Ocean Clean Up Aff

Ocean Clean Up Affirmative
WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
Contents
Ocean Clean Up Affirmative....................................................................................... 1
Summary and Glossary........................................................................................... 2
1AC.......................................................................................................................... 4
Inherency............................................................................................................. 5
1AC Ecosystems Advantage................................................................................. 6
1AC Reefs Advantage......................................................................................... 10
1AC Plan Text..................................................................................................... 15
Solvency............................................................................................................. 16
2AC Inherency....................................................................................................... 18
Ecosystems Advantage......................................................................................... 19
Yes Extinction..................................................................................................... 20
AT Plastics Dont Kill........................................................................................... 22
AT Food Chain not Protected by Clean Up..........................................................25
AT Clean Up Kills Plankton..................................................................................27
AT Clean Up Kills Sea Life................................................................................... 29
Plastics Stay for 100s of Years............................................................................31
AT Ecosystems Resilient..................................................................................... 32
Reefs Advantage................................................................................................... 34
AT No Impact to Acidification / Doesnt Hurt Reefs.............................................35
Reefs Solve Acidification.................................................................................... 38
AT SQuo Solves and No Impact..........................................................................39
Solvency................................................................................................................ 41
AT Fails Ocean Conditions................................................................................42
AT Fails Sea Life............................................................................................... 44
AT Economic Viability......................................................................................... 45
AT Experts Agree................................................................................................ 47
AT Size / Depth of the Ocean..............................................................................48

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
Summary and Glossary

Quick overview of the how passive collection works
Matthews, consultant, eco-entrepreneur, green investor, 2014
(Richard, Plastic Waste in Our Oceans: Problems and Solutions, April 10,
http://globalwarmingisreal.com/2014/04/10/ocean-garbage-problems-solutions/)
In 2012, Dutch Aerospace Engineering student Boyan Slat unveiled a concept for
removing large amounts of marine debris. He subsequently formed an organization
called The Ocean Cleanup. This approach is not only cost effective, it is potentially
profitable. His idea involves an anchored network of booms that world work like a
giant funnel. Propelled by the oceans surface currents, debris would drift into
specially designed arms and collection platforms where it would be separated from
plankton and recycled. Slats calculations suggest that using his methods, 7.25
million tons of plastic can be removed from garbage gyres in as little as five years.
And a video on how they plan to fix the problem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nh6lkv1udb0

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
GLOSSARY
biodegrade- a substance or object capable of being decomposed by bacteria or
other living organisms.
biodiversity- the diversity, or variety, of plants and animals and other living
things in a particular area or region. For instance, the species that inhabit Los
Angeles are different from those in San Francisco, and desert plants and animals
have different characteristics and needs than those in the mountains, even though
some of the same species can be found in all of those areas.
cetaceans - marine mammals commonly known as whales, dolphins, and

porpoises
ecosystems- a biological community of interacting organisms and their physical

environment.
endocrine system- the collection of glands of an organism that secrete

hormones directly into the circulatory system
gyre- a circular pattern of currents in an ocean basin.

There are five massive garbage gyres, one is located in the Indian Ocean, two in
the Pacific Ocean and another two in the Atlantic Ocean. Garbage gyres come
together as the trash gets caught in circular ocean currents. This causes stray
garbage to move until they collide and merge with one another. Matthews, 2014
invasive species- an organism that is not native and has negative effects on
the environment it is introduced to
logistical the planning, implementation, and coordination of the details of a

business or other operation.

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
photodegradation describes the effects of sunlight on the tons of plastic

floating out at sea. Essentially, the sun's rays dry the plastic to the point that it
shatters

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
1AC

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
Inherency
Current efforts are not sufficient; debris continues to
accumulate.
California Coastal Commission, 2014
(Plastic in the Ocean is bad. The Problem With Marine Debris
http://www.coastal.ca.gov/publiced/marinedebris.htm)
Marine debris is defined as "any manufactured or processed solid waste material

that enters the marine environment from any source." Debris is everywherefound
around every major body of water on the planet, and below water as well. Marine
debris is a global pollution problem that impacts human health and safety,
endangers wildlife and aquatic habitats, and costs local and national economies
millions in wasted resources and lost revenues.
HOW DOES TRASH BECOME MARINE DEBRIS? Many people assume that if trash
exists in the ocean, it must be that the fishing and shipping industries are to blame.
But in fact, only 20% of the items found in the ocean can be linked to ocean-based
sources, like commercial fishing vessels, cargo ships (discharge of containers and
garbage), or pleasure cruise ships.
The remainder (80%) is due to land-based sources, like litter (from pedestrians,
motorists, beach visitors), industrial discharges (in the form of plastic pellets and
powders), and garbage management (ill-fitting trash can lids, etc).
TRASHING CALIFORNIA'S BEACHES California residents and tourists love our coast
and ocean, making more than 150 million visits to California beaches each year. The
effort to keep our shorelines clear of marine debris comes at a significant cost. A
2012 study determined that 90 west coast communities spend a total of more than
$520,000,000 each year to combat litter.
In 1975, the National Academy of Sciences estimated that ocean-based sources,

such as cargo ships and cruise liners, dumped 14 billion pounds of garbage into the
ocean. In 1988, the U.S. signed onto MARPOL Annex V, joining 64 other countries
that signed the international protocol that regulates ocean dumping and made it
illegal to dump plastic into the ocean. Even so, plastic pollution is still a major
problem. A 2001 study found an average of 334,271 pieces of plastic per square
mile in the North Pacific Central Gyre, which serves as a natural eddy system to
concentrate material. And debris in the marine environment means hazards for
animals and humans. Plastic marine debris affects at least 267 species worldwide,

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
including 86 percent of all sea turtle species, 44 percent of all sea bird species, and
43 percent of marine mammal species.

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
1AC Ecosystems Advantage

We are poisoning our oceans with a galaxy of trash islands
that kill fish, coral and threaten the health of the oceans
themselves.
Weishar, news and political reporter and founder of Quiet Mike, 2014
The Ocean Size Problem of Ocean Pollution, Quiet Mike,
http://quietmike.org/2014/04/07/ocean-size-problem-ocean-pollution/
Our oceans cover approximately 71% of the Earths surface and contains 97% of the
Earths water. With those kind of numbers, youd think it would be hard for us
humans to pose a threat to it. Well, humans are capable of anything when we put
our destructive minds to it.
While the media has under reported the threat of climate change, it has completely
ignored the state of our oceans. From oil spills to plastic bags to random sea junk,
our oceans may soon resemble some of our dead lakes. The situation is more
desperate than you think.
Most people think oil spills do the most harm to our waters. It certainly does
damage to be sure, however plastic is far worse than oil. There is currently seven
million tonnes of plastic floating around in our oceans.
Your may have heard of the Pacific and Atlantic garbage patches. They are not large
trash islands in the middle of the ocean as some believe. They are more like
galaxies of garbage, populated by millions of smaller trash islands that may be
hidden underwater or spread out over many miles. These garbage patches are
made up of mostly plastic. Unfortunately, plastic breaks down into smaller particles
(or micro-plastics) and is then consumed by marine life. This is what makes plastic
so bad and difficult to clean up.
A lot of it cant be seen, and therefore the size of these patches are almost
impossible to estimate. Ive heard they are as little as the size of Texas (if you can
call that small) or as big as the continental United States. I imagine the truth lies
somewhere in between.
Plastic uses up only 8% of the worlds oil supply, but we use it now more than ever.
In fact, weve produced more plastic in the last ten years than the previous hundred
years combined. Our addiction to plastic isnt going away anytime soon and
because plastic is not biodegradable, it is not going away either.
According to Captain Paul Watson, the founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation
Society, if we dont change our ways, all the worlds fisheries will collapse by 2048.
He also believes that all our coral reefs may be gone by as early as 2025. Pretty
scary.

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
Survival becomes harder as invasive species ride trash islands

to new ecosystems, destroying their balance and threatening
all life in the oceans.
Newitz, editor in chief of io9 and PhD in English and American Studies
from UC Berkeley, 2012(Annalee, Lies You've Been Told About the Pacific
Garbage Patch, 5-21, http://io9.com/5911969/lies-youve-been-told-about-thepacific-garbage-patch)
The "plastisphere" is a term coined by marine biologist Erik Zettler to describe the
creatures like water skaters who thrive in an environment with hard surfaces in
the water. They are similar to creatures who cling to piers or the hulls of ships.
Before human-made hard surfaces were everywhere, they would have lived on
rocks or flotsam. The problem with the plastisphere is that it's radically changing
the balance of a sea ecosystem that was once mostly just open ocean creatures.
"One thing that people worry about is that hard surfaces can transport invasive
species," Goldstein said. "Some animals are good at hitching a ride and they can be
destructive. By adding big chunks of plastic these species can move around better,
and could be introduced to places like the Northwest Pacific Islands, where there are
some of the best coral reefs in the world." In other words, the plastisphere isn't
destroying the ocean ecosystem the creatures who ride on the plastic are. We're
witnessing an ecosystem that is slowly falling off balance.
For now, the open ocean is still mostly inhabited by lantern fish. "There's one
lantern fish for every cubic meter of ocean," Goldstein explained, noting that these
fish are probably more common than the pieces of plastic her team has sampled.
But if trends continue, we're going to see more plastic than fish. And with that
plastic will come more invasive species, more water skaters, and more creatures to
eat the water skaters' eggs. The danger is that this could alter the open ocean
forever and destroy all the native life there that has kept the oceans healthy for
thousands of years.
10

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
Plastic debris introduces cancerous chemicals into the food

chain which affect every species including humans.
Cho, staff blogger for the Earth Institute, 2011
(Renee, Our Oceans: A Plastic Soup, Earth Institute, 1-26,
http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2011/01/26/our-oceans-a-plastic-soup/)
A recent study found that plastics take up and accumulate persistent organic
pollutants (POPs) such as carcinogenic and endocrine-disrupting polychlorinated
biphenyls (PCBs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and organochlorine
pesticides such as DDD, a derivative of DDT. Over 50 percent of the plastic samples
studied contained PCBs, and over 75 percent contained PAHs. According to Moore,
plastic debris can attract and concentrate POPs up to a million times their levels in
the surrounding seawater, and when consumed by marine animals, the POPs
endanger both the creatures that ingest them and humans higher up on the food
chain, especially infants. Moore has said, No fish monger on Earth can sell you a
certified organic wild-caught fish.
11

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
Ocean biodiversity loss will result in a domino effect resulting

in extinction.
McCarthy 11(Michael McCarthy , award winning environmental journalist & editor, Oceans on the brink of
catastrophe, The Independent, June 21, Online: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/oceans-on-
The world's oceans are faced with an unprecedented loss

of species comparable to the great mass extinctions of prehistory , a major report suggests
today. The seas are degenerating far faster than anyone has predicted, the report says,
because of the cumulative impact of a number of severe individual stresses, ranging
from climate warming and sea-water acidification, to widespread chemical pollution and gross
overfishing. The coming together of these factors is now threatening the marine
environment with a catastrophe "unprecedented in human history" , according to the
brink-of-catastrophe-2300272.html)
report, from a panel of leading marine scientists brought together in Oxford earlier this year by the International
Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
the potential extinction of species, from large fish

at one end of the scale to tiny corals at the other, is directly comparable to the five
great mass extinctions in the geological record, during each of which much of the
world's life died out. They range from the Ordovician-Silurian "event" of 450 million years ago, to the
The stark suggestion made by the panel is that
Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction of 65 million years ago, which is believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs. The worst
of them, the event at the end of the Permian period, 251 million years ago, is thought to have eliminated 70 per
cent of species on land and 96 per cent of all species in the sea. The panel of 27 scientists, who considered the
a "combination of stressors is
creating the conditions associated with every previous major extinction of species in
Earth's history". They also concluded the speed and rate of degeneration of the oceans is
far faster than anyone has predicted; * Many of the negative impacts identified are
greater than the worst predictions; * the first steps to globally significant extinction
may have already begun.
latest research from all areas of marine science, concluded that
12

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
1AC Reefs Advantage

Oceans are acidifying 10 times faster than the last extreme
acidification event.
Iacurci, BS in Allied Health Sciences @ Uconn 14
(Jenna, 6/3/14, Nature World News,

Ocean Acidification Rate 10 Times Faster than Ancient Upheaval,
http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/7379/20140603/ocean-acidification-rate-10-times-faster-than-ancientupheaval.htm, 6/25/14, KM)
These days the ocean is acidifying at a rate 10 times faster than it did
during a similar upheaval 56 million years ago. During those
ancient days, researchers estimate that ocean acidity increased by
about 100 percent in a few thousand years or more, and levels didn't
bounce back to normal for another 70,000 years. Some species were
able to adapt and evolve to such radical environmental changes, while
others perished and died off. Also during this time, a wave of carbon dioxide
(CO2) surged into the atmosphere, raising global temperatures, and
scientists have long suspected that ocean acidification caused the crisis.
For the first time, researchers are using the chemical composition of fossils
to reconstruct surface ocean acidity at the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal
Maximum (PETM), a period of intense warming on land and throughout the
oceans due to high CO2. "This could be the closest geological analog to
modern ocean acidification," study co-author Brbel Hnisch, a
paleoceanographer at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth
Observatory, said in a statement. "As massive as it was, it still
happened about 10 times more slowly than what we are doing
today." Since the Industrial Revolution, oceans have absorbed about a
third of the carbon humans have pumped into the air, helping to cool the
Earth. Consequentially, chemical reactions caused by that excess CO2 have
made seawater grow more acidic, depleting it of the carbonate ions that
corals, mollusks and calcifying plankton need to build their shells and
skeletons. "We are dumping carbon in the atmosphere and ocean at a
much higher rate today - within centuries," said study co-author Richard
Zeebe, a paleoceanographer at the University of Hawaii. "If we continue on
the emissions path we are on right now, acidification of the surface ocean
will be way more dramatic than during the PETM." The studied fossils ancient plankton taken from Japanese waters - reveal that the ocean pH has
indeed dropped, and will continue to do so. Researchers still aren't sure
what caused the upheaval of CO2 into the atmosphere so long ago. They
speculate that the Earth's warming may have sent methane from the
seafloor into the air, triggering the aforementioned events.
13

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
Coral Reefs are key to ocean acidification they regulate pH

levels in the ocean
Montagna, member of the National Research Council, 12 (Paolo, 4/1/12,
Nature Climate Change, Coral resilience to ocean acidification and global warming
through pH up-regulation,
http://shadow.eas.gatech.edu/~kcobb/ocean_acid/McCulloch%20et%20al
%202012.pdf, 6/29/14, AEG)
Rapidly rising levels of atmospheric CO2 are not only causing ocean warming, but
also lowering seawater pH hence the carbonate saturation state of the oceans, on
which many marine organisms depend to calcify their skeletons1,2. Using boron
isotope systematics3, we show how scleractinian corals up-regulate pH at their site
of calcification such that internal changes are approximately one-half of those in
ambient seawater. This species-dependent pH-buffering capacity enables aragonitic
corals to raise the saturation state of their calcifying medium, thereby increasing
calcification rates at little additional energy cost. Using a model of pH regulation
combined with abiotic calcification, we show that the enhanced kinetics of
calcification owing to higher temperatures has the potential to counter the effects of
ocean acidification. Up-regulation of pH, however, is not ubiquitous among calcifying
organisms; those lacking this ability are likely to undergo severe declines in calcification as CO2 levels increase. The
capacity to up-regulate pH is thus central to the resilience of calcifiers to ocean acidification, although the fate of
zooxanthellate corals ultimately depends on the ability of both the photosymbionts and coral host to adapt to
rapidly increasing ocean temperatures4.
14

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
However coral reefs are on the decline without action they

may soon collapse allowing acidification to continue
Science Daily, 13
(Science Daily, 5/9/13, Science Daily, Coral reefs suffering, but extinction not
inevitable, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130509123414.htm,
7/1/14, JW)
Coral reefs are in decline, but their collapse can still be avoided with local and
global action. That's according to findings reported in the Cell Press journal Current
Biology on May 9 based on an analysis that combines the latest science on reef
dynamics with the latest climate models. "People benefit by reefs' having a complex
structure -- a little like a Manhattan skyline, but underwater," said Peter Mumby of
The University of Queensland and University of Exeter. "Structurally complex reefs
provide nooks and crannies for thousands of species and provide the habitat needed
to sustain productive reef fisheries. They're also great fun to visit as a snorkeler or
diver. If we carry on the way we have been, the ability of reefs to provide benefits to
people will seriously decline." To predict the reefs' future, the researchers spent two
years constructing a computer model of how reefs work, building on hundreds of
studies conducted over the last 40 years. They then combined their reef model with
climate models to make predictions about the balance between forces that will
allow reefs to continue growing their complex calcium carbonate structures and
those such as hurricanes and erosion that will shrink them. Ideally, Mumby said, the
goal is a carbonate budget that remains in the black for the next century at least.
Such a future is possible, the researchers' model shows, but only with effective local
protection and assertive action on greenhouse gases. "Business as usual isn't going
to cut it," he said. "The good news is that it does seem possible to maintain reefs -we just have to be serious about doing something. It also means that local reef
management -- efforts to curb pollution and overfishing -- are absolutely justified.
Some have claimed that the climate change problem is so great that local
management is futile. We show that this viewpoint is wrongheaded." Mumby and his
colleagues also stress the importance of reef function in addition to reef diversity.
Those functions of reefs include the provision of habitat for fish, the provision of a
natural breakwater to reduce the size of waves reaching the shore, and so on. In
very practical terms, hundreds of millions of people depend directly on reefs for
their food, livelihoods, and even building materials. "If it becomes increasingly
difficult for people in the tropics to make their living on coral reefs, then this may
15

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
well increase poverty," said the study's first author, Emma Kennedy. It's in
everyone's best interest to keep that from happening.
They key internal link to decline is the growing amount of

plastic in the worlds oceans
NOAA 12 (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, How Pollution
Affects Coral Reefs, http://celebrating200years.noaa.gov/visions/coral/side.html,
Revised July 19th 2012, JKE)
Marine debris also affects reefs in many areas. Marine debris is any human-made
object that is discarded, disposed of, or abandoned that enters coastal and ocean
waters. Debris may enter directly from a ship or indirectly when washed out to sea
via rivers, streams, and storm drains. Hundreds of human-made items end up as
marine debris, including plastics (from bags to balloons, hard hats to fishing line),
glass, metal, rubber (millions of tires!), and even entire vessels.
Plastic debris kills several reef species. Derelict (abandoned) fishing nets and other
gearoften called "ghost nets" because they still catch fish and other marine life
despite being abandonedcan entangle and kill reef organisms and break or
damage reefs. Even remote reef systems suffer the effects of marine debris. The
Northwestern Hawaiian Island reefs are particularly prone to the accumulation of
marine debris because of their central location in the North Pacific gyre. From 2000
to 2006, NOAA and partners removed over 500 tons of marine debris from the
Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.
16

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
Without a change ocean acidification will lead to mass

extinction
Romm, Senior Fellow at American Progress, 12
(Joe, 3/2/12, Ph.D. in physics from MIT, Founding Editor of Climate Progress, Climate
Progress, Science: Ocean Acidifying So Fast It Threatens Humanitys Ability to Feed
Itself, http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/03/02/436193/science-oceanacidifying-so-fast-it-threatens-humanity-ability-to-feed-itself/, 6/29/14, SM)
The worlds oceans may be turning acidic faster today from human carbon
emissions than they did during four major extinctions in the last 300 million years,
when natural pulses of carbon sent global temperatures soaring , says a new study in
Science. The study is the first of its kind to survey the geologic record for evidence of ocean acidification over this
vast time period. What were doing today really stands out, said lead author Brbel Hnisch, a
paleoceanographer at Columbia Universitys Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. We know that life during past
if
industrial carbon emissions continue at the current pace, we may lose organisms we
care aboutcoral reefs, oysters, salmon. James Zachos, a paleoceanographer at University of
ocean acidification events was not wiped outnew species evolved to replace those that died off. But
California, Santa Cruz, with a core of sediment from some 56 million years ago, when the oceans underwent
acidification that could be an analog to ocean changes today. Thats the news release from a major 21-author
Science paper, The Geological Record of Ocean Acidification (subs. reqd). We knew from a 2010 Nature
oceans are now acidifying 10 times faster today than 55 million

years ago when a mass extinction of marine species occurred. But this study looked
back over 300 million and found that the unprecedented rapidity of CO2 release
currently taking place has put marine life at risk in a frighteningly unique way :
Geoscience study that the
the current rate of (mainly fossil fuel) CO2 release stands out as capable of driving a combination and magnitude of
ocean geochemical changes potentially unparalleled in at least the last ~300 My of Earth history, raising the
its not just

that acidifying oceans spell marine biological meltdown by end of century as a 2010
Geological Society study put it. We are also warming the ocean and decreasing dissolved
oxygen concentration. That is a recipe for mass extinction . A 2009 Nature Geoscience study
possibility that we are entering an unknown territory of marine ecosystem change. That is to say,
found that ocean dead zones devoid of fish and seafood are poised to expand and remain for thousands of
years.
17

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
1AC Plan Text

The United States federal government should develop a
system of passive ocean plastic clean up arrays as proposed by
the Ocean Clean Up Project.
18

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
Solvency
The Ocean Cleanup Array would cost only 2 million dollars and
prevent the build up of plastics in our oceans.
Business Week, 2014
(Caroline Winter, This 19-Year-Old Is Ready to Build an Ocean Cleanup Machine,
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-06-10/this-19-year-old-is-ready-to-buildan-ocean-cleanup-machine
The worlds oceans contain millions of tons of trash, much of it collected into vast
gyres of plastic and debris. Even if humanity stopped putting garbage in the water
today, researchers project that these garbage patches would continue growing for
hundreds of years. One such trash vortex, known as the Great Pacific Garbage
Patch, already spans hundreds of miles.
How do we get all that garbage out? Boyan Slat, a 19-year-old Dutch aeronautical
engineering student, is raising $2 million to build an ocean cleanup contraption he
designed to passively funnel garbage to specific collection points. Working with a
team of over 100 people, he recently released a 528-page feasibility study (PDF)
detailing how the complex technology works and grappling with questions of
legality, costs, environmental impact, and potential pitfalls.
Slats plan, expressed simply, is to deploy several V-shaped floating barriers that
would be moored to the seabed and placed in the path of major ocean currents. The
30-mile-long arms of the V are designed to catch buoyant garbage and trash
floating three meters below the surface while allowing sea life to pass underneath.
Because no nets would be used, a passive cleanup may well be harmless to the
marine ecosystem, he writes in the feasibly study.
Over time, the trash would flow deeper into the V , from which it would then be
extracted. The report estimates that the plastic collection rate would total 65 cubic
meters per day and that the trash would have to be picked up by ship every 45
days. Slat hopes to offset costs by recycling the collected plastic for other uses.
19

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
A passive collection system design would work, just needs to

be implemented on a broader scale.
Slat et al, founder and lead designer The Ocean Cleanup
Project, 2014
(Boyan, A Feasibility Study, http://www.theoceancleanup.com/fileadmin/mediaarchive/theoceancleanup/press/downloads/TOC_Feasibility_study_lowres.pdf, p. 29)
Proof of concept
A first proof-of-concept test performed at the Azores Islands validated the capture
and concentration potential of a floating barrier with a skirt depth of 3 m, in
moderate environmental conditions. In addition, qualitative data suggested that the
barrier does not catch zooplankton as the net behind the boom appeared to have
caught an equal amount of zooplankton as the net next to the boom.
20

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
2AC Inherency
We are currently and actively creating the worlds largest
garbage dump in the middle of the Pacific ocean.
Layton, staff writer for Discovery Communications, 2010
(Julia, Could we clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?
http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/clean-up-garbagepatch.html, January 7, 2010)
About a thousand miles off the coast of California floats one of mankind's dirtiest
little secrets. Or at least it was a secret before the late '90s, when a seafaring
scientist stumbled upon it in horror. It's a floating dump in the ocean, big enough to
hold one or two Texases or maybe all of North America, depending on who you ask
[sources: Stone, Silverman, SSF].
The discrepancy in size estimates may be due to the fact that since most of the
trash is below the surface, the borders are almost impossible to see from above the
water. Plus, the trash moves around with the currents, and there's more than one of
these patches. At least one more lies in the Pacific, and they dot the entire globe.
Most often, "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" refers to the one extending from Hawaii to
San Francisco. That patch of trash is supposed to be the biggest, sporting an
impressive 3.5 million tons (3.1 million metric tons) of watery garbage [source:
SSF]. And at least 80 percent of it is plastic [source: Berton].
For decades, we've been told plastic doesn't degrade -- that it sits in landfills
forever and ever and therefore it is very, very bad. (Unless you're going to Mexico
and need to provide your own water so you don't get the runs -- then, it's also pretty
handy. But still, very, very bad.) The truth is, plastic does degrade. It just doesn't
biodegrade.
Plastic will photodegrade, a process by which it ultimately ends up breaking into
countless tiny bits of the same substance. In a landfill, this may not make a huge
difference. But when that plastic is seaborne, it makes all the difference in the
world. And there's the rub: An ever-increasing amount of the world's ever-increasing
amount of plastic refuse is ending up in the ocean.
In fact, the Pacific Ocean now hosts the largest trash dump on Earth. It's called the
Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and it's not a pretty picture. Waste dumped both on
land and at sea has made its way into a swirling vortex of oceanic trash that
threatens sea life, aquatic ecosystems, fishing industries and the safety of the
human seafood supply. In some coastal areas, a day at the beach is becoming a day
at the sandy trash heap.
21

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
Ecosystems Advantage
22

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
Yes Extinction
Biodiversity poses an imminent threat to human survival
Raj 12 (Dr. P.J. Sanjeeva Raj, consultant ecologist and the Professor and Head of the Zoology Department of the
Madras Christian College (MCC), Beware the loss of biodiversity, September 23, 2012,
Professor
Edward O. Wilson, Harvard visionary of biodiversity, observes that the
current rate of biodiversity loss is perhaps the highest since the loss of
dinosaurs about 65 million years ago during the Mesozoic era, when humans had not appeared. He
regrets that if such indiscriminate annihilation of all biodiversity from the
face of the earth happens for anthropogenic reasons, as has been seen
now, it is sure to force humanity into an emotional shock and trauma of
loneliness and helplessness on this planet. He believes that the current wave of biodiversity
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/open-page/beware-the-loss-of-biodiversity/article3927062.ece)
loss is sure to lead us into an age that may be appropriately called the Eremozoic Era, the Age of Loneliness.
Loss of biodiversity is a much greater threat to human survival than even

climate change. Both could act, synergistically too, to escalate human
extinction faster.
Biodiversity is so indispensable for human survival that the United Nations
General Assembly has designated the decade 2011- 2020 as the
Biodiversity Decade with the chief objective of enabling humans to live
peaceably or harmoniously with nature and its biodiversity. We should be happy
that during October 1-19, 2012, XI Conference of Parties (CoP-11), a global mega event on biodiversity, is taking
place in Hyderabad, when delegates from 193 party countries are expected to meet. They will review the
Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which was originally introduced at the Earth Summit or the United Nations
Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The Ministry of Environment and
Forests (MoEF) is the nodal agency for CoP-11. Today, India is one of the 17 mega-diverse (richest biodiversity)
Biodiversity provides all basic needs for our healthy survival

oxygen, food, medicines, fiber, fuel, energy, fertilizers, fodder and wastedisposal, etc. Fast vanishing honeybees, dragonflies, bats, frogs, house
sparrows, filter (suspension)-feeder oysters and all keystone species are
causing great economic loss as well as posing an imminent threat to
human peace and survival. The three-fold biodiversity mission before us is to inventories the existing
countries.
biodiversity, conserve it, and, above all, equitably share the sustainable benefits out of it.
Loss of biodiversity has the capacity to cause human extinction

now is key
Buczynski 10 (Beth Buczynski is the author of Sharing is Good (Fall 2013, New Society
Publishers), a practical guide to collaborative consumption that includes hundreds of tips and
resources to help you participate in the growing sharing economy. She received a BA in creative
writing from the University of Tennessee and a MS in public communication and technology from
Colorado State University, UN: Loss Of Biodiversity Could Mean End Of Human Race,
http://www.care2.com/causes/un-humans-are-rapidly-destroying-the-biodiversityne.html#ixzz2ZXlGvUz0)
UN officials gathered at the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in

Japan have issued a global warning that the rapid loss of animal and plant
species that has characterized the past century must end if humans are to
survive. Delegates in Nagoya plan to set a new target for 2020 for curbing species loss, and will discuss
boosting medium-term financial help for poor countries to help them protect their wildlife and habitats (Yahoo
Green). Business as usual is no more an option for mankind, CBD executive secretary Ahmed
23

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
Djoghlaf said in his opening statements. We need a new approach, we need to reconnect with nature
and live in harmony with nature into the future. The CBD is an international legally-binding treaty with
three main goals: conservation of biodiversity; sustainable use of biodiversity; fair and equitable sharing of the
benefits arising from the use of genetic resources. Its overall objective is to encourage actions which will lead to a
sustainable future. As Djoghlaf acknowledged in his opening statements, facing the fact that many countries have
ignored their obligation to these goals is imperative if progress is to be made in the future. Let us have the
courage to look in the eyes of our children and admit that we have failed, individually and collectively, to fulfill the
Johannesburg promise made to them by the 110 Heads of State and Government to substantially reduce the loss of
biodiversity by 2010, Djoghlaf stated. Let us look in the eyes of our children and admit that we continue to lose
Earlier this year, the

U.N. warned several eco-systems including the Amazon rainforest ,
freshwater lakes and rivers and coral reefs are approaching a tipping
point which, if reached, may see them never recover. According to a study
by UC Berkeley and Penn State University researchers, between 15 and 42 percent
of the mammals in North America disappeared after humans arrived. Compared to
extinction rates demonstrated in other periods of Earths history, this means that
North American species are already half way to a sixth mass extinction, similar to
the one that eliminated the dinosaurs. The same is true in many other parts of the world. The third
edition of the Global Biodiversity Outlook demonstrates that, today, the rate of loss of
biodiversity is up to one thousand times higher than the background and
historical rate of extinction. The Earths 6.8 billion humans are effectively
living 50 percent beyond the planets bio capacity in 2007; according to a
new assessment by the World Wildlife Fund that said by 2030 humans will
effectively need the capacity of two Earths in order to survive .
biodiversity at an unprecedented rate, thus mortgaging their future.
24

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
AT Plastics Dont Kill

Plastics alone kill hundreds of thousands of animals in the
earths oceans.
Common items like fishing line, strapping bands and six-pack rings can hamper the
mobility of marine animals and cause injury. Once entangled, animals have trouble
eating, breathing or swimming, all of which can have fatal results. Plastics do not
biodegrade and may continue to trap and kill animals year after year. Marine debris
entanglements have been documented for 135 species of animals. An estimated
300,000 cetaceans die each year from entanglement in fishing gear. (Read
summaries of some recent whale entanglements in the Monterey Bay National
Marine Sanctuary.)
Ingestion
Birds, fish and mammals can mistake plastic for food. Debris may cause choking
and injuries, and with plastic filling their stomachs, animals may have a false feeling
of being full and may die of starvation. Sea turtles mistake plastic bags for jellyfish,
one of their favorite foods. Even gray whales have been found dead with plastic
bags and sheeting in their stomachs. A recent study of harbor seals in the
Netherlands found that more than 12% had plastic in their digestive system. 95% of
Northern Fulmars studied in the North Sea between 2007 and 2011 were found to
contain plastic, on an average 0.38 grams. This could equal as much as 8.4% of the
bird's body weight.
25

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
Plastics kill millions of animals each year and could destroy

entire species.
Slat et al, founder and lead designer The Ocean Cleanup Project,
2014
(Boyan, A Feasibility Study, http://www.theoceancleanup.com/fileadmin/mediaarchive/theoceancleanup/press/downloads/TOC_Feasibility_study_lowres.pdf)
Every year we produce about 300 million tons of plastic, a portion of which enters
and accumulates in the oceans. Due to large offshore currents, plastic concentrates
in vast areas called gyres, of which the Great Pacific Garbage Patch between Hawaii
and California is the best known example.
The damage to sea life is staggering: at least one million seabirds, and hundreds of
thousands of marine mammals die each year due to the pollution. Even worse, the
survival of many species, like the Hawaiian Monk Seal and Loggerhead Turtle, is
directly jeopardized by plastic debris.
Marine species often become entangled in larger debris, leading to injury, illness,
suffocation, starvation, and even death (NOAA, 2014). Smaller fragments can be
mistaken for food and eaten, causing malnutrition, intestinal blockage and death.
When marine animals eat plastic, harmful chemicals move up the food chain.
Ingestion of and entanglement in marine debris by marine animals has increased by
40 percent in the last decade. Furthermore, plastics can transport invasive species
and toxic substances over great distances.
26

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
Floating plastic islands can introduce invasive species that

wreck the local ecosystem and destroy biodiversity.
Floating marine debris can provide a new and increased method of transport for
species across vast ocean distances, which may cause trouble for biodiversity if the
introduced species prove to be invasive. A 2002 study of 30 remote islands
throughout the world showed that marine debris more than doubled the "rafting"
opportunities for species. In 2005 and 2006, surveys of marine debris in the
Seychelles Islands showed that on some beaches more than 60% of debris items
carried non-native species.
27

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
AT Food Chain not Protected by Clean Up

Our technology would remove microplastics. Passive collection
booms will extend 3 meters down to catch most particles and
microplastics make up a very small amount of the pollution.
Slat, founder and lead designer The Ocean Cleanup Project,
2014
(Boyan, Responding to Critics, The Ocean Cleanup,
http://www.theoceancleanup.com/blog/show/item/responding-to-critics.html)
Perhaps one of the worst assumptions evident in this design is that the plastic will
be on the sea surface. Researchers have shown that plastic suspends in the water
column at 100-150 meters due to wave action and sea state.
Boyan: This is misleading. It is true that the mixed layer can stretch to these depths
during winter months, and its true that very small amounts of plastic can be found
throughout the water column, but as our past 3 expeditions to the gyres have
shown, the vast majority of plastics can be found in the top 1-3 m (depending on
wind and sea state). This explains why researchers (as well as 5Gyres themselves)
sample the surface layer of the oceans to measure plastic pollution. When we
conservatively look at the data taken in winter months only, the surface layer
contained 10x more microplastics than the layer at 4.5 m of depth. Hence our
barriers stretch down to 3 meters, to capture the most of plastic. And in fact, here I
am only addressing the small particles. The large plastics (that make up over 80%
of the plastic in the gyres) are all at the sea surface. (feasibility study, chapter 2.2,
2.3)
28

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
Harmful chemicals enter the food chain and can disrupt the
endocrine systems of humans.
Matthews, consultant, eco-entrepreneur, green investor, 2014
(Richard, Plastic Waste in Our Oceans: Problems and Solutions, April 10,
http://globalwarmingisreal.com/2014/04/10/ocean-garbage-problems-solutions/)
According to UNEP, at least 267 species worldwide are impacted by plastic debris in
the oceans. As the plastic disintegrates, it ultimately becomes small enough to be
ingested by a wide range of life forms. Plastics are deadly to a number of species
including marine birds and sea turtles. Various investigations including research by
Charles Moore found that in some places the overall concentration of plastics was
seven times greater than the concentration of zooplankton. Plastics enter the food
chain when ingested by aquatic organisms and the impacts go all the way up the
chain to humans.
Researchers have discovered that floating debris can also absorb organic pollutants
from seawater, including PCBs, DDT, and PAHs. When consumed, plastic has both
toxic effects and disruptive impacts on the endocrine system.
29

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
AT Clean Up Kills Plankton

Downward current of skirt system will minimize bycatch of
plankton.
Project, 2014
(Boyan, A Feasibility Study, http://www.theoceancleanup.com/fileadmin/mediaarchive/theoceancleanup/press/downloads/TOC_Feasibility_study_lowres.pdf, p.
316)
Because the boom skirts are designed to generate a downward current, most
phytoplankton is expected to escape capture by the booms. The fraction of
phytoplankton captured in front of the booms might also be consumed by
zooplankton, leading to a (partial) recycling of nutrients within the ecosystem.
However, the phytoplankton that is drawn directly into the platform by the slurry
pump is assumed to be removed from the ecosystem entirely.
30

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
Plankton wont get caught in the system.

2014
The definition of plankton is an organism that cant swim against a current;

plankton have no control where they go and the assumption that theyll somehow
avoid the current that is taking the plastic into the processing thinga-ma-jiggy is a
bad one.
Boyan: Plankton indeed comes from the Greek word Planktos, meaning wanderer
or drifter. This is exactly why they wont get caught. The ocean current passes
underneath the floating barriers, taking all neutrally buoyant sea life (including both
phytoplankton and zooplankton) with it, while positively buoyant plastics remain in
front of it. Down to a certain particle size of course, where the force downward (the
current) equals out the force upwards (the buoyancy force of the plastic). In
collaboration with the Freiburg Institute of Advanced Studies, we simulated this
hypothesis using Computational Fluid Dynamics simulations (CFD software and code
used were LEMMA ANANAS, Comsol Multiphysics, and ANSYS CFX, if youre
interested), which confirmed our expectations; plastic gets caught, neutrally
buoyant organisms do not. (feasibility study, chapters 3.3 and 3.4). So there is no
centrifuging needed; plankton does not accumulate, while plastic does. But in the
hypothetical case that all plankton that passes underneath these barriers would be
damaged, the time it would take to restore that biomass is less than 7 seconds in a
year. And thats the worst-case scenario. (feasibility study, chapter 6)
31

