The Eastern Garbage Patch

With the number of environmental issues being given media coverage at this point in our history, it is easy to overlook one with as benign a title as Eastern Garbage Patch. The title appeared on the cover of one of my favorite periodicals, Discovery Magazine, but I was not prepared for either the article or the portrait it paints of our future. Eastern for me, has always meant somewhere distant. Too far away to factor into my list of things to worry about. Garbage is something I know about as well. I take it to the curb. On a good day it is a manageable bag which gets thrown on a truck with my neighbors trash and voila, we never see it again. Until recently, the word patch had always held something of wondrous mystery for me. My fathers potato patch rating easily as the eighth wonder of the world as I was growing up in northern Ontario. So The Eastern Garbage Patch, I assumed, would be an easy read.

For the uninitiated, the Eastern Garbage Patch, a name given it by scientists who are attemtpting to deal with it, is a floating mass of debri which has accumulated in the Pacific Ocean over centuries, is 300 ft. deep and although statistics vary, Discovery magazine describes it as one and one half times the size of the United States. At half the size, this is no patch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxNqzAHGXvs&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnUjTHB1lvM

According to the article, scientists around the world are trying to determine what to do with this ever increasing mass of garbage and the scope of the problem and ways to deal with it have so far eluded them. Given the location of the "patch" between Hawaii and California, one can pretty fairly assume that Canada has made a substantial contribution. And yet I have never heard our environment ministry speak of The Eastern Garbage Patch. It was for this reason that in September, I wrote to our Governor General Michaelle Jean.

Her Excellency

the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean

Governor General of Canada

Rideau Hall

1 Sussex Drive

Ottawa, Ontario

K1A 0A1

Dear Excellency,

It was with no small amount of interest that I read of your concern, (today's Toronto Star), for environmental issues. I have only just recently read an article in Discovery magazine which outlines the severity of one issue in particular. It describes what scientists and environmentalist are calling the Eastern Garbage Patch, a collection of garbage which has been accumulating over the centuries in the Pacific, west of the US and stretching all the way to Hawaii. Apparently this "patch" is one and a half times the size of the US and up to 300 ft. deep! Until reading this article I had no idea....nor do I suspect do most people. This is no small environmental issue....this is a tragedy which needs to be addressed today! I am now retired and want to devote my time to a cause worthy of my attention. This one strikes me as just such a cause. I would request that you have your office contact me, at your convenience with suggestions as to what avenues you would advise in an effort to have impact. I don't know if Canadian fisheries are involved in any current attempt at clean up although I suspect they should be. I highly recommend, given your interests, that you make yourself aware of the publication cited above. It was quite the eye opener and it was not wasted on me nor do I believe will it be wasted on you.

Respectfully

Sharon Wright

Six months have passed since I sent this letter and I have had no response, nor have I heard the Governor General mention this topic publicly. I invite readers of my Blog to write to Her Excellency expressing their concerns on this issue. It is not one which is going to go away without a focused effort on the part of all countries with a view to the Pacific Ocean. I would like to think that Canada could be instrumental in playing a leadership role in this all too important effort.

A Shameful Breech of Trust

February 28, 2009

Canadians, justifiably, take pride in their reputation as an environmentally conscious group. Witness the affection lavished upon our environmental guru David Suzuki. With the exception of the much hated seal hunt, we are perceived as a "nice" people by the rest of the world. Why then did hundreds of birds seeking safe haven find themselves drowning in an oil slick in northern Alberta a year ago? The word from the mining company responsible for the "incident" was that a "glitch" had occurred over the weekend and that computer operated guns, which would have detected birds in flight and fired off a warning, were inoperative. The explanation struck this Canadian as mindless rhetoric and spawned nightmares for weeks as a result.

I toyed with what could have been done to alter the course of a flock of birds seeking shelter. I wondered too why the company had been allowed to destroy the lake in the first place. And then I caught the article "Tar Sands" in the Canadian Geographic last fall and for the first time came to realize what inhumane acts are being perpetrated by human beings in the name of progress. Those who have not made themselves aware of the increasingly large scar being carved in the middle of Alberta need to take note. The lakes and rivers of this once beautiful province are being destroyed in order to withdraw fossil fuels which as we all know are eroding our ozone layer at an alarming rate.

The Tar Sands is a no win situation. One which provides work for thousands of Canadians, yes, but at a cost to the country which is both incalculable and irreversible. The companies mining the tar sands are foreign. Profits are simply being made by the leasing of the land. Land which will be forever destroyed. I suspect that with the exception of our native people, whose cries have gone unheard in Ottawa for decades, the average Canadian is oblivious to the rape of the land in northern Alberta. The area is remote and certainly not on any tourist map. Pilots, who fly over this area in the course of their work describe the view of the tar sands as gut wrenching in the extreme.

Our Canadian government has become an ally of big interests in Alberta. An ally that is prepared to ignore the plight of wildlife and the health of future generations who will one day look at what has been done and ask, "Why was this allowed to happen?"