Your lead editor just returned from two weeks of beach activity, visiting my siblings in San Diego, and father and stepmom in Florida. Surfing lessons, scuba diving, packrafting, running, and general beachcombing. I love being by and in the ocean almost as much (sometimes more) than being in inland, mountainous terrain, with all that has to offer.
Unfortunately, while returning from a shore dive off La Jolla Shores, 15-25 metres down in the La Jolla Canyon, I had to walk back out with my 28+ kg of dive gear through just .8 metre surf, while trying to get my fins off. The waves were breaking every few seconds, and while I was struggling with my fins, the A.P.R. Dive Cam came off my arm, and floated away. I didn''t realize this until I was well onshore, heading toward the OEX Dive Shop, where I'd rented my gear.
I ran back and looked for over an hour, but it is lost to posterity. As are all my San Diego surfing and diving pictures. So, we'll just have to make do with some generic ones from the area(s).
My brother Greg is amazing as a surfer, since h
e's been at it since 1976. We took a couple sessions at La Jolla Shores, on the southern end of that beach is where the smallest break is, ideal for learning. The last day we were at it, I borrowed his friend Mike's longboard, which was over two metres long. Making it more stable for a beginner. But it was very windy, onshore west winds 25-35 kilometres per hour, so the .5 to 1 metre waves were blown out and breaking every two seconds. Tough conditions for learning with that fast wave period and strong current, so all I was able to do in our hour of struggling was to get on my knees for a few rides. Greg was still able to get a few decent rides though, it's neat seeing how all those years of experience enables him to use that board as an extension of himself and just flow through the surf. Reminding me alot of really good alpine skiers, when they can just shoot through heavy powder, down through trees and steep, rocky chutes.
My shore dives in the La Jolla canyon, were very beautiful. I had a guide both times from OEX, a dive shop right in La Jolla Shores, two blocks from the beach. My guide on both was a cool 30 yr. old Cypriot (from Cypress) and UCSD physics student, Alexis. One of his two jobs was as a divemaster there at OEX. Our last dive was the best. We paddled out 100 metres from La Jolla Shores near the Beach/Tennis Club, dropped down to 8 metres or so, then underwater headed east another 50 metres or so, to 10 metres depth. At this point, the La Jolla Canyon is reached. Here it was only 30-40 metres deep, but it quickly drops to depths ten and more times that as it cuts through the continental shelf, to the abyssal plain below. The visibility was an amazing 10 metres at 20 metres depth, often it's only 2-4 metres there. We saw plenty of lobsters and crabs in the rocks of the canyon wall at 20 metres (this area is a protected marine reserve, no harvesting of any fauna allowed), and smelt swimming around. The water was about 20C on top, but only 13C below the thermocline at 10 metres, requiring a 7mm wetsuit, hood, gloves, and booties.
My two dives from Jupiter, Florida were even more spectacular, the reefs 4-8 km offshore (accessible by boat only) have stunning
corals and tropical fauna at depths of 20-30 metres, in warm 28-30C water (even in a 3mm suit, with no gloves and hood, I was too warm!). With visibilities of 15-25 metres.
This picture, from a different area in Florida, was very similar to what the ten of us on the dive charter saw. Three big loggerhead turtles were nestled in the rocks of Area 51 reef, and we also saw a few small reef sharks, large groupers, and many multi-coloured tropical fish species. In fact, I have to rate this area as almost as spectacular as the Great Barrier Reef in diversity and colour of fauna, combined with usually excellent visibilities in very warm water. Almost like a secret, as there have never been that many boats out on these reefs in my four charters I've done there.
