my case, I have always been fascinated with the oceans. I loved such books as “Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific in a Raft” by Thor Heyerdahl, the South Pacific classics “Mutiny on the Bounty” as well as Herman Melville’s “Typee”, and the like. I always pictured the azure blue Pacific Ocean, especially the idyllic South Pacific, as being a pristine place. Apparently that is no longer the case.

I have sailed across much of the Atlantic and Pacific courtesy of the United States Navy – as a US Marine ‘guest’ I might add. I have to admit I wasn’t looking for islands of plastic during those voyages. It now concerns me that we have vast garbage patches floating out there and we know so little about it. “Knowledge is Power” it is said. Read up on this and then do something to help, won’t you? At least do not discard your plastic into our waterways!

“Every single piece of rubbish has an owner. And every single person can make a difference by making sure they take their rubbish with them when they leave the beach.” ~ Andrea Crump, a litter projects coordinator with the Marine Conservation Society (United Kingdom).

When you receive the Seal you will see global warming as the coming End-times. You will be interested in a new study showing that sea levels would have risen even faster in the past 50 years if there were not so many dams built.

Almost 11,000 cubic kilometers of water has been stopped behind dams and reservoirs in recent decades. This water would be raising sea levels if it were not behind the dams and in the reservoirs.

Scientists have figured sea levels to be rising at 1.8 mm per year. And in the past 50 years those levels have risen 30 mm, and are rising at an ever-increasing pace. But now it seems sea levels are already rising faster than thought.

This means the flooding of coastal areas and some entire islands and nations will begin to happen even sooner than previously expected. Scientists have continually raised the amount of sea level rising they expect in the next 100 years.

They have raised it from a foot-and-a-half to two feet. And now they believe that is wishful thinking. Now they believe it is likely sea levels could rise three feet by the year 2100.

The sea levels are rising mostly because of the melting of glaciers and the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. Add to this “thermal expansion” where the water expands in size because it is warmer, and you have sea levels climbing with the temperature.

This means sea level rises are much worse than previously expected. The rising could have been doubled in the past 50 years, adding another 3 cm, or over an inch. That could cover another 3 meters of the typical beach.

Scientists have not been quite accurate in their measurements of sea-level rises. They have erred on the hopeful side, but once again those hopes turn out to be false hope. The flooding of the coasts is coming, and coming fast.

In places like the United States, there is a concentration of people and property on the coasts. They are economic centers, and the flooding of the coasts will be devastating losses that will cripple the economy of the whole country.

In spite of these warnings, every day more and more people move to the coasts and move businesses and property there. Building on the coast is building a temporary house. It will not last for long.

The scientists are not alone in their dire predictions. Jesus too predicted the End of the world. He taught the parable of the fig tree: when the fig tree starts to bud, you know that summer is near.

That “summer” is how Jesus described the End of the world. And now scientists agree the world is ending like a summer–spring, fall, and winter becoming more like summer each year.

Jesus also said the days of the End would be like the days of Noah. You know the story of Noah. He built an ark to survive when a massive flood was coming. And now the coastal areas are going to be flooded by a massive flooding.

When you are sealed you will prepare yourself for the return of Jesus. When He returns, He will return within you. And you will have an eternal home in Heaven instead of this temporary home on earth when you receive the Seal.