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Environmental pollutants have gathered in the deepest parts of Earth's oceans:
Chemicals banned in the 1970s have been found in the deepest reaches of the Pacific Ocean, a new study shows. Scientists were surprised by the relatively high concentrations of pollutants like PCBs and PBDEs in deep sea ecosystems. Used widely during much of the 20th Century, these chemicals were later found to be toxic and to build up in the environment.
[...] The team led by Dr Alan Jamieson at the University of Newcastle sampled levels of pollutants in the fatty tissue of amphipods (a type of crustacean) from deep below the Pacific Ocean surface. The animals were retrieved using specially designed "lander" vehicles deployed from a boat over the Mariana and Kermadec trenches, which are over 10km deep and separated from each other by 7,000km.
[...] In their paper, the authors say it can be difficult to place the levels of contamination found below the Pacific into a wider context - in part because previous studies of contamination gathered measurements in different ways. But they add that in the Mariana trench, the highest levels of PCBs were 50 times greater than in crabs from paddy fields fed by the Liaohe River, one of the most polluted rivers in China. Dr Jamieson commented: "The amphipods we sampled contained levels of contamination similar to that found in Suruga Bay [in Japan], one of the most polluted industrial zones of the northwest Pacific."
Also at Washington Post, USA Today, and KUNC (NPR).
Bioaccumulation of persistent organic pollutants in the deepest ocean fauna (open, DOI: 10.1038/s41559-016-0051) (DX)
(Score: 2) by BsAtHome on Wednesday February 15 2017, @11:43AM
Agreed, on the grand scale of the earth, all of this is futility. The earth as a whole is agnostic and has recovered from a lot of damage before.
The question that lies in the air is that we, humans, at least some of us, are capable of reasoning our place in the ecosystem. Therefore, it is suggested that it is unreasonable to be originator of our own demise. It is not merely a philosophical or rhetoric question.
On the other hand, the logic is obvious and we should know better, but yet we still do not. That can suggest that we are not as evolved and reasonable as we think we are, and therefore will simply go the way of the Dodo in due time of our own creation.
I am, as of yet, undecided whether I and we as humans fall into the class of reasonable or the class of ignorant. Probably a bit of both, but which one will then take the upper hand? Will that be before or after a tipping point is reached?
(Score: 2) by bart9h on Wednesday February 15 2017, @05:15PM
whether I and we as humans fall into the class of reasonable or the class of ignorant
Thtat's easy:
The individual is reasonable.
Humanity is ignorant.
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Wednesday February 15 2017, @06:09PM
The individual is reasonable.
Humanity is ignorant.
I'm not sure. Most acquaintances I have I would consider reasonable, but going to a bar or some other occasions I have no problem to identify a couple of ignorant individuals...
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum