Truths Don't Care Who Finds Them Inconvenient

And now for some good news about climate change, specifically, that one of its supposedly worst effects has abated after 2021:

Doesn't fit the narrative, but

2024 record coral cover for Great Barrier Reef

Based on official data for all 11 sectors of GBR,

Last three years, 2022-2024, have been unprecedented

Data: https://t.co/MQ0qkITsby pic.twitter.com/fJN15BjHMk

— Bjorn Lomborg (@BjornLomborg) July 2, 2024

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration states why global warming harms coral reefs:

Climate change is the greatest global threat to coral reef ecosystems. Scientific evidence now clearly indicates that the Earth's atmosphere and ocean are warming, and that these changes are primarily due to greenhouse gases derived from human activities.

As temperatures rise, mass coral bleaching events and infectious disease outbreaks are becoming more frequent. Additionally, carbon dioxide absorbed into the ocean from the atmosphere has already begun to reduce calcification rates in reef-building and reef-associated organisms by altering seawater chemistry through decreases in pH. This process is called ocean acidification.

Although your humble blogger is no scientist, he can tell from the language that the NOAA regards what should be a hypothesis ("Climate change = ocean change") as proven.

A little humility from this most recent data, compiled from the Australian Institute of Marine Science, is in order from American scientists, who should be trying to explain why there's a conflict between the Australian data and the dominant climate-change narrative. My expectations for the NOAA to do so are nil, based on the gaslighting behavior of other agencies in the American government.

Note--quotes from two 20th-century dead white males:

Daniel Patrick Moynihan: "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts."

John Maynard Keynes: “When the facts change, I change my mind - what do you do, sir?”

Headline Unique to Hawaii

Headlines can be alarming, but sometimes one just has to read the story (illegal sandbags?) out of curiosity. [bold added]

State officials are once again trying to crack down on the dozens of sandbag barriers, known as burritos, that have come to litter Hawaii’s beaches. This time they are pushing legislation that would require beachfront property owners who have installed the structures illegally or under temporary permits to disclose the structures and any fines or enforcement actions they may be facing to prospective buyers when they seek to sell their homes...

State laws largely forbid private-property owners from erecting shoreline hardening structures, which have caused beach loss throughout the state. As waves push up against the barriers that protect private homes and businesses, they claw away at the sand and prevent beaches from being re-nourished.

But property owners have found various ways to exploit loopholes in state and county laws over the years to harden the shorelines in front of their homes, including installing burritos and mounds of sandbags under temporary emergency permits and then not removing them once they expire.

The burritos, which typically cost tens of thousands of dollars, include long, heavy sandbags, which are often attached to black tarps.

North Shore homes with black tarp (msn photo)

Beach erosion is a serious issue, and given the exorbitant price of land in Hawaii, it's understandable why homeowners want to protect their property. However, it looks like the environmentalists once again have the upper hand in the legislature, and homeowners' net worth will be washed away.

Note: students of newswriting will note that it's obvious where the reporter stands. "Prevent beaches from being re-nourished" could easily be rephrased "slow property erosion" or even "prevent beaches from being replenished with sand". "Re-nourished": another bow to Mother Gaia.

Steller's Sea Cow

Steller's sea cow could weigh four tons
and had a length of up to 25 feet (Chron)

By eating kelp the extinct giant Steller's sea cow caused Pacific-Coast kelp forests to thrive:

The researchers say that the sea cow helped the kelp forest grow more robust, even when eating its weight in seaweed, because it grazed kelp near the surface of the water. That allowed more light to penetrate, encouraging more growth of both kelp and other types of algae...

“If you spend time in a kelp forest today, at least a healthy one, one of the impressions we take away is it’s dark, almost cathedral like, and the light is filtering down. The kelp absorbs most of the incoming sunlight right at the surface,” said Peter Roopnarine, coauthor of the study and a curator of geology at the California Academy of Sciences. “If the sea cow was grazing the canopy there would have been more light penetration.”

Knowledge of the Steller’s sea cow is based on fossils found from Baja California to Northern Alaska, skeletons collected when they were hunted and historic observations made in Alaska, especially by the scientist Georg Wilhelm Steller who gave it its name. The animal may have had a peak population of 200,000, according to a study published this year.

Like its closest living relative, the dugong, a marine mammal in the Western Pacific and Indian oceans that is in the same family as manatees, the beast had a long, rotund body, short front flippers and a whale-like tail. Its skin was “more the bark of an old oak tree, than the skin of an animal,” Steller reportedly observed. It also had a downturned snout for feeding on kelp while floating on the surface, Roopnarine said.

Two points:

1) It seems to be a law of nature: thinning forests on land or sea will make them stronger.

2) The age of exploration marked the end of the Middle Ages and rejuvenated Europe. However, the same philosophy that embraced a limitless world for the taking left in its wake the extinction (circa 1700) of creatures like Steller's sea cow. It's unfortunate that the error was realized centuries too late.

Universal Approbation

14 populations of humpback whales: 9 (blue) not at risk
4 (pink) endangered, 1 (yellow) threatened. (NOAA)

The worldwide humpback whale population has recovered almost completely. However, four of the fourteen populations are still classified as "endangered."

Meanwhile, scientists at the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary continue to perform basic research into the species.

Among their findings: [bold added]

Humpback whales, the winter stars of Hawaii’s marine environment, have been arriving and leaving island waters earlier than normal in recent years, according to a trend documented by scientists.

Other recent research suggests there actually may be two subpopulations of humpbacks coming to the island chain, and it appears that the marine mammals take what some might described as an afternoon siesta each day.

Mother and calf at the sanctuary.

Drone and acoustic devices have tracked the whales' movements:

Surprising was strong chorusing in the northern part of the chain, with a region of relatively little whale sound wedged between the area of strong chorusing in the southern part of the chain, including the main islands.

“The structure of the whale population is more complex than previously thought,” Lammers said, adding that it might point to two subpopulations, one tied to the southeastern part of the archipelago and main Hawaiian Islands and one clustering toward the northwestern end.

But to really confirm that, he said, scientists will have to go up there and investigate.

“These data are certainly interesting and motivating us to go out and try to get more data from that area,” he said.

In another area of research, scientists have been studying behavior using suction cup tag monitors that they attach to individual whales. The tags record sound, video, depth levels and movements.

A recent study examined 86 hours of video from 25 different tagged whales and scored activity levels during different times of the day. A distinctive pattern emerged in the afternoon: decreases in activity and surfacing, and more resting.

“It looks like whales have a real tendency to rest between 1 and 4 p.m. This is something that anecdotally people have noticed, but there’s never been any quantitative evidence,” Lammers said.

“This is really new and exciting stuff for us — that we’re able to show these pretty clear patterns of resting behavior in the afternoon hours,” he said. “It’s kind of reminiscent of another species that we have here, the spinner dolphin, which is very active during nighttime hours but then spends its daytime hours more in a resting state.”

Surveillance technologies are controversial when applied to humans, but in animal studies, especially with species that are endangered, they are regarded with universal approbation.

Hope for the Sea Around Us

Anchovies at Bolinas Lagoon (SFGate)

Global warming Climate change is supposed to poison the oceans, but so far that 2003 model prediction hasn't conformed to reality. In fact, the opposite may be happening.

Sea life is thriving off the coast of Northern California.

According to [Fishing Association President Larry] Collins, the water this year is the coldest local fishermen have seen in a long time, and the anchovies are a testament to that.

“It's just totally healthy ocean out there right now. I heard guys telling me about pelicans that, instead of diving to fill their mouths up, they’re just skimming the water and getting full mouths of anchovies,” Collins said.

Helicopter photo of Antarctic fin whales (YouTube)

Fin whales (only blue whales are larger) are returning to the coast of Antarctica.

Large numbers of fin whales have returned to their ancestral feeding areas near Antarctica for the first time since hunting of the animals was banned almost half a century ago, scientists said in a paper published Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports.

The unexpected finding offers a hopeful sign not only for efforts to conserve the giant animals, according to the researchers, but also for the health of the ocean ecosystems in which they live. Whale feces fertilize microscopic plants known as phytoplankton. Those are eaten by tiny, shrimplike animals known as krill, which in turn sustain dolphins, seals, penguins and other marine species...

The population of fin whales in the Southern Hemisphere has reached nearly 8,000, the study showed. That is up from about 3,000 when the International Whaling Commission issued a moratorium on hunting of the whales in the Southern Hemisphere in 1976. Whaling before that time killed an estimated 700,000 fin whales.

There be dolphins here (WSJ photo)

Dolphins are coming back to the East River:

Partly because New York City waters aren’t as foul as they once were, dolphins have been visiting in greater numbers of late...

