Bumps, Pockmarks, Scars, and Slicks on a Forlorn Planet by H. Bruce Rinker
This article was inspired by colleague David Guggenheim, president of Ocean Doctor, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, DC and dedicated to protecting and restoring our oceans through hands-on conservation.
Dr. Guggenheim posted an article, “The Worst Thing I Ever Saw Underwater,” on his website on 21 May 2013. It detailed something ghastly he had witnessed from a submersible on the bottom of Pribolof Canyon in Alaska’s Bering Sea back in August 2007: a massive trawl scar as wide as a Boeing 737 wingspan that extended for miles in either direction, having destroyed ancient deepwater corals and ripped through the world’s second largest underwater canyon. Some time before, a factory fishing trawler had swept through the area, recklessly scooping up a delicate regional ecosystem before tossing most of it aside as worthless “by-catch.”
Alaskan tribal groups, thousands of activists, and local companies have protested such threats from industrial fishing fleets for years now. Since a billion dollars of seafood is harvested along the Bering Sea shelf each year, however, the ensuing immensity of profits has overwhelmed and squelched their complaints thus far.
After reading Dr. Guggenheim’s posting, I wondered: What other human-caused bumps, pockmarks, scars, and slicks might we find on Earth? Blots connected to profits from our crushing animal appetite for the planet’s natural resources?
