Greenpeace None Too Happy with Mighty O Sinking...

[Wijbrandus]

Greg just hit the nail on the head. He voiced my reasons better than I ever could.

I'm all for conserving and protecting our oceans and our environments.

 

[Lead_carrier]

We all love to see fish, but it's been proven that PCBs severely disrupt ecosystems. If the military is allowed to dispose of it's hazardous waste completely unchecked, our grandchildren might not have any fish to look at (or eat?). I'm glad that someone is up in arms about this. I know I'm not going to get up off of my *** and make waves about it, even though I think it sucks. Go Greenpeace!

Well said from someone in a country that refuses to honor any of the international limits or bans on whale hunting, shark finning, total distruction of the bluefin tuna, and who knows what else.

Would you mind cleaning your own house before telling me that mine is messy?

 

[Vayu]

If any of you doubt the potency of this chemical, try bathing in it. Dive it, take a big gulp, grab some pcb and eat it. PCB is almost like PBJ. Greenpeace is hypocritical at times but it does and will continue to make some good points.

It should be the commercial fishing industry that is concerned about this. Too bad the fishing industry isn't more environmentally conscious.

So now we have chemicals from aircraft carriers in the water, PFOA from dupont's teflon in the water and in 95% of americans, arctic orcas highly contaminated with various toxins, and other various maladies.

The cute turtles and fish are only the first step. The end result is a fatal toxic stew with undetermined half life being passed from generation to generation before our progeny eventually develop into horrible brain eating mutant scum.

So unless as a collective we wish to fight mutant zombies, please respect your local waterways.

Since its already down there... lets go dive!

 

[drbill]

Greenpeace would ban diving if they could. I'm sure they would complain about divers fins touching corals, masks being found at the bottom, spearfishing, the pollution from boats, etc. Don't confuse environmentalists with conservationists. A conservationist goes hunting, fishing, diving, but doesn't kill/destroy every animal. A conservationist enjoys the resources around him, he gets on a 4x4 or a snowmobile and takes advantage of the national parks, which were created by Teddy Roosevel who was a hunter, fisher, and a conservationist.

An environmentalist like PETA or Greenpeace thinks that humans are evil. They know nothing about mantaining a forest or an ocean. They think the environment is better when it's left alone. What bull! In California people know that if you don't remove dead trees and give them to the lumber industry, you're more likely to have forrest fires.

As far as I'm concerned, Greenpeace is an anti-diving, anti-freedom organization. And if you don't want to end with a dive tax, you're better off opposing them.

Whoa... wait a minute. These definitions are YOUR connotations of the two words, but by no means consistent with the definitions in common use.

And, as a research ecologist, I should explain to you that forest fires are a natural part of the ecological process of disturbance. They play a role in maintaining the health of the ecosystem that logging doesn't provide.

 

[BarryNL]

Greenpeace would ban diving if they could. I'm sure they would complain about divers fins touching corals, masks being found at the bottom, spearfishing, the pollution from boats, etc.

I've never seen anything that says Greenpeace wants to ban diving, perhaps you could provide a link?

Sure, they want people to dive in an environmentally responsible way - in that, they are singing from exactly the same hymn sheet as all the certifiying organisations and anyone in the scuba industry who is hoping it will see them through to retirement.

 

[Wijbrandus]

Wijbrandus,
Rather than bias, why not say that my statistics are outdated. I'd be happy to see your evidence that the Chinese industrial complex has superceeded US military output of pollutants.

http://www.financeasia.com/article.aspx?CIaNID=32909
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/03/31/archive/main178697.shtml
http://cbc.ca/cgi-bin/view?/news/2001/06/05/china_environ010605

This is just on a quick search. And I'm not conceding the point about the US Military. Where are you getting your information from? Greenpeace websites?

 

[Michael_Lambert]

I agree with Green Peace and some of what they believe, but i also believe in picking your battles!

yes, The Mighty O could be a pollutant, But at the same time this is going to provide a safe haven for how many species to breed and flourish! I am all for Green peace freaking out and hassling unsafe vessels or vessels that run aground from due to stupidity! but 90% of the stuff they stick there noses into are totally ridiculous!

I can't find it now but i will continue looking i remember a picture of a green peace vessel out trying to stop a much smaller Seal hunting vessel and the amount of Black smoke and **** coming out of the green peace vessel was totally out ragous!

 

[TSandM]

What irks me is that the article, and some of the posters, are writing as though there are vats of liquid chemical sitting on the Oriskany, waiting for the puncture that will release a concentrated cloud of material into the sea . . . There aren't. The PCBs are in plastics. Do you know how long it takes for plastic to break down?

Think about the volume of water surrounding and inside of something the size of the Oriskany. Then think about very slow leaching of chemical out of very stable plastics. Yes, there will be some PCBs in the water. The levels may be extremely low. I'm not sure anybody KNOWS exactly how this will go. My guess is that there is some close monitoring of PCB levels in the water and the fish -- even if the Navy isn't interested in doing it, somebody will be (perhaps even Greenpeace). We may learn from this that it's actually quite safe to sink such ships, in which case it's a very attractive option for the Navy from a cost standpoint, and we may all gain a BUNCH of new wrecks to dive.

My mother used to say, "Don't kick until you're spurred." How about we reserve judgment until we see what the actual DATA are?

 

[BarryNL]

yes, The Mighty O could be a pollutant, But at the same time this is going to provide a safe haven for how many species to breed and flourish!

I think that was rather the point - they're not going to be doing much breeding and flourishing if they're taking in high doses of PCBs.

 

[Wijbrandus]

And, as a research ecologist, I should explain to you that forest fires are a natural part of the ecological process of disturbance. They play a role in maintaining the health of the ecosystem that logging doesn't provide.

Dr. Bill, as a resident of Colorado, I can tell you from experience that forest fires do not maintain squat. I lived through the fires we dealt with a few years back, and it was directly caused by people saying exactly that. Leave the woods alone, fire is natural, fire will clear it out. Bull****. People lost homes and wildfires scoured entire mountains. The smoke covered the state, and we had ash falling in Denver.

Yellowstone as well still bears the scars of the fires in the '80s. The moose will not be able to return to northern Yellowstone for over 100 years, because they need old growth timber for habitat. It all burned down because we didn't maintain it. And that came directly from the park service.

I respect your credentials, your experience, and your education, but from down here on the ground, I disagree with your statement.