Scientists believe the marine mammals may be arriving in warmer months in pursuit of one of their favorite foods, the Atlantic menhaden, which are congregating in the area thanks to robust conservation efforts. The waters surrounding the city are cleaner now than at any time since the Civil War, said Ted Timbers, a spokesman for the NYC Department of Environmental Protection.

"...since the Civil War"--the baby boomers' yearning for Walden (1854) may not be a pipe dream after all.

Unlike some climate-change alarmists, your humble blogger won't be so bold as to claim that three data points prove a hypothesis. However, they are an indication that the situation isn't as dire as the alarmists claim, and that there's hope that some of the damage is reversible.

"Just Totally Healthy Ocean Out There Right Now"

Upwelling (illustration from Visualizing Science)

Global warming Climate change is responsible for heating the oceans, but scientists are now saying that it's the reason for ocean chilling.

The Pacific Ocean near San Francisco has been the coldest it’s been in more than a decade.

a weather buoy at Bodega Bay recorded water temperatures as low as 47.8 degrees on June 21, the coldest it’s been that day for over a decade. That compares with a mean over the decade of around 51 degrees for June, typically the coolest month for that buoy, and other buoys in the area have shown similar trends. It’s been so cold that some fish appear to have been staying in the warmer waters of the bay...

Such cold spells this time of year are a unique feature of the Central California coast. They are triggered by high winds that stir up cold water from the deep in a process known as upwelling...

Upwelling delivers essential nutrients particularly to what are called forage fish, like sardines and anchovies, said [Monterey Bay Aquarium researcher Henry] Ruhl. Over time, salmon get pinker and richer-tasting from their abundant diet, and whales come close to shore to feast on anchovies and krill. With more to eat, seabird populations can boom, and kelp forests, the vital habitat for marine life that have recently been decimated by climate change, grow stronger.

Fish, plants, marine mammals, and birds are all prospering:

Upwelling delivers essential nutrients particularly to what are called forage fish, like sardines and anchovies, said Ruhl. Over time, salmon get pinker and richer-tasting from their abundant diet, and whales come close to shore to feast on anchovies and krill. With more to eat, seabird populations can boom, and kelp forests, the vital habitat for marine life that have recently been decimated by climate change, grow stronger.

Anchovies are so plentiful that seabirds can't eat any more and are dropping them during flight. Fish are "raining from the sky."

Local fishers and researchers are blaming seabirds that, because of an explosion in the anchovy population off the coast of the Bay Area, now have more fish than they know what to do with...

According to [Fishing Association President Larry] Collins, the water this year is the coldest local fishermen have seen in a long time, and the anchovies are a testament to that.

“It's just totally healthy ocean out there right now. I heard guys telling me about pelicans that, instead of diving to fill their mouths up, they’re just skimming the water and getting full mouths of anchovies,” Collins said.

"La Niña should last through the end of the year," which means cool oceans and wet weather in the near future.

With any luck we will get real rain, not just fish, falling upon our heads this winter.

The Science and the Air are Unsettled

I came to Ocean Beach for the fresh air. "Fresh air? What fresh air? We're in Ocean Beach."
I was misinformed.----with apologies to Casablanca

Air quality monitors have consistently shown that a surprising section of San Francisco has harmful air pollution, according to EPA standards for particulate matter. [bold added]

The Chronicle’s analysis shows that the PM 2.5 levels of six sensors in the Outer Sunset located within two blocks of the shore all exceeded the annual average daily exposure standard of 12 micrograms per cubic meter set by the Environmental Protection Agency...The median PM 2.5 over the one-year period recorded by the three sensors closest to the shoreline was about 14 micrograms per cubic meter, compared with about 9 among sensors citywide, data showed.

The reasons are not the usual suspects: traffic, wildfire smoke, or inversion layers.

[Air quality scientist Michael] Flagg had noticed that the huge spikes in PM 2.5 readings from sensors along the Great Highway tended to coincide with certain meteorological conditions. “It would be when the surf and swells were well over 10 feet and the winds were either light or slightly onshore,” he said.

That led him to suspect that a phenomenon called sea spray aerosol — tiny particles from the ocean that scatter into the air — could be playing a part in the high PM 2.5 levels.

It's always refreshing to encounter a scientist like Michael Flagg who, in seeking to solve a puzzle, doesn't try to bend the facts to fit a theory but constructs hypotheses to fit the facts.

