A warming Arctic and a growing Garbage Patch

And now for even more news of humans being inhumane to their environment.

Climate change continues to rear its ugly and undeniable head. This study hit the news a little over a month ago. Temperatures in the Arctic have reached record highs this winter, as high as 35 degrees Fahrenheit at times. The average temperature has been at or just around freezing, which is 50 degrees warmer than typical. Naturally. this has led to ice melt and a open waters around Greenland where there should only be ice. This would seem to be just another point on a continuing trend found by a study  released last July arguing that these stretches of warming have, since 1980, become more frequent, longer-lasting, and more intense. 

As if that were not dejecting enough, we also have the Great Pacific Garbage Patch to contend with. I mentioned it in passing in the last post, but a student I knew back at SJC (hey Nathan!) posted an article on FB that describes how this mass of modern refuse is actually much bigger than anyone had previously thought. It is now a moving collection of plastic trash situated between California and Hawaii and spread out over 600,000 miles. Winds and the currents of the ocean have converged to sort of funnel it all together in that spot.

Sure, science has been trying to find ways to fight climate change. But is the field prepared to deal with a growing mass of Tupperware and empty two-liter bottles of Mountain Dew? This is just plain weird. So weird, that I can think of no better testament to human shortsightedness and ignorance. I suppose it could give one plenty to write about.

I have long toyed with the idea of writing a novel that involves a superstorm hurricane. Climate change causes this storm to be so super-charged that it becomes sentient, a living system unto itself. That's not quite enough, in my opinion, to carry an entire narrative, so I decided it would become a running subplot in a story about an intrepid and mythoclastic journalist. I see now that I must include a weird, self-aware mass of plastic garbage rising out of the Pacific. Well, then again, why would it want to? If the polar caps keep melting, it will have ample habitat.

As my student friend said, "What a terrifying time to be alive."


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