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
AT Clean Up Kills Sea Life

Bycatch will be minimal. Plankton can float under our system
and larger animals will be deterred by sound systems.
Project, 2014
Because they are effectively neutrally buoyant, both phytoplankton and

zooplankton are likely to pass underneath the barriers along with the current. But
even assuming the worst - The Ocean Cleanup Array would harvest all the plankton
it encounters - this would constitute a maximum loss of 10 million kg of planktonic
biomass annually. Given the immense primary production of the world oceans, it
would take less than 7 seconds to reproduce this amount of biomass.
With regard to vertebrates, harm caused by the barriers seems unlikely because
non-permeable barriers are used, although some bycatch may occur in the near
vicinity of the platforms extraction equipment. To prevent the possible impact on
vertebrates, active deterrent techniques could be implemented near the extraction
equipment.
32

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
The Ocean Cleanup Array floats and does not use nets so sea
life can swim around it while plastics and debris stay in it.
Ian Somerhalder Foundation, 2012
(The Ocean Cleanup Array: An Amazing Environmental Invention,
http://www.isfoundation.com/news/ocean-cleanup-array-amazing-environmentalinvention)
The Ocean Cleanup Array would be located at the sites of the five largest trash
islandsalso known as gyreswhich include the Indian Ocean, the North and South
Atlantic, and the North and South Pacific. Slat believes that the ocean current is the
biggest advantage to help solving the garbage problem. As such, "an anchored
network of floating booms and processing platforms will span the radius" of each
gyre with the "booms acting as giant funnels" to push the debris in the processing
platforms. When the plastic and other debris enters the processing platform, it
would then be filtered from the water and stored in containers until it is picked up to
be recycled on land.
Another very positive aspect of the Ocean Cleanup Array is that absolutely no nets
will be used, so there is no chance of marine life getting harmed. In addition, the
booms will only move along with the ocean current and not any faster, so marine
life can also escape the plastic being pushed towards the processing platforms. To
substantiate these claims, Slat is currently testing his methods as part of the
projects feasibility studies.
33

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
Plastics Stay for 100s of Years

Plastics floating in the oceans provide a unique problem since
they break down into tiny pieces but take hundreds of years to
disappear.
Cho, staff blogger for the Earth Institute, 2011
(Renee, Our Oceans: A Plastic Soup, Earth Institute, 1-26,
http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2011/01/26/our-oceans-a-plastic-soup/)
The lightness and durability that make plastic such a useful and versatile material
for manufacturers also make it a long-term problem for the environment. Trash
Travels estimates that plastic bags can take 20 years to decompose, plastic bottles
up to 450 years, and fishing line, 600 years; but in fact, no one really knows how
long plastics will remain in the ocean. With exposure to UV rays and the ocean
environment, plastic breaks down into smaller and smaller fragments. The majority
of the plastic found in the ocean are tiny pieces less than 1 cm. in size, with the
mass of 1/10 of a paper clip.
34

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
AT Ecosystems Resilient
Their adaptation evidence is flawed views ecosystem
disruption one event at a time rather than as a collective
disturbance
Hughes et al 05 (Terrence P. Hughes and David R. Bellwood Centre for Coral
Reef Biodiversity, School of Marine Biology & Aquaculture, James Cook University,
Australia AND Carl Folke Department of Systems Ecology, Stockholm University, and
Beijer International Institute of Ecological Economics, Royal Swedish Academy of
Sciences, Stockholm, Sweden AND Robert S. Steneck School of Marine Sciences,
University of Maine, Darling Marine Center, AND James Wilson School of Marine
Sciences, University of Maine, New paradigms for supporting the resilience of
marine ecosystems TRENDS in Ecology and Evolution Vol.20 No.7 July 2005
http://eaton.math.rpi.edu/csums/papers/Ecostability/hughesparadigms.pdf)
Developing marine policy and managing natural resources
requires multi-scale ecological and social information . Traditionally, most ecological studies are
The importance of scale
brief and localized. However, the need for advice on how to cope with the impacts of environmental degradation,
climate change and widespread overfishing is a major driver of an accelerating trend for the scaling-up of marine
the history of ecosystems (i.e. how they got to be in their current

condition) is an important aspect of temporal scale that has far-reaching consequences for
research and resource management [1,8,4649] . If we ignore history and are unaware
of trajectories of change, then a system is more likely to be falsely perceived as being
stable and pristine [40] . In recent years, ecologists have focused increasingly on the cumulative and
ecological studies. For example,
interactive effects of sequences of events, rather than concentrating solely on the most recent insult that leads to
most researchers still view resilience in terms of

recovery from the most recent single disturbances, such as a storm or hurricane, to a single
equilibrium. By contrast, social ecological resilience focuses on absorbing
recurrent perturbations, and on coping with uncertainty and risk, recognizing
that disturbance and change are an integral component of complex SESs [21,22,50] .
Consequently, the timeframe for understanding and managing SES resilience is often much longer
than the conventional one three years of most ecological studies. For example, it is
sobering to consider that, in the timeframe required for comprehensive regeneration of fish
stocks in coral reef NTAs ( O 20 years), the human population size of developing countries
is likely to double [51] .
ecosystem collapse [1,15,16,20] . Nonetheless,
35

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
Replacements are worse

Trick 12 (Charlie Trick. Charles Trick is a the Beryl Ivey Chair for Ecosystem
Health in the Faculty of Science. Future of oceans. November 16, 2012.
http://communications.uwo.ca/western_news/stories/2012/November/future_of_oce
ans.html)
we can take from the ocean at a
pace far faster than the ocean can replace . And the ecological hole will be filled with an
unpredictable ecology. The ocean is not resilient; it tends not to recover, but heads in a new
direction a new trajectory. The replacements are not always desirable and, usually, of lower
The revenging of the ocean resources over the centuries has shown
quality. Now, that was the running start. Heres the leap to hope. Oceans will always remain aloof from the hearts of
Humanity will be concerned about the margin waters where we normal people
swim and boat. And we will assume beyond the margin nothing damaging will be going
on. Its too big to damage. Its too large to care about. Its not resilient. It will not recover; it
will transform and dwindle. And it is alone. It needs a global vision of protection. It needs the care of
most people.
a global community. It is my hope the world will stand up and say its time to care for our wastes and adjust our
demands. We cannot ask our fragile neighbour to do what we have the ability to do ourselves.
36

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
Reefs Advantage
37

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
AT No Impact to Acidification / Doesnt Hurt Reefs

