Altered Oceans

[RestoreGore]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-oceans-series,0,7842752.special

A comprehensive multi-video look at the crisis of our seas.

[GliderGuider]

1. Oh God

What do you do after reading something like this? What can you think? What can you feel except for anguish and rage? How can you keep the despair at bay?

[RestoreGore]

2. It sure isn't easy...

But we have to keep trying for our Earth to do all we can to keep it from getting any worse.

[GliderGuider]

3. In the last three years

I've reduced my carbon footprint by 75%. I've reduced my overall consumption by well over half. I didn't have any kids. I do everything I'm supposed to, from growing my own food to taking the bus, moving to a smaller home, trading down to a smaller car(and then parking that), using the right lights, cutting my meat consumption by 2/3, buying local food, using energy efficient appliances, recycling, composting, even starting my own outreach lecture program - the whole 9 yards. But you know what? It's nothing but a fart in a hurricane.

Every new action I take just makes the difference in scale between the problem and the "solutions" more starkly obvious. Every news report says things are worse than we thought, and getting worse faster than we we expect. The oceans are toxic dumps. The glaciers are gone, the world's farmland has been strip-mined, the forests and wetlands are being turned into CO2 so we can grow fuel for our cars, oil has just peaked and the last of the natural gas is starting to hiss out of the final holes all around the earth.

At what point is it OK to say, "We're done, and I've about fucking had it?"

[RestoreGore]

4. I understand your frustration

I have done the same as you and then continue to see people only talking about it and using it as a political wedge as we read more every day about it is doing to our planet. The one thing that keeps me from throwing my hands up however, is looking at my child. I do not want him growing up in a world like this and if there is anything I can do small as it may be to give him a heads up and to even make a small difference I am going to do it. But honestly, I think we may already be passing that tipping point and once again people will fiddle while Rome burns because this is now becoming a partisan political issue and people are more involved in bickering over it than actually joining together to try to keep it from getting any worse. I was always of the opinion that we would not be able to stop all of it but as humans we do have the ability to slow it down. So I will continue to try to impart that on others as best I can, but believe me, I do understand where you are coming from.