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4 Year Global Journey Ends in Must-See Documentary: 'A Plastic Ocean'
In the upcoming feature-length documentary, A Plastic Ocean, two explorers set out on a four-year global journey to learn about the increasingly devastating crisis of ocean plastic that has polluted our waterways, literally choked aquatic life and could spell major consequences for human health.
The film follows director Craig Leeson and world-class free diver Tanya Streeter as they explore the fragile state of our oceans alongside an international team of scientists and researchers. They traverse to 20 locations around the world, including the five major ocean gyres. In the Pacific Ocean gyre, for instance, the researchers found more plastic than plankton in the notorious Great Pacific garbage patch.
That revelation, sadly, is unsurprising. EcoWatch has extensively covered the problem of ocean plastic and marine debris. This escalating plastic minefield—about 8 million metric tons of plastic are dumped into the world's oceans every year—affects everything from microscopic plankton to giant whales. A study last year estimated that plastic trash can be found in the majority of all species of seabirds. A report published last month also warned that there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050.
Ocean plastic, regrettably, results from human behavior. "The biggest message of this film is that everyone, everywhere, was sold a dishonest marketing concept: that we could use plastic, throw it away and it would be gone forever," Leeson said in an interview. "And what we want everyone to understand is that there is no 'away.'"
"Plastic is the most durable material man has ever made and every piece ever produced is still on the planet in some shape or form," he continued. "Given that we are producing more than 300 million tonnes a year, you can see how that is building up in to a problem that is going to affect our planet, other species and our the health of each one of us."
A Plastic Ocean also explores how larger pieces of plastic break up into microplastics that can move up the food chain and present a potential threat to us.
"I think the most powerful information is the human health factor," Streeter said. "If people understand that the same issues that offend them (plastic on the beach) and distress them (animal's entangled) also extend to people, in terms of the toxins that are building up in our bodies because of all the different ways in which we are exposed to it, that will encourage change."
Celebrated broadcaster and naturalist Sir David Attenborough and legendary ocean researcher Dr. Sylvia Earle also make an appearance in the documentary.
"We've treated the ocean as a place to throw things—dispose of things—that we did not want close to where we thought we lived. Actually, the whole planet is where we live," Dr. Earle said.
The global nonprofit Plastic Oceans helped assemble the team of scientists and filmmakers to produce A Plastic Ocean with the aim of communicating this growing plastic crisis to the world. According to The Times of London, the organization seeks to create the first research center dedicated to studying the problem of plastic.
“A film that explains the problems about plastic ... that message can be spread by a film like this in a remarkable way,” Sir Attenborough says on the Plastic Oceans's website.
A Plastic Ocean will be out later this year and is currently seeking worldwide distribution. A trailer of the movie was released this week. Watch below:
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Plastic pollution in the world's oceans has become a global environmental crisis. Many people have seen images that seem to capture it, such as beaches carpeted with plastic trash or a seahorse gripping a cotton swab with its tail.
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Greenland is melting about four times faster than it was in 2003, a new study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found, a discovery with frightening implications for the pace and extent of future sea level rise.
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Finally, some good news about the otherwise terrible partial government shutdown. A federal judge ruled that the Trump administration cannot issue permits to conduct seismic testing during the government impasse.
The Justice Department sought to delay—or stay—a motion filed by a range of coastal cities, businesses and conservation organizations that are suing the Trump administration over offshore oil drilling, Reuters reported. The department argued that it did not have the resources it needed to work on the case due to the shutdown.
Most people have heard of the Amazon, South America's famed rainforest and hub of biological diversity. Less well known, though no less critical, is the Pantanal, the world's largest tropical wetland.
Like the Amazon, the Pantanal is ecologically important and imperiled. Located primarily in Brazil, it also stretches into neighboring Bolivia and Paraguay. Covering an area larger than England at more than 70,000 square miles, the massive wetland provides irreplaceable ecosystem services that include the regulation of floodwaters, nutrient renewal, river flow for navigability, groundwater recharge and carbon sequestration. The wetland also supports the economies of the four South American states it covers.
By Andrea Germanos
Organizers said 35,000 people marched through the streets of the German capital on Saturday to say they're "fed up" with industrial agriculture and call for a transformation to a system that instead supports the welfare of the environment, animals and rural farmers.
EVs 101: Your Guide to Electric Vehicles
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If you have ever considered making the switch to an environmentally friendly electric vehicle, don't drag your feet. Though EV prices are falling, and states are unveiling more and more public charging stations and plug-in-ready parking spots, the federal government is doing everything it can to slam the brakes on our progress away from gas-burning internal combustion engines. President Trump, likely pressured by his allies in the fossil fuel industry, has threatened to end the federal tax credits that have already helped put hundreds of thousands of EVs on the road—a move bound to harm not only our environment but our economy, too. After all, the manufacturing and sale of EVs, hybrids, and plug-in hybrids supported 197,000 jobs in 2017, according to the most recent U.S. Energy and Employment Report.