Ocean acidification is human-induced, occurring now, and
represents an existential threat.
Bienkowski 2013
[Brian. Writer at the Daily Climate. US Effort on Ocean Acidification needs Focus on Human Impacts
The Scientific American, 1/11/13 http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/us-effort-on-oceanacidification-needs-focus-on-human-impacts]
A federal plan to tackle ocean acidification must focus more on how the changes will affect
people and the economy, according to a review of the effort by a panel of the National
Research Council. "Social issues clearly can't drive everything but when it's possible they
should," said George Somero, chair of the committee that wrote the report and associate
director at Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station. "If you're setting up a monitoring
station, it should be where there's a shellfish industry, for example." Acidification is one of
the larger problems associated with greenhouse gas emissions, as oceans serve as a giant
sponge for carbon dioxide. When carbon dioxide is dissolved in seawater, water chemistry
changes and acidity increases. More acidic seawater can hurt ocean creatures, especially
corals and shellfish, because it prevents them from properly developing their skeletons and
shells. Shrinking coral reefs could dent eco-tourism revenue in some coastal areas. It also
could trigger a decline in fish populations dependent on those reefs. Decreasing shellfish
populations would harm the entire ocean food chain, researchers say, particularly affecting
people who get their protein or paycheck from the sea. Globally, fish represent about 6
percent of the protein people eat. The acidification blueprint was drafted by nine federal
agencies in March 2012. It establishes guidelines for federal research, monitoring and
mitigation of ocean acidification. In reviewing the plan, the research council, which advises
the government on science policy, recommended that federal research and action be
focused on issues with human and economic consequences. Pacific Northwest The panel
cited the Pacific Northwest as an economic example, where high acidity levels have
hampered oyster hatcheries, worth about $270 million and 3,200 jobs to coastal
communities there. It is unclear if ocean acidification is the culprit, but it could be a
harbinger of things to come, according to the report. In 2011, U.S. commercial fishers
caught 10 billion pounds of seafood valued at $5.3 billion, according to the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration. The panel also suggested the plan should have a clearer
mission, prioritized goals and ways to measure progress. "This plan would cost a lot of
money so there needs to be priorities and ways to prove impact," Somero said. "The federal
budget simply won't allow for everything that needs to be done." In 2009, Congress passed
the Federal Ocean Acidification Research and Monitoring Act, creating a federal program to
deal with ocean acidification. Somero said the agencies will take the recommendations and
"tune up" the plan. Ocean acidification is an "emerging global problem," according to
NOAA. Over the past 250 years, about one third of the carbon dioxide produced by the
burning of fossil fuels has ended up in oceans, according to a 2010 study. Over that time,
ocean acidity has increased about 30 percent, according to the National Research Council.
Ocean advocacy groups supported the panel's recommendations. "Ocean acidification is
one of the greatest threats to marine life and fisheries," said Matthew Huelsenbeck, a
marine scientist at Oceana. "We are encouraged that the Council has suggested
communicating this issue to policy makers and the public to increase awareness and
38

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
hopefully lead to solutions." Julia Roberson, a director at the Ocean Conservancy, said the
original plan was a good first step and she hopes government will use the council's
suggestions. Amid recommendations, the panel also offered praise for the federal effort,
saying the plan does "an excellent job of covering the breadth of current understanding of
ocean acidification and the range of research that will be required to advance a broadly
focused and effective National Ocean Acidification Program."
Ocean acidification weakens reefs lowers their survivability

Dien, contributor for Climate Interpreter, 13
(Kevin, 12/18/14, Climate Interpreter, The Effects of Ocean Acidification on Coral
Reefs, http://climateinterpreter.org/content/effects-ocean-acidification-coral-reefs,
6/29/14, JW)
Most people are familiar with the concept that compares coral reefs to underwater
rainforests. Coral reefs form the most biodiverse habitats in the ocean, and their
presence is essential to the survival of thousands of other marine species - many of
which we rely on for food. Hard corals are the reef-building corals, and their
stonelike structures are composed of calcium carbonate, the same substance found
in the shells of many marine organisms including oysters, clams and snails. Like
these mollusks, corals must have access to available calcium in the seawater in
order to build their hard skeleton. This is especially important in the early stages of
a coral polyps's life, when it settles onto a hard substance and starts "building" its
skeleton. Some studies have shown a 52-73% decline in larval settlement on reefs
that are experiencing lower pH levels. Scientists can also measure the calcification
rates of hard corals, and ocean acidification has had a negative impact on the rate
at which corals calcify. This means that coral colonies in the future may be more
brittle and less resilient to other factors influencing their survival. Ocean
acidification is just one more threat to the success of hard corals. Coral reefs are
already being affected by many other pressures, some human-related and some
natural. Warming ocean temperatures are contributing to coral bleaching and
making them more susceptible to diseases. Nutrient and chemical pollution coming
into the oceans from rivers is also making suitable coral habitat very scarce. Natural
threats impacting coral reefs include predation from urchins and a variety of fishes,
and also tropical storms. Coral reefs are naturally very resilient to many of these
threats, but now their ability to recolonize and grow sturdy structures is being
compromised by ocean acidification. Sometimes, coral habitat is gradually being
replaced by non-calcifying organisms, like seagrass, once the coral has been killed
off.
39

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
Ocean acidification affects coral reef growth

Mathews, freelance writer about scientific matters, 11
(James, 10/29/11, Earth Times, How Ocean Acidification is Affecting Coral Reef
Ecosystems, http://www.earthtimes.org/conservation/ocean-acidification-affectingcoral-reef-ecosystems/1661/, 6/29/14, JW)
Scientists are discovering the truth about the potential fate of coral reef ecosystems
in relation to how ocean acidification is affecting them. This has been revealed
through observations at Submarine Springs along the coast of Mexico's Yucatan
Peninsula. Scientists expect increasing amounts of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere to see a low pH in the water and these conditions already naturally
exist in the water around Submarine Springs, allowing for the perfect place for
research. The research at the springs showed small unevenly distributed colonies of
only a few species of coral. These also were not structurally complex as corals in
nearby reefs such as the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef. This seems to show that the
pH level is having a dramatic effect on coral health. The study has occurred over the
last three years. The team led by scientists at the University of California, Santa
Cruz, has published their findings in the journal Coral Reefs. "This study has some
good news and some bad news for corals" said Adina Paytan. Paytan is a research
professor in the Institute of Marine Sciences at UC Santa Cruz and continued, "The
good news is that some species of corals are able to calcify and grow at very low
pH. The bad news is that these are not the ones that build the framework of the
coral reefs. So if this is an indication of what will happen with future ocean
acidification, the reefs will not be as we know them today." The lower pH level of the
springs has naturally existed for thousands of years but lowering the pH affects the
chemical balance of seawater when it comes to calcium carbonate. This in turn
reduces the concentration of carbonate ions and therefore makes it much harder for
corals to build and maintain their structures. Paytan said, "We need to understand
the mechanisms that allow these corals to calcify at these low-pH conditions. We
should also make sure that the places where these species occur are protected".
The research was funded by the National Science Foundation in order to see how
acidification affected marine organisms. The conditions seen at the springs are the
same conditions that the scientists expect to see in oceans across the world by the
year 2100 due to increases in acidification. The findings have concerned the
scientists but have also simply confirmed what they had already expected. The
40

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere leads to higher acidification in seawater

which is now proven to affect the corals growth as well as other organisms.
41

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
Reefs Solve Acidification

Coral Reefs Offset Ocean Acidification Through Biogeochemical
Responses
Andersson, Assistant Professor- Geosciences Research, 14 (Andreas, 2014,
Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Partial offsets in ocean acidification from
changing coral reef biogeochemistry,
http://scrippsscholars.ucsd.edu/aandersson/content/partial-offsets-oceanacidification-changing-coral-reef-biogeochemistry-0, 6/29/14, AEG)
Concerns have been raised about how coral reefs will be affected by ocean
acidification(1,2), but projections of future seawater CO2 chemistry have focused
solely on changes in the pH and aragonite saturation state (Omega(a)) of openocean surface seawater conditions surrounding coral reefs(1-4) rather than the reef
systems themselves. The seawater CO2 chemistry within heterogeneous reef
systems can be significantly different from that of the open ocean depending on the
residence time, community composition and the main biogeochemical processes
occurring on the reef, that is, net ecosystem production (NEP = gross primary
production autotrophic and heterotrophic respiration) and net ecosystem
calcification (NEC = gross calcification gross CaCO3 dissolution), which combined
act to modify seawater chemistry(5-7). On the basis of observations from the
Bermuda coral reef, we show that a range of projected biogeochemical responses of
coral reef communities to ocean acidification by the end of this century could
partially offset changes in seawater pH and Omega(a) by an average of 12-24% and
15-31%, respectively.
42

