Context for the Planet

Last week I was in California with our NAMEPA team visiting the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles along with meetings involving LAMI (Los Angeles Maritime Institute) Altasea, University of Southern California, and LA’s BEST (an after school program for 200,000 K-5 Students), then traveling up to San Francisco/Oakland, with a meeting at Monterey Bay Aquarium (a terrific resource which I highly recommend)  to speak at the SNAME Pacific Northwest chapter, a meeting with Chevron Shipping, then the NAMEPA conference at the University of California Maritime Academy (Cal Maritime).  A packed week requiring a lot of movement around the region.

I cannot tell you how grateful I am for my phone’s GPS system.  I happen to use WAZE, with the voice “Boy Band” (yes, he sings the directions) which got me to all my destinations.  What I realized, though, is that using this tool I had no context for the region.  I could get from Point A to Point B, but I wasn’t clear where I was in relation to the parts of the cities.  It occurred to me that many of us are using tools that only give us the information we need at that moment, without the context necessary to make long-term, strategic decisions.  We are focusing on a point, and not the continuum.

This was brought home to me by the Guardian study which reveals that the oceans are absorbing 90% of the human generated GHGs, causing to head the water by the equivalent of one atomic bomb per second!!  I grew up during the Cold War when a fear of nuclear was inculcated into us in the form of drills where we ducked under our desks.  The idea that we are having the impact of ONE NUCLEAR BOMB PER SECOND strikes terror in my heart.

I hope it does yours.

https://safety4sea.com/ocean-absorbs-90-of-ghg-emissions-heat-study-finds/?utm_source=noonreport&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=green

Let’s work together to mitigate our impacts on the  due to GHGs.  How many nuclear bombs can our planet absorb?

Save our Seas,

Carleen