BOOK REPORT: PLASTIC OCEAN BY CAPT. CHARLES MOORE WITH CASSANDRA PHILLIPS

 



“The face of the sea is always changing. Crossed by colors, lights and moving shadows, sparkling in the sun, mysterious in the twilight….” 
Rachel Carson, The Sea Around Us.

These days, it doesn’t surprise me anymore to find that things staring us right in the face are the things we most often ignore. In a kind of selective blindness or a deliberate, collective decision to look the other way for the sake of convenience and comfort, we’re failing to confront a problem in our society, one which may have long-term, dire consequences. The problem is garbage—specifically plastic garbage—and how we are polluting our land, and significantly, our waters and oceans with it.  

Charles Moore was not the first person to observe and make note of how our oceans are becoming inundated by the waste streams from our industrial civilization and expanding populations—from garbage dumped at sea by commercial and military vessels, to thoughtless or inefficient waste management systems of coastal communities, to waste (especially plastic) from overflowing municipal dumps and the littered landscapes of our interior lands. Sailors and scientists have been aware of an increase in mid-ocean pollution of the Pacific for some time. But it seemed no one was worried enough about it, so it never garnered national, let alone international, attention. Plastic pollution in remote regions of the Pacific Ocean was thought to be unsightly, indeed, at times hazardous and a noted, physical danger to aquatic and aviary life through entanglements and ingestion.* But how much a threat, and in what ways, became increasingly clear for Captain Moore and others as they studied the problem. For the most part, plastic itself was long-considered to be benign. Plastic was just—well, plastic, wasn’t it? It was seen as inert and harmless to living systems.

Moore relates the growing consensus of scientists world-wide, as they conclude plastic’s threat turns out to be far more serious, and with ramifications to the health and well-being of humans and other species, in addition to the horrors of “by-catch”, “ghost fishing” (entanglement in derelict fishing nets), and as wayward food sources for unwary fish and fowl.   

Moore’s journey by sailboat in 1997 from Hawaii to California, when he traversed the garbage-infected North Pacific Gyre,** galvanized his interest in examining and understanding this phenomenon. He wondered where all the plastic was coming from and how it could end up in such a remote area of the ocean, and what effects it had on the environment. He made observations concerning the state of Pacific waters, where he found discarded fishing nets—great clumps of nylon line, festooned with barnacles and seaweed—along with floating buoys, great numbers of plastic bags, “nurdles”, broken plastic debris, as well as myriad plastic products like disposable razors, lighters, disposable diapers, pens, tennis rackets, computer keyboards, and anything you can think of that might float. His experience that year ignited his efforts to bring this growing ecological disaster to the world’s attention.

Later dubbed the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” (to date, the most studied of the world’s pelagic gyres) by oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer, Captain Moore embarked on a years-long struggle to provide hard, science-based data that would spur the scientific community and politicians into action, and alert the public to the dangers of this new and insidious form of pollution. He was not alone in this effort by any means, but his voice made an impact.

Plastic Ocean is a fascinating and readable account of Moore’s grassroots

advocacy and his actions to help address the growing problem of plastic pollution. In addition, his book provides a history of this most problematic of materials. We learn that plastic-like, natural-sourced resins and gums were around since the late nineteenth century, but it wasn’t until the 1930s that scientists created the first successful polymers from the by-products of petroleum refining. 
In the mid-1950s, plastic products, including polypropylenes terephthalate (PET) and polypropylene (PP), were gradually introduced into everyday use, with one of the earliest mass-produced consumer item created from this new material being the hula-hoop. The success of this toy lead the way for the exponential growth of the plastics industry in the coming decades, which spawned thousands of new products to feed the burgeoning consumer demand during the post-war boom years.

Of note is Moore’s description of the countless plastic do-dads, gizmos and thingamabobs, and the foodstuffs and convenience what-nots we have today and how they are used. (Around 40% of plastic is used in packaging, which is a massive industry in itself that includes paper and metal.) Of particular interest is the industry’s most pervasive products—the plastic water bottle and the single-use, plastic shopping bag. The later made its appearance around 1970, and today between five-hundred billion and one trillion are used annually, worldwide! That, for me, is a truly shocking and disturbing statistic. The pervasiveness of plastic in our lives makes it almost impossible to think about how we could live without it. Plastics production has both created, to a significant extent, and facilitated our mass-consumption society—what we called, a few years ago, and with a misplaced sense of pride, our “throw-away” society. Disposability, product obsolescence and new products all the time, were seen as good things. 

So we drank the Kool-Aid. Today, we are awash in “things”, many of them plastic, and most of them we could care less about. But the wheels of the economy just keep on turning. So it goes.

Over the last couple of decades, through the work of Charles Moore and others, the issue of plastic consumption and plastic garbage has grown in the public’s mind. The effects of toxic leeching from products made from plastic, and the effects of micro-plastics^± in the environment and food-chain are the focus of scientific studies world-wide. But the fact remains, that plastic production continues to rise, products made with it continue to be used, and waste from both production and consumption continues to enter and pollute the environment. 