Often Wrong, Never in Doubt

Speaking of sandy beaches [yesterday's post below], scientists say an unexpected consequence of climate change has been the widening of California beaches along the Central Coast: [bold added]

One expanse of sandy shore pushed out 140 feet over the past few years, according to research published Wednesday by the U.S. Geological Survey.

The beach widening is the result of back-to-back punches of extreme wildfire and rain, the study suggests, which caused hillsides to slip and sediment to carry to the coast.

After the 2016 Soberanes Fire and the wet winter that followed, 60,000 dump trucks worth of sand poured out of the mouth of the Big Sur River and collected on the shore, the paper reports...

The growth of the beaches runs counter to the typical climate narrative of shorelines being submerged with water from rising seas. The contrasting phenomenon complicates the task of knowing what the future holds with climate change but understanding it is necessary to seeing the full picture.

Kudos to the USGS for reporting that runs counter to the dominant narrative.

If you are going to claim that global warming results in drought which leads to wildfires, then perhaps you should have foreseen the beach-expanding effect of floods that, like snow, have not totally disappeared. These are not unknown phenomena.

What is annoying is the absolute certainty that warmists place in the output of their imperfect models, and the imperiousness with which they order a remaking of society based on these models' results.

Plenty of Room

Source: State of Hawaii visitor statistics

On a warm Saturday afternoon at Ala Moana there's plenty of room on the beach.

No one's wearing a mask. On the beach, where there's natural Vitamin D that's being generated, the coronavirus seems a distant worry.

Tourism has rebounded, higher than 2020 and 2021, but still not to 2019 levels. The nighttime streets of Waikiki are less crowded, and it's more of a pleasure to stroll around.

I bought my ticket before the recent surge in fuel costs. Timing is everything.

The Under-40 Men and the Sea

(Chronicle photo)

Their one-month journey to Hawaii puts to shame complaints about my own trip:

On Wednesday [June 30] afternoon, a four-man crew of rowers pulled their 30-foot boat into Waikiki, setting foot on land for the first time in a month and setting a new world speed record for crossing the Pacific Ocean between San Francisco and Hawaii.

By completing the journey in 30 days, [Jason] Caldwell’s team smashed the previous race record by nine days and clutched a world record for the fastest all-male crew of four to row the mid-Pacific route east to west in an open class rowboat...

Caldwell, the only American, has crossed the Atlantic twice. His three teammates, all Brits, are a mixed bag of experience levels.

Angus Collins is one of a handful of people to have rowed the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans. Duncan Roy had taken down the Atlantic as well. But the fourth crew member, a tattooed mountain of a man named Jordan Shuttleworth who owns a CrossFit gym in the United Kingdom, had no ocean-crossing experience and was added to the team earlier this year.

Despite the record speed, the men endured punishing challenges at sea. To make time, they paired up and rowed in two-hour shifts.

The first two weeks, the men battled headwinds through cold and rain, and nearly capsized pushing through massive swells. Shuttleworth suffered debilitating seasickness that kept him all but out of commission for the first week.

During the back half of the trip, the water flattened out, but subtropical heat kept the men from gaining much-needed rest.

Comments:

1) A pace of 80 miles a day two rowers at a time: their conditioning and BMI are in a different universe from mine.

2) Journalistic quibble: " a world record for the fastest all-male crew of four to row the mid-Pacific route east to west in an open class rowboat." Why the qualifier "all-male"? This is not a gender issue--are there faster times by mixed crews, all female crews, etc.? If it's the fastest time regardless, leave off the "all male." If it's not, how about a sentence explaining who has the record?

3) Hawaii requires all Mainland visitors to have in hand a negative COVID-19 test taken within 72 hours of departure. Wonder if that requirement was imposed on these gentlemen. Side note: Governor Ige will lift the testing requirements, effective July 8th, if visitors have a vaccination card. Assuming the crew was vaccinated, they should have slowed down to avoid the quarantine (kidding).

‘Best day ever at Mavericks’

25 miles south of San Francisco, Mavericks, the mecca for big-wave surfers since 1992, had its "best day ever" on Tuesday.

Word spread quickly in the big-wave surfing community when it was learned that Kai Lenny was coming to Mavericks. He’s the best in the world, deeply respected and admired by all, and the 28-year-old Hawaiian savored the notion of surfing Tuesday’s big swell.

Lenny’s appearance was brilliant, but by day’s end, there was much more to the story. “All things considered,” said San Francisco’s Grant Washburn, “I think this was the best day we’ve ever had at Mavericks.”

