Garbage Patch

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is more than just a "patch." It is TWICE the size of TEXAS. The existence of this patch was predicted in 1988, and actually discovered in 1997. Plastic and other chemical sludge has accumulated there due to the currents of the Pacific. Junk from the west coast of North America arrives there about 5 years after it sets sail. From Asia it takes about a year. I was searching the internet just now for a satellite image, but there are none because a lot of the plastics degrade into small pieces suspended in a polymer soup not really visible to the naked eye. It's hugely detrimental to the aquatic life of the area as I'm sure you can imagine. Especially with the effects of bioaccumulation and migration. I don't know how accurate this image from Greenpeace is, since I get the feeling no one actually knows quite how big it is. This shows that there are actually two in the Pacific.
Another patch was just discovered in the Atlantic in the oceans near Puerto Rico.

Some environmental groups are making efforts: Environmental Cleanup Coalition and Project Kaisei. I really don't know what you can do about something like this though. What's sort of shocking is that scientists predicted this would happen over TWENTY years ago. I guess it's the same deal with global warming. I think politics of the past twenty years have been pretty conservative with regard to the environment. I know politics of the last decade have been totally backwards with regard to the environment. Without legislation, nothing can really be done. Here's lookin' at you, Obama. I guess all of us go to sleep knowing that we are sort of giving a big middle finger to the environment; we are all complicit. I want to blame the people in charge, whose greed for their companies puts income over all else. We need some some surious laws up in this betch.

In other scary and upsetting news, the philanthropy darlings of the moment: microlending companies are revealed to be not what they seem. Thank you New York Times. Apparently 75% of 1,0008 microfinance institutions analyzed have interests rates above 15%. The article is really interesting, definitely needs to be read.

One of the main problems with the world is that there is a huge divide between people with resources who want to help and the people/causes that are in dire need of support. I guess the middlemen are often corrupt. I really don't know how you could go to sleep at night in a big fancy house knowing that you exploited poor people by tricking them into thinking you were going to lend them money, or knowing that you took money that concerned samaritans were trying to direct to people in need. Sometimes the evil of the world astonishes me.



Alright, Livy, get on it.

I do believe there are enough people in the world who care, right now they are just trapped in the system without a good way of exerting their social powahh