The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

There is an estimated 200 million TONS of plastic in our planet’s oceans. The majority of this plastic, along with other debris, finds its way to gyres (a circular ocean current), the largest of which being the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, founded by Charles Moore in 1997. The amount of debris in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch accumulates because much of it is not biodegradable. Many plastics, for instance, do not wear down; they simply break into tinier and tinier pieces. Plastics are actually photodegradable, meaning the sun breaks it down into smaller pieces. These little pieces are called  No one knows how much debris makes up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, mainly because the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre is too large for scientists to trawl (fish with a large net along the bottom of a body of water. Denser trash can sink beneath the surface, making the vortex’s area nearly impossible to measure. We do know, however, that about 80% of the debris in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch comes from land in North America and Asia. Trash from the coast of North America takes about six years to reach the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, while trash from Japan and other Asian countries takes about a year. The other 20% of trash in the Patch comes from boaters, offshore oil rigs, and large cargo ships that dump or lose debris into the water. Most of this debris—about 705,000 tons—is fishing nets.

microplastics, most of which can’t always be seen by the naked eye.

So many people ask why it matters if most of this trash gets carried to one place. It is all EXTREMELY harmful to wildlife. One example is the Gyre’s loggerhead sea turtles, who often

mistake plastic bags for jelly fish. Albatrosses mistake plastic resin pellets for fish eggs and feed them to their babies, which die of starvation or ruptured organs. Seals, whales, and other similar species are especially at risk. They can get entangled in abandoned plastic fishing nets, which are being discarded more often because of their low cost. Seals and other mammals often drown in these forgotten nets, an event that has been tagged “ghost fishing”.

Many individuals and international organizations are dedicated to preventing the patch from growing, as no country will take responsibility for it. They prefer to sweep it under the rug, like a kid cleaning his room. Scientists agree that limiting our use of disposable plastics and increasing our use of biodegradable items will be the best way to clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Organizations such as the Plastic Pollution Coalition and the Plastic Oceans Foundation are using social media and direct action campaigns to support the transition from toxic, disposable plastics to biodegradable or reusable materials. Charles Moore, also continues to raise awareness through his own environmental organization, the Algalita Marine Research Foundation. During a 2014 expedition, Moore and his team used aerial drones, to look at the Patch from above. The drones determined that there is 100 times more plastic by weight than previously measured. The team also discovered more permanent plastic features, or islands, some over 15 meters (50 feet) in length, which shows the Garbage Patch is merely growing and becoming more stable. This merely makes it more of a threat to wildlife. Imagine if your house was carpeted in nothing but plastic bottles, cans, shoes, fishing nets, and other trash. Makes you have a whole new respect for what is happening to our wildlife doesn’t it?

 http://education.nationalgeographic.com/education/encyclopedia/great-pacific-garbage-patch/?ar_a=1

Due to global warming, glaciers all over the world have been melting for at least the last 50 years, and the rate of melting has been speeding up with each passing year. Glaciers are large sheets of snow and ice that are found on land all year long. Glaciers are found all over the world. Warmer temperatures cause glaciers to melt faster than they can accumulate new snow, as a result, we are losing these valuable land masses. Melting glaciers are also causing massive rises in sea levels. Global sea level has already risen by 4 to 8 inches, and the pace of sea level rise just keeps getting faster. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that sea levels could rise 10 to 23 inches by 2100. You can see in the pictures on this post how they have changed. When President Taft created Glacier National Park in 1910, it held over 150 glaciers. Since then, the number of glaciers has decreased to less than 30, and most of those have shrunk in area by two-thirds. I can run you statistic after statistic, fact after fact, but really, anyone can see that global warming IS causing the ice caps and glaciers to melt. Some scientists see undeniable evidence that Earth has been getting warmer. Most believe that humans are the cause, by the burning of fossil fuels, which causes a massive buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, have influenced this warming trend. In the past decade, scientists have documented record-high annual surface temperatures and have been seeing other signs of change all over the planet. Chasing Ice is a 2012 documentary film about the efforts of nature photographer James Balog and his Extreme Ice Survey to publicize the effects of climate change. This video shows a time lapse video taken by Balog showing the melting of a glacier.

Hopefully this will make you think twice next time someone wants to say global warming isn’t real

Crazy Facts

After existing for many millennia, the northern section of the Larsen B ice shelf in Antarctica -- a section larger than the state of Rhode Island -- collapsed between January and March 2002, disintegrating at a rate that astonished scientists. Since 1995, the ice shelf's area has shrunk by 40 percent.

According to NASA, the polar ice cap is now melting at the alarming rate of nine percent per decade. Arctic ice thickness has decreased 40 percent since the 1960s.

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http://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/fcons/fcons4.asp

http://www.epa.gov/climatestudents/impacts/signs/glaciers.html

Plant a tree or plant today in honor of Earth Day, and help reach the goal of planting ONE MILLION trees/seeds in 2015!!

Getting Started

First off, NO JUDGING. This is my first time really blogging… This semester, my last project in College Comp was to create a blog. I wanted my blog to be about something I really cared about, and something that I might actually keep up with after the semester is over. Therefore, Green Changes was born!! (I literally went through 15 different titles until I found one that hadn't been taken yet...) My goal for this blog is this: to show you the real impact we are having on the Earth, and how being green can change our path! So, at least one post a week will be something fun and green you could do, such as projects, games, or other activities to help out your planet and community! A second post each week will show you a fact about the environment, and it will be my goal to persuade any non-belivers that global warming is real and that the human race IS killing our planet. (Yes, I'm kind of a hippie.) I don't want this to turn into a doomsdayer blog though, so most of the facts will be things that you probably don't know, or have ever even heard of!! I really want this to be geared towards anyone and everyone, so my goal is to keep it loose, while s

till making you into a believer! With that being said, on to blog post NUMBER ONE!

So, I will admit it….a lot of my being green DIY ideas are coming from Pinterest….but there are so many cool and awesomehttp://www.curbly.com/users/diy-maven/posts/11213-how-to-turn-a-milk-jug-into-a-sandwich-box) Simply cut off the top, but leave a side, add a snap, and voila! You’ve got a brand new sandwich box!! Or you could let it be a cute gift box. Personally, I keep one in my glove compartment in my car to carry around a small first aid kit. Stuff one needs to make one include a 1-gallon milk jug, marker, scissors, thumbtack and a snap, button, or adhesive-backed Velcro dot. The rest is literally just cut and fold!

ideas!! Many of them also save a different type of green….cash green. Think of how much money you spend buying lunch every day. Even taking your lunch can get expensive, with drinks, Tupperware, ect. Now think about all those milk jugs you threw away last month. (pssst….that was a curveball!) Milk jugs can be made into so many things. One of them is a sandwich/ snack carrier! (Pinterest Link:

Milk jugs can be all sorts of things. Poke holes in the lid to make a

flower watering can. Let your kids build an igloo with them. Make them into bird feeders, planters, bird houses, sprinklers, and so much more!!