“In other words, the plastic material is itself a toxic Trojan horse, not so bad to look at but riddled with unseen chemicals that may pose greater risk to marine—and terrestrial—biota than the dreaded persistent organic pollutants. It will be up to the next generation of marine scientists to investigate this potential threat.” (268)

We are too clever, by half. I think of the beautiful sea turtle in the photograph here, nibbling away on that tasty sheet of polyethylene plastic floating by and how content and full she will feel after her meal—until, of course, she eventually starves to death for lack of real food. I think we’re a lot like her, floating about our world, swimming in plastic garbage, eating it all up, stuffing ourselves until we’re full. But unlike the sea turtle, we know what we’re doing—we just can’t help ourselves. Moore reminds us that we are turning our oceans into garbage dumps (as well as our lands, for that matter), and have been doing so for centuries. Now, we are dumping toxic materials that may last for millennia. His image of the near shore sea floor littered with millions of disposable plastic ball-point pens (which sink) is as ugly as those deposits are unnecessary.

In recent years, schemes to clean up mid-ocean plastic debris with large booms or teams of trawlers are probaly unrealistic and cost-prohibitive, given the size of the areas involved. And while cleaning up the near shore and mid-ocean regions is important and should continue, Moore suggests we need to reduce our dependency on products containing plastic and "Refuse" them wherever and whenever we can. We can also insist there be legal requirements for manufacturers to adopt rigorous recycling and reuse practices, and to use plastic feedstocks with non-toxic additives as partial antidotes to curb the worst consequences of our addiction to this problematic material. However, it is an uphill battle to reconfigure industries that create and maintain our profligate, consumerist lifestyles, and it remains to be seen whether or not we will care enough to make the effort.      

But, to end on a more optimistic note: We need to remember that plastic is a relatively new material, scarcely seventy years old, and that we humans got along just fine before it arrived on the scene. And we’ll get along without it after it's gone. Well, there’s that, at least.

Cheers, Jake.

“The Island lay in shadows only a little deeper than those that were swiftly stealing across the sound from the east. On its western shore the wet sand of the narrow beach caught the same reflection of pale gleaming sky that laid a bright path across the water from island beach to horizon. Both water and sand were the color of steel overlaid with the sheen of silver, so that it was hard to say where water ended and land began.” 
Rachel Carson, Under the Sea-Wind (9)

*Both these hazards have been well-known and documented for decades. Fishing associations and scientists have known for years about the effects of “derelict gear” or floating “net clumps”, and how, for example “100,000 turtles and marine mammals…die annually” through entanglements with these structures (“ghost-nets") and as “by-catch” in the miles-long lines of fishing trawlers. (204) As well, there are an estimated one million seabirds that die annually from ingesting floating plastic debris. Nylon fishing nets, because they are more compact and lighter than traditional hemp, sisal, manila and cotton nets, can be much bigger, and achieve greater hauls of fish (and, as a result, can be more hazardous as debris to aquatic life if they are lost or discarded. Note that fishing nets and lines account for over half of the plastic pollution by weight in the world’s oceans, today).

I think it’s fair to say that industrial fishing could not exist without this new type of plastics-derived gear. Yes, there are maritime shipping protocols (the UN’s MARPOL agreements, national laws, industry regulations, etc.) but it comes down to enforcement, and this seems to be lacking—nets get abandoned without consequence, shipboard wastes are not significantly monitored, not to mention the whole issue of over-fishing and marine ecosystems destruction. The political will to regulate and enforce maritime fleets and fishing is inadequate, at best. So it goes.

**”The Great Pacific Garbage Patch” is the ocean gyre most-studied. There are five gyres in the world’s oceans—two in the Pacific, two in the Atlantic and one in the Indian Ocean. Gyres are circular flows of water that form a distinct marine environment. Their currents capture floating debris and accumulate it at the centre.

± His chapter, “Bad Chemistry” is damning in its presentation about the effects of micro-plastics in our terrestrial environment and oceans. The full scale and scope of granulated plastic particles as both carriers and transmitters of other chemicals they are exposed to in the environment—many with known carcinogenic and endocrinal effects, PCPs for example—and as emitters of their own constituent chemicals, is yet to be known, but it is worrying. In recent decades, the scientific community has made great strides to understand this world-wide phenomenon of chemical toxins in our soils, airs and waters, in our seas and oceans, in plants and animals, and in our own bodies. Moore’s chapter gives the reader pause when considering the ability of governments to regulate and control vast and highly profitable chemical industries that are huge consumers of plastic feed stocks, as well as developers of new plastic derivatives and additatives.

..........