That’s a voice of authority. Washburn has surfed and documented every significant Mavericks swell since January 1992, when the surfing world became aware of the once-secret spot off the coast of Half Moon Bay. His claim is certainly debatable in the wake of so much history, but this was a day when all of the crucial elements reached optimum level. “Definitely all-time top three, for sure,” said longtime photographer and water safety expert Frank Quirarte.

The best surfers in the world fly to Mavericks during the winter to take advantage of

the combination of ideal weather, favorable wind, swell direction, [and] wave faces of 50-plus feet.

After a year of COVID-19, contentious politics, and economic hardship it's nice to talk about something that's beautiful, inspiring, and dangerous (where no one got hurt).

Eat, Drink and Be Merry

Sleeping with the fishes? Fred Wilson and his
tuna caught off Half Moon Bay (Chron photo)

Giant bluefin tuna prefer warmer waters, but they have arrived in force this week, with local fisherman landing 30 to 35:

In the past 50 years, anglers have caught Pacific bluefin tuna in a handful of encounters out of Bay Area harbors. These were often aberrations where the tuna were mixed in with schools of albacore in the fall, often at distances 30 to 100 miles offshore.

The bluefin tuna arrived late last week near the Deep Reef, 10 miles out in Half Moon Bay, where anglers told stories of enormous fish, long fights and even losing 600 yards of line...

Pacific bluefin are not endangered, but NOAA recognizes them as a species that has been overfished by commercial interests, and their stock assessment shows a slight improvement in recent years.

Most believe the tuna have been drawn in by vast schools of juvenile anchovies that have also attracted large numbers of humpback whales and shorebirds to the area, said Tom Mattusch, captain of the Huli Cat, a sport fishing charter boat operating out of Pillar Point Harbor.

Global warming may pose an existential threat, but if we're going to die we may as well enjoy some of its benefits. I hope some of the tuna finds its way to local markets.

"Frozen Flash of History"

Today is the 75th anniversary of Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima, one of the most famous photographs of the 20th century. SF Chronicle:

It was 75 years ago this month that photographer Joe Rosenthal took one of the most iconic photos of the 20th century: six servicemen raising the American flag on Iwo Jima after the U.S. captured the island in one of the bloodiest, most famous battles of World War II.

After making that photograph, Rosenthal returned to San Francisco and was hired by The Chronicle.

In that single engagement the U.S. suffered 6,821 combat deaths (roughly equal to the total deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001) and 19,217 wounded. Japanese casualties were 18,000, with 99% fighting to their death.

The Pulitzer committee didn't wait for the year to finish, as was its custom, and awarded Joe Rosenthal the Pulitzer Prize in April, 1945.

The Sand Pebbles (Science)

Front-page article in the Tuesday fishwrap - "Conquer climate change by sprinkling pebbles on tropical beaches."

Papakolea Beach, Big Island (Chron photo)
Let's pound some green sand.

Eric Matzner, who co-founded the nonprofit Project Vesta this year, intends to mine tons of a soft, crumbly green volcanic stone called olivine, grind it into pebbles and spread it on shorelines, coves and beaches, where the wave action will weather it down like a river sculpts gravel.

Scientists say the process of erosion chemically alters the acidic molecules in seawater and converts carbon dioxide into bicarbonate, thereby taking the heat-trapping gases out of circulation and reversing acidification, one of the primary concerns of global warming. The more the rock breaks down, the more carbon dioxide is taken out of the sea.

It is a natural process that is believed to occur faster in the tropics, where warmer temperatures help the dissolution process. That explains Matzner’s desire to do a trial run there.

The potential sounds almost too good to be true:

“There is enough olivine to remove all human emissions, ever,” Matzner said. “We think this is a viable method to remove CO2 on a large scale.”

Some conservatives believe that the whole climate-change/global-warming brouhaha is a progressive plot to have government seize control of the economy.

Well, I don't believe it; given the stakes--the fate of the world--environmentalists should be on board with a solution like olivine pebbles or a "global sunshade" despite some side effects, e.g., a decline in agricultural production ("For agriculture, it might not work that well, but there are other sectors of the economy that could potentially benefit substantially.")

Eliminating fossil fuels by fiat, not by choice, will shrink the economy by $trillions. The magic-bullet solutions will "only" cost in the low $billions and maybe even anti-warmists would be willing to give them a try. The goal is saving the world, not to destroy capitalism, right?

