(23-08-10) The cycle of life and water are inseparable. We see clearly that, if humans want to save themselves, their duty is primarily to save the oceans. We dedicate this article to the oceans, water, to life, which depends on water...

    We all know the danger that threatens us. It is caused by humans and only humans, and only the measures taken by the human being will be able to solve it. We try to show that the cycle of life and water are inseparable. We see clearly that, if humans want to save themselves, their duty is mainly save the oceans. For an exasperating paradox, humanity arises this issue precisely now, when has just begun to understand how the sea is.

    Nowadays, after thousands of years of ignorance and superstition, humans of our generation finally begin to study the need to exploit and take rational advantage of the immense resources that the 70% of aquatic space of the Earth surface offers. But, at the same time, we have to compromise in race against time to save the oceans from the wild predation we are doing. 

    “If the oceans of earth should die -that is, if life in the oceans were suddenly, somehow to come to an end- it would be the final as well as the greatest catastrophe in the troublous story of man and the other animals and plants with who man shares this planet.” It's an accurate thought of Commander Jacques-Yves Cousteau, which summarizes the issue drastically.

    Without life, the ocean would begin to rot. The stench from decomposing organic matter would be so unbearable that would be enough to ward off the man in all coastal regions. But soon there would be other even more serious consequences. Let’s remember that the ocean is the main stabilizer of the earth: it maintains the right balance between minerals and gases that make up our body and which our existence depends on.

    Without life in the seas, toxic gases contained in the atmosphere would begin to rise inexorably. Exceeded a certain proportion of CO2, the called “greenhouse” effect would come into play: the heat radiated by the earth to space, kept in the stratosphere, would cause a sharp rise in global temperature at sea level.

REFUGEES IN HILLS AND MOUNTAINS

    The polar icecaps would melt on both poles, while the level of the oceans would rise a hundred feet. In a few years all the coastal cities would be flooded. To avoid drowning, one third of humans would be forced to take refuge in hills and mountains, unable to provide themselves for their subsistence.

    Among other effects of the death of the oceans, the surface of waters would be covered with a thick crust of organic waste, which would influence evaporation, reduce rainfall and it would lead to a widespread drought, and finally, hunger. This would be only the beginning of the last phase of the disaster.

    Piled up on the hills, hungry, under violent storms and suffering strange epidemics, broken all family ties, the survivors would begin to suffer from lack of oxygen due to the separation of algae of plankton and the reduction of terrestrial vegetation.

    Confined to the narrow strip of land that would separate the dead seas from infertile mountain slopes, the human species would experience an intolerable agony. Perhaps thirty or fifty years after the death of the oceans, the last human on the planet, when organic life is limited only to bacteria and ghoul insects, would exhale his last breath...

    Coming back to reality, today we are experienced the fragility of marine balances. The more of increasing solid and liquid toxic wastes we throw into the sea, the worse the situation is. Are the oceans able to support these polluting substances? The answer is in the Indic Ocean and the Baltic Sea: almost dead; the North Sea, whose fish stocks decline tragically; the Mediterranean, seriously affected; and the reefs of the world. 

THE SELF-DEFENSE CAPABILITY OF THE SEA IS LIMITED

    The sea is far from being the passive dump we all think. Given its dynamic, physical and chemical properties, ocean water is able to treat only some of the toxic substances or contaminants that we introduced in it, provided that they are “biodegradable.” The sea acts as a living organism, which eliminates waste and fights the infection, parasites, viruses, bacteria, etc., but its defense capability is limited and in some cases is already exhausted.

    In some cases, the sea turns or at least neutralizes many foreign bodies. Metals such as copper, iron, nickel, cobalt and specially manganese are ionized and then dragged to the bottom where they often became oxides or forms of polymetallic nodules around small objects like pebbles, flakes, shark teeth, or occasionally the remains of man-made items. 

    The destination of other hazardous metals such as mercury, cadmium and lead is different. Most of lead released into the biosphere comes from the addition of it to petrol or internal combustion engines; the lead behaves as antiknock. The rains “collect” it in the atmosphere. They drag it down to the soil and then to the sea.

    There, it is absorbed along with other heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury by microorganisms, and through subsequent re-concentrations it poisons food chains and the full range of marine life without ever disappearing. Thus, tons of contaminated fish, molluscs, crustaceans, shellfish and algae are eaten by the population that receives in a free and unpunished way systemic cumulative toxic and fatal doses with irreversible consequences to humans. 

    Tests conducted in other regions on fish tissues revealed high toxic contents such as “polychlorinated biphenyls”" or “dpc”. The “dpc” are additives used in paints, plastics and rubbers, which give an extra resistance to wear.

MERCURY IN FISH AND SEAFOOD

    The Japanese are great consumers of fish, seafood, molluscs and algae with an annual average of only fish consumption of 70 kilos per person. Between 1953-1960, one hundred and eleven Japanese were poisoned with “minamata” by eating fish and seafood that had accumulated mercury in their bodies. The responsible for this pollution, “the group Chisso” denied all the evidence for several years.

    Of the victims, 49 died suffering tremendously, while other 17 babies were born affected by joint deformities and irreversible neurological damage. This kind of intoxication by mercury was named since then: “minimate sickness”.

    Like the DDT, the mercury is not eliminated by the organism. Its concentrations rise not only from a link to another of the food chains, but also when the organism absorbs it, until causing irreversible damages. The North American Norwald Fimreite, showed in 1970 that in the Erie Lake there were pikes and trouts containing amounts of mercury 14 times higher than the allowed rate.

    Also the great lakes and rivers are poisoned and not less than the seas. The alarm has sounded. The next “minamata” could be in coastal cities in Italy, Spain, USA or maybe Peru? Studies indicate that large ocean fish such as tuna and swordfish, which are on the top of the food pyramid, concentrate mercury actively.

    In several U.S. states, swordfish has been recalled. In Europe, especially in Germany and the three Benelux countries, those addicted to the almost extinct tuna have been warned against its consumption. Mercury affects the nerves, brain tissue, joints, liver... 

BLINDNESS AND ATROCIOUS SUFFERINGS BEFORE DYING

    The affected individual complains of anomalies in perception. He loses all muscle control, becomes blind and experiences terrible suffering before death. The metal crosses the placental barrier, concentrates in the foetus and affects the newborn mercilessly.

    The death of the sea is possible and we have to try to avoid it at all costs. If the human exists is because the planet that houses him is the only celestial body that still has life. This is so because it is a “water planet”, where the water itself is, maybe, as scarce as life in the Universe, synonymous of the life itself. 

    The water is a very original element whose physical and chemical combinations offer many particularities. For this unique nature of the liquid element, as well as the thermodynamics of the interconnected global water system, whose engines are the sun and the water, is why life was born. The ocean is water, is life… We have to stop seeing it as a mystery, a threat, an immensity in which any interference of us would not have importance...

    Today we prefer to review the great issues of life in the oceans, talk about its pulses, its dramas and its seasonal cycles; to show how the sea “proactively provides efficiently, without searching excellence and without needing re-engineering and total quality."

Text: Jorge Álvarez Von Maack