Charles Moore, Plastic Ocean. Penguin Books Ltd., New York, 2011.
Rachel Carson, The Sea Around Us. Signet Classic, New American Library, 1961.
                           Under the Sea-Wind, 1941. Penguin Books, London, 2007.

BOOK REPORT: WHO FEARS DEATH BY NNEDI OKORAFOR

 



I went to the library the other day and did a search for “apocalyptic fiction” because I was in that kind of mood. I picked a couple of titles. One was a trilogy set in post-nuke Arizona—and well, there were the usual cannibals and crazies. I made it through the first book but it was chewy and without much flavour. So, I tossed it out the window as I was driving by a herd of walkers.

But my second pick, Who Fears Death, is the kind of novel you just don’t want to put down. The story is set thousands of years in the future, in Sub-Saharan Africa. Nnedi Okorafor evokes a society in conflict, with warring groups divided by clan, skin-colour* and historical enmity.  However, it is her depiction of life in the village of Jwahir, the coming of age struggles of Onyesonwu, and richly detailed, complex characters and nuanced layers of relationships that are so rewarding to read. When you feel you’re reading about a real place and people, the storyteller has hit the mark! It should be noted that Okorafor’s depictions of inter-tribal warfare are graphic and difficult to read, and bring to mind the 1994 Rwandan genocide, the recent attacks by Boko Haram cultists in Nigeria, and warfare in Sundan. Her writing has a visceral effect on the reader.

Onyesonwu is a child of rape, a “Ewu”, whose mother, after her ordeal, escapes the brutal campaign led by a cohort of Nuru attacking her village. She later gives birth in the desert to a daughter, whose distinctive,  tan-coloured skin will mark her as a societal outcast. The story is told in the first person by Onyesonwu (her name means “Who Fears Death?”)  She dictates her story to an unnamed scribe during what we learn are her final days before she is to be executed.

I can’t say enough about the ease with which young Onyesonwu’s tale is told. Okorafor's voice is that of a true story-teller—simple, direct, calm, like someone saying: “Here is what happened. Let me tell you.” Even her descriptions of horrific inter-tribal carnage, rape, genital mutilation, as well as Onyeswu’s terrifying visions and transformations, are done with a stoic voice that reveals how and why such things happened, and then says: “Let me tell you what happens next.”

Nnedi Okorafor

The story of Onyesonwu is set in a time when sorcery and “ju-ju” magic exist alongside elements of modern technology—there are some computers, cellphones, electricity and amenities such as running water—but on a more limited ‘village-scale’. One passage relates a tale from the “Great Book”, the Okeke bible. It is a creation story describing how a great civilization was destroyed because of the hubris of the Okeke, who thereafter are relegated to the status of slaves for their punishment. Consequently, the dark-skinned Okeke live on the edge of destruction and adopt a fatalism that may doom them. As Onyesonwu matures and discovers her latent magical powers under the tutelage of Aro, the village sorcerer, she rebels against such fatalism. As a young adult, she leaves Jwahir, accompanied by Mwita, her “life’s companion” and a group of her childhood friends. She embarks on her quest with two purposes in mind: The first is to discover the truth around a prophesy telling of a saviour who will liberate the Okeke people. Her second purpose is to find the man who raped her mother—her birth father—and kill him.

Her journey is like those found in many spiritual quests: A small group accompanies an anointed saviour, who we learn is Onyesonwu, herself. They travel through desert lands**, where Onyesonwu undergoes hardships and is tested by supernatural powers, and at last arrives at the place where she will be sacrificed, something she has seen in a vision. Her subsequent death is to signal a great change in the world.

Okorafor draws on myth and legend, as well as from Islam, Christianity and other traditions to create a richly evocative and magical journey one woman makes to fulfill her destiny. 

Cheers, Jake.  

*I am reminded of Rwanda, and the divisions between the light-skinned Tutsis and the darker Hutus. In Okorafor’s future, the Nuru and Okeke are the equivalent of these groups, with the Nuru more war-like and bent on a campaign of genocide, and whose goal is the eventual eradication of the Okeke people.

** Nnedi Okorafor provides the reader with little back-story as to the setting of this future time. Much later in the book we are given a detail: As they journey west, Onyeswu muses that most of the world was now desert and the oceans have all dried up.)

[In her Afterword, Okorafor states that she was inspired to write the story of Onyesonwu after she read an account of organized rape by combatants in Sudan. She calls it “weaponized rape”, a truly reprehensible practice and a war crime in anyone's book.]

Some reviewers of her book have compared Nhedi Okorafor's writing to Octavia Butler's. I’d agree with that assessment, and I would add that her book, in its details of people, their thoughts, temperaments, relationships , etc., as well as the creation of Okeke village life, reminds me of Ursula K. Le Guin’s seminal Always Coming Home, with her portrayal of life in a post-apocalypse California (and which I reviewed in an earlier post. Ed.)

Nnedi Okorafor, Who Fears Death, Daw books, Inc. New York, 2010.