So it was, that when I came across this article during my time in San Diego, I found it very distressing. We here at A.P.R. don't always want to be bearers of bad news. But things like this will directly and adversely affect all of us in the coming decades, if no actions are taken to limit CO2 and methane emissions.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/10/04
Published on Sunday, October 4, 2009 by The Guardian/UK
Arctic Seas Turn to Acid, Putting Vital Food Chain at Risk
With the world's oceans absorbing six million tonnes of carbon a day, a leading oceanographer warns of eco disaster
by Robin McKie
"Carbon-dioxide emissions are turning the waters of the Arctic Ocean into acid at an unprecedented rate, scientists have discovered. Research carried out in the archipelago of Svalbard has shown in many regions around the north pole seawater is likely to reach corrosive levels within 10 years. The water will then start to dissolve the shells of mussels and other shellfish and cause major disruption to the food chain. By the end of the century, the entire Arctic Ocean will be corrosively acidic.
(Juniors Bildarchiv/Alamy)"This is extremely worrying," Professor Jean-Pierre Gattuso, of France's Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, told an international oceanography conference last week. "We knew that the seas were getting more acidic and this would disrupt the ability of shellfish – like mussels – to grow their shells. But now we realise the situation is much worse. The water will become so acidic it will actually dissolve the shells of living shellfish."
Just as an acid descaler breaks apart limescale inside a kettle, so the shells that protect molluscs and other creatures will be dissolved. "This will affect the whole food chain, including the North Atlantic salmon, which feeds on molluscs," said Gattuso, speaking at a European commission conference, Oceans of Tomorrow, in Barcelona last week. The oceanographer told delegates that the problem of ocean acidification was worse i
n high latitudes, in the Arctic and around Antarctica, than it was nearer the equator.
"More carbon dioxide can dissolve in cold water than warm," he said. "Hence the problem of acidification is worse in the Arctic than in the tropics, though we have only recently got round to studying the problem in detail."
About a quarter of the carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere by factories, power stations and cars now ends up being absorbed by the oceans. That represents more than six million tonnes of carbon a day.
This carbon dioxide dissolves and is turned into carbonic acid, causing the oceans to become more acidic. "We knew the Arctic would be particularly badly affected when we started our studies but I did not anticipate the extent of the problem," said Gattuso.
His research suggests that 10% of the Arctic Ocean will be corrosively acidic by 2018; 50% by 2050; and 100% ocean by 2100. "Over the whole planet, there will be a threefold increase in the average acidity of the oceans, which is unprecedented during the past 20 million years. That level of acidification will cause immense damage to the ecosystem and the food chain, particularly in the Arctic," he added.
The tiny mollusc Limacina helicina, which is found in Arctic waters, will be particularly vulnerable, he said. The little shellfish is eaten by baleen whales, salmon, herring and various seabirds. Its disappearance would therefore have a major impact on the entire marine food chain. The deep-water coral Lophelia pertusa would also be extremely vulnerable to rising acidity. Reefs in high latitudes are constructed by only one or two types of coral – unlike tropical coral reefs which are built by a large variety of species. The loss of Lophelia pertusa would therefore devastate reefs off Norway and the coast of Scotland, removing underwater shelters that are exploited by dozens of species of fish and other creatures.
"Scientists have proposed all sorts of geo-engineering solutions to global warming," said Gattuso. "For instance, they have proposed spraying the upper atmosphere with aerosol particles that would reduce sunlight reaching the Earth, mitigating the warming caused by rising levels of carbon dioxide.
"But these ideas miss the point. They will still allow carbon dioxide emissions to continue to increase – and thus the oceans to become more and more acidic. There is only one way to stop the devastation the oceans are now facing and that is to limit carbon-dioxide emissions as a matter of urgency."
This was backed by other speakers at the conference. Daniel Conley, of Lund University, Sweden, said that increasing acidity levels, sea-level rises and temperature changes now threatened to bring about irreversible loss of biodiversity in the sea. Christoph Heinze, of Bergen University, Norway, said his studies, part of the EU CarboOcean project, had found that carbon from the atmosphere was being transported into the oceans' deeper waters far more rapidly than expected and was already having a corrosive effect on life forms there.
The oceans' vulnerability to climate change and rising carbon-dioxide levels has also been a key factor in the launching of the EU's Tara Ocean project at Barcelona. The expedition, on the sailing ship Tara, will take three years to circumnavigate the globe, culminating in a voyage through the icy Northwest Passage in Canada, and will make continual and detailed samplings of seawater to study its life forms.