California Offshore Disaster, Western Civ to Blame

Yet another ecological disaster is unfolding, this time off the coast of California. [bold added]

(Chronicle graphic)

A climate-related catastrophe off the California coast has resulted in the death of 90% of the kelp from San Francisco to Oregon as an explosion of ravenous urchins devours everything in sight. And it’s happening at the same time native fish in San Francisco Bay are dying out, two studies released Monday documented...

The kelp study, published Monday in the journal Scientific Reports, chronicles a dramatic decline in the ocean ecosystem that started in 2013 when millions of sea stars along the coast of California withered and died. Without their main predator, the native kelp-eating purple sea urchin population skyrocketed to 60 times its historic numbers.

That was followed, from 2014 to 2017, by a marine heat wave and an El Niño weather event of unprecedented scale. The ocean heated as much as 6 degrees during that time, and toxic algae formed along the coast, killing many species.

The warm water began killing off the lush forests of bull kelp, and then ravenous urchins finished them off, leaving a barren seascape.

Urchins, urchins everywhere (Chronicle photo)

The sea stars dying in 2013 was the triggering event--scientists aren't certain why--and the article tries to attribute the disaster entirely to climate change. That indeed may turn out to be the case, though it's too bad the writers couldn't get one scientist to go on the record with an unequivocal statement about the sea stars' death. Then the opening sentence could have said "climate-caused catastrophe" instead of "climate-related", but they're counting on readers not noticing.

The go-to villain, Donald Trump, wasn't even in politics in 2013, and we certainly can't blame Barack Obama or Jerry Brown.

Why oh why do these bad things keep happening to California?

A Profound Learning Experience

Science says: great white sharks retreat when killer whales approach.[bold added]

(NY Post image)

“What we saw was that when orcas came close to the island during shark season, all of the sharks would take off,” said Salvador Jorgensen, a Monterey Bay Aquarium researcher and lead author of the study. “As a predator that has been successful for millions of years, that may be the card white sharks know how to play that has kept them alive so long — knowing when to fold.”

The report, which used acoustic tracking data from 165 white sharks between 2006 and 2013 and observations on Southeast Farallon Island dating to 1987, found that the sharks would all vanish around the islands, even if the orcas were just passing through.

The sharks may have been conditioned to give the killer whales a wide berth from a 1997 attack, witnessed by whale watchers, in which "orcas ripped out and devoured the shark’s liver."

Great white sharks aren't mindless killing machines; they can have profound learning experiences, too.

Not Final

Ocean Beach was perfect: sunny and temperate, with nary a breeze to disturb the sand. A few surfers donned wetsuits, and middle-aged couples strolled by with their dogs.

We remembered loved ones whom we will never see again. Somehow, in this time and place, "never" didn't seem final.

Particularly Vexing

(Chronicle illustration by John Blanchard)

With all the other important events (stock market drop, gun control demonstrations, Federal budget signing, North Korea, possible trade war) that the Chronicle could cover, your humble blogger was surprised to see the Friday headline Alarming Study of Garbage Patch. [bold added]

The giant mass of floating plastic that has imperiled birds and wildlife between San Francisco and Hawaii contains 1.8 trillion pieces of trash covering an area nearly four times the size of California....

A team of scientists from the Ocean Cleanup Foundation, based in the Netherlands, said the debris field, known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, covers about 618,000 square miles of deep ocean and weighs 80,000 metric tons.

Two years ago we commented how scientists weren't certain about how much this massive plastic garbage heap could affect human health. Furthermore, there was some evidence that sunlight and bacteria were degrading "micro-plastic" particles, making the pollution less permanent than had been believed.

Despite greater awareness plastic trash is growing "exponentially."

Researchers said that will continue to grow exponentially unless drastic measures are taken to reduce the proliferation of plastic garbage and litter back on land, and to prevent it from flowing out storm drains into waterways that lead to the ocean.

The huge sprawl of junk is particularly vexing to environmentalists in San Francisco and other eco-friendly population centers in California, where much of the debris probably originated.

More and more of our store-bought food and goods are sealed in plastic. And we wrap our non-recyclable trash in plastic bags--easier to carry and less messy--and dispose of them in the proper receptacle. It's no surprise that plastic waste from California continues to pour into the Pacific.

Hey, but we banned plastic bags at the supermarket. Give us a medal.