A litre of seawater contains between 1bn and 10bn single-celled organisms called prokaryotes, between 10bn and 100bn viruses and a vast number of more complex, microscopic creatures known as zooplankton, said Chris Bowler, a marine biologist on Tara.
"People think they are just swimming in water when they go for a dip in the sea," he said. "In fact, they are bathing in a plankton soup."
That plankton soup is of crucial importance to the planet, he added. "As much carbon dioxide is absorbed by plankton as is absorbed by tropical rainforests. Its health is therefore of crucial importance to us all."
However, only 1% of the life forms found in the sea have been properly identified and studied, said Bowler. "The aim of the Tara project is to correct some of that ignorance and identify many more of these organisms while we still have the chance. Issues like ocean acidification, rising sea levels and global warming will not be concerns at the back of our minds. They will be a key focus for the work that we do while we are on our expedition."
The toll by 2100
■ The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change forecast in 2007 that sea levels would rise by 20cm to 60cm by 2100 thanks to global warming caused by man-made carbon-dioxide emissions. This is now thought to be an underestimate, however, with most scientific bodies warning that sea levels could rise by a metre or even higher. Major inundations of vulnerable regions such as Bangladesh would ensue.
■ The planet will be hotter by 3C by 2100, most scientists now expect, though rises of 4.5C to 5C could be experienced. Deserts will spread and heatwaves will become more prevalent. Ice-caps will melt and cyclones are also likely to be triggered.
■ Weather patterns across the globe will become more unstable, numbers of devastating storms will increase dramatically while snow will disappear from all but the highest mountains.
© Guardian News and Media Limited 2009"
This is terrible news, because it is already happening, and it seems unlikely anything will be done by 2020, at the earliest. However, the industrialised countries of the world did come together in the 1980s to limit the use and emissions of chlorofluorocarbons as refrigerants and aerosol-can propellants because they were destroying the high latititude stratospheric ozone layer. Since the Montreal Treaty was signed in 1987, the ozone "hole" over Antarctica has lessened in severity, and should recover completely in a few decades. So, perhaps the industrialised countries can act again for the health of the planet, but it will take strong grass-roots pressure and activism to make this happen within 10-20 years, which is necessary.
NOBEL THOUGHTS
We at A.P.R. were just as shocked as everyone when we heard the news that this year's Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to our President Obama. And it's been somewhat difficult for us to make up our minds about how we feel about this.
On the pessimistic but realistic side of things, Howard Zinn, one of our favourite progressive figures, and author of the seminal, revealing, "Peoples History of the United States"
(http://www.harpercollins.com/book/index.aspx?isbn=9780060528423
Book Description
Since its original landmark publication in 1980, A People's History of the United States has been chronicling American history from the bottom up, throwing out the official version of history taught in schools -- with its emphasis on great men in high places -- to focus on the street, the home, and the, workplace.
Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, A People's History is the only volume to tell America's story from the point of view of -- and in the words of -- America's women, factory workers, African-Americans, Native Americans, the working poor, and immigrant laborers. As historian Howard Zinn shows, many of our country's greatest battles -- the fights for a fair wage, an eight-hour workday, child-labor laws, health and safety standards, universal suffrage, women's rights, racial equality -- were carried out at the grassroots level, against bloody resistance. Covering Christopher Columbus's arrival through President Clinton's first term, A People's History of the United States, which was nominated for the American Book Award in 1981, features insightful analysis of the most important events in our history.
Revised, updated, and featuring a new after, word by the author, this special twentieth anniversary edition continues Zinn's important contribution to a complete and balanced understanding of American history.)
presented this article. http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/10/10-3
War and Peace Prizes
by Howard Zinn
"I was dismayed when I heard Barack Obama was given the Nobel peace prize. A shock, really, to think that a president carrying on two wars would be given a peace prize. Until I recalled that Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Henry Kissinger had all received Nobel peace prizes. The Nobel committee is famous for its superficial estimates, won over by rhetoric and by empty gestures, and ignoring blatant violations of world peace.
Yes, Wilson gets credit for the League of Nations – that ineffectual body which did nothing to prevent war. But he had bombarded the Mexican coast, sent troops to occupy Haiti and the Dominican Republic and brought the US into the slaughterhouse of Europe in the first World War, surely among stupid and deadly wars at the top of the list.
Sure, Theodore Roosevelt brokered a peace between Japan and Russia. But he was a lover of war, who participated in the US conquest of Cuba, pretending to liberate it from Spain while fastening US chains on that tiny island. And as president he presided over the bloody war to subjugate the Filipinos, even congratulating a US general who had just massacred 600 helpless villagers in the Phillipines. The Committee did not give the Nobel prize to Mark Twain, who denounced Roosevelt and criticised the war, nor to William James, leader of the anti-imperialist league.
Oh yes, the committee saw fit to give a peace prize to Henry Kissinger, because he signed the final peace agreement ending the war in Vietnam, of which he had been one of the architects. Kissinger, who obsequiously went along with Nixon's expansion of the war, with the bombing of peasant villages in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Kissinger, who matches the definition of a war criminal very accurately, is given a peace prize!
People should be given a peace prize not on the basis of promises they have made – as with Obama, an eloquent maker of promises – but on the basis of actual accomplishments towards ending war, and Obama has continued deadly, inhuman military action in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The Nobel peace committee should retire, and turn over its huge funds to some international peace organization which is not awed by stardom and rhetoric, and which has some understanding of history."
© 2009 Guardian News and Media Limited
Howard Zinn is one of our favourite progressive voices here at A.P.R., and we take his views very seriously, and he makes strong arguments here.
However, other progressive voices have written that they hope this award will spur him to be realistic about the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, to end them quickly. Since nothing but more death and destruction will occur to innocent civilians there, before the U.S. is forced out, as all empires have been in that region since the Greeks of Alexander, 2500 years ago. Fidel Castro even wrote supportively about Obama's award, which was interesting, viewing it as given for his potential, and to spur him on. Since the right-wingnuts like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and all the rest on Faux News are all spewing forth their usual vitriol condemning it, our instinctive reaction is to support Obama's award.
We here at A.P.R. always try and want to make the best of every situation, and present positive, constructive views. Nevertheless, we are more in agreement with Howard Zinn about Obama's Nobel Peace Prize. Because the U.S. defense budget has increased this year, and no real signs of rethinking the tragedies and crimes that are the wars (and occupations of a sovereign countries that posed/poses no threat to this one) in Afghanistan and Iraq seem to be occurring. The 9/11 attacks were carried out by criminals and murderers, and should have been handled as such. As a police action. International support would have been very strong for that, at that time. Instead, innocent civilians continue to suffer horribly and die in remote-controlled aerial drone bombing attacks, and from manned bombers as well, in both these countries and in Pakistan. That is not making it safer "over here" by "killing terrorists over there". But maybe that's the point?
Sad to think that way, to be sure, but as we have seen from our previous post, "Making Out Like Bandits" http://akprogressive.blogspot.com/2009/08/making-out-like-bandits.html, corporate profits accelerate during wartime. And since the corporate media won't allow the reality of the Iraq/Afghanistan wars/occupations to be exposed, politicians are afraid to go against the status quo, for fear of being destroyed by conservatives calling them weak and unpatriotic, supporting "terrorism". Despite the fact that "War is Terrorism With a Bigger Budget", as one of our favourite bumper stickers reads, since 80 percent or more of the casualties in every modern war are innocent civilians. Families, with children often.
And we also know what happened to several historical figures who were strong forces fighting for peace and economic justice (Malcom X, MLK, RFK, Senator Paul Wellstone). It's going to take many years, we are afraid, for the US to extricate itself and/or be forced out from the Middle Eastern imperial actions. Meaning many more thousands of innocent civilians will suffer and die.
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