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
AT SQuo Solves and No Impact

Oceans at highest acidity now, and acidification threatens
extinction
Harvey, Environment Correspondent for the Guardian, 13
(Fiona, 10/2/13, The Guardian, Rate of ocean acidification due to carbon emissions
is at highest for 300m years,
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/oct/03/ocean-acidification-carbondioxide-emissions-levels, 6/27/14, SM)
The oceans are becoming more acidic at the fastest rate in 300m years, due to
carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels, and a mass extinction of key
species may already be almost inevitable as a result , leading marine scientists warned on
Thursday. An international audit of the health of the oceans has found that overfishing and pollution are also
contributing to the crisis, in a deadly combination of destructive forces that are imperilling marine life, on which
billions of people depend for their nutrition and livelihood. In the starkest warning yet of the threat to ocean health,
the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) said: "This
[acidification] is
unprecedented in the Earth's known history. We are entering an unknown territory
of marine ecosystem change, and exposing organisms to intolerable evolutionary
pressure. The next mass extinction may have already begun ." It published its findings in the
State of the Oceans report, collated every two years from global monitoring and other research studies. Alex
Rogers, professor of biology at Oxford University, said: "The health of the ocean is spiralling downwards far more
rapidly than we had thought. We are seeing greater change, happening faster, and the effects are more imminent
The situation should be of the gravest concern to everyone

since everyone will be affected by changes in the ability of the ocean to support life
on Earth." Coral is particularly at risk. Increased acidity dissolves the calcium carbonate skeletons that form the
than previously anticipated.
structure of reefs, and increasing temperatures lead to bleaching where the corals lose symbiotic algae they rely
on. The report says that world governments' current pledges to curb carbon emissions would not go far enough or
fast enough to save many of the world's reefs. There is a time lag of several decades between the carbon being
emitted and the effects on seas, meaning that further acidification and further warming of the oceans are
inevitable, even if we drastically reduce emissions very quickly. There is as yet little sign of that, with global
greenhouse gas output still rising. Corals are vital to the health of fisheries, because they act as nurseries to young
fish and smaller species that provide food for bigger ones. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is absorbed by the
seas at least a third of the carbon that humans have released has been dissolved in this way, according to the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and makes them more acidic. But IPSO found the situation was even
more dire than that laid out by the world's top climate scientists in their landmark report last week. In absorbing
carbon and heat from the atmosphere, the world's oceans have shielded humans from the worst effects of global
warming, the marine scientists said. This has slowed the rate of climate change on land, but its profound effects on
marine life are only now being understood. Acidification harms marine creatures that rely on calcium carbonate to
build coral reefs and shells, as well as plankton, and the fish that rely on them. Jane Lubchenco, former director of
the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and a marine biologist, said the effects were already being
felt in some oyster fisheries, where young larvae were failing to develop properly in areas where the acid rates are
higher, such as on the west coast of the US. "You can actually see this happening," she said. "It's not something a
long way into the future. It is a very big problem." But the chemical changes in the ocean go further, said Rogers.
Marine animals use chemical signals to perceive their environment and locate prey and predators, and there is
evidence that their ability to do so is being impaired in some species. Trevor Manuel, a South African government
minister and co-chair of the Global Ocean Commission, called the report "a deafening alarm bell on humanity's
wider impacts on the global oceans". "Unless we restore the ocean's health, we will experience the consequences
on prosperity, wellbeing and development. Governments must respond as urgently as they do to national security
Current rates of carbon release

into the oceans are 10 times faster than those before the last major species
extinction, which was the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum extinction, about
55m years ago. The IPSO scientists can tell that the current ocean acidification is
the highest for 300m years from geological records .
threats in the long run, the impacts are just as important," he said.
43

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
Coral reef extinction is likely in the status quo and will occur in
the next few decades.
Plumer 7-7
[Bradley. Caribbean coral reefs could disappear "within a few decades 7/7/14
http://www.vox.com/2014/7/7/5876909/caribbean-coral-reefs-could-disappear-within-a-few-decades]
Coral reefs in the Caribbean are on track to "virtually disappear within a few decades," a
major new report warns. But there's also a way to slow decline. Protecting just a single fish
the brightly colored parrotfish could help save the reefs from doom. There's little
doubt that the Caribbean's coral reefs have declined sharply since the 1970s, under heavy
stress from invasive pathogens, overfishing, coastal pollution, tourism, and now global
warming that's heating up the oceans. It's reached the point that many conservation
groups have given up hope for the Caribbean and are shifting their attention to protecting
coral reefs elsewhere. But it may be too early to give up altogether. The new report, from
the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network, takes an in-depth look at the decline of the
Caribbean coral reefs between 1975 and 2012. While the authors find that the situation is
indeed bleak, they also outlines a series of steps that could halt the destruction. Crucially,
the report recommends new protections for the region's parrotfish, which has long played a
vital role in eating up algae that threatens to overrun the reefs (the parrotfish's feeding
habits also help replenish coral sand). In recent decades, the parrotfish has been a victim of
overfishing and coral reefs have suffered as a result. Reversing that trend, the report
notes, would be a crucial step, not least given the central role that reefs play in the region
from supporting tourism to nurturing fisheries to protecting against hurricanes and other
storms.
44

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
Solvency
45

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
AT Fails Ocean Conditions

Design elements have been tested and will survive in ocean
conditions.
2014
The problem is that the barriers to gyre cleanup are so massive that the vast
majority of the scientific and advocacy community believe its a fools errand
Boyan: We have now engineered a new floating barrier, that can span the 100 km
that is needed to collect almost half the plastic within 10 years. To be sure it stays in
one piece, we used a safety factor of 2.5x to 3x, which is much higher than the
offshore standard of 1.82x, to be able to accommodate the weakening of the
materials due to fatigue. (feasibility study, chapter 3.6). The new design
furthermore enables the buoyancy element to move with the waves, which prevents
plastic from splashing over or underneath the boom. This has been confirmed with
scale model tests. These scale models also showed that this new design can
potentially reduce the loads on the tension-carrying element of the barrier by 60%,
making our dimensioning even more conservative.
46

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
The collection platform is based off of technology that is

already employed worldwide to withstand ocean conditions.
2014
My home state of Oregon has been trying to create North Americas first offshore
wave energy farm. The first test buoy that was launched, just about 2.5 miles
offshore, sank after just a few months. That buoy had a 100 year survivability
rating, and wasnt just an idea on an Ipad.
Boyan: According to the spokesperson of the wave energy test, the object in
question was actually designed to survive only a couple of months. He mentions to
Renewable Energy World: So when people say - Oh there's this device and it sank.
How do you expect it to last 20 years or even five years in a real commercial
development? It wasn't designed for that,". In The Ocean Cleanup concept, there is
also a need for a platform. As some may have noticed, the design of this processing
platform has changed from the concept design. We chose for a spar design, which is
proven technology, having been used through decades of ocean engineering. Its
specific design has been made in collaboration with a Belgian engineering company.
(feasibility study, chapter 4.3) The working principles of the system did not change
since I presented the concept 1.5 years ago, must be noted.
47

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
AT Fails Sea Life

Bycatch will be minimal. Plankton can float under our system
and larger animals will be deterred by sound systems.
Project, 2014
Because they are effectively neutrally buoyant, both phytoplankton and

zooplankton are likely to pass underneath the barriers along with the current. But
even assuming the worst - The Ocean Cleanup Array would harvest all the plankton
it encounters - this would constitute a maximum loss of 10 million kg of planktonic
biomass annually. Given the immense primary production of the world oceans, it
would take less than 7 seconds to reproduce this amount of biomass.
With regard to vertebrates, harm caused by the barriers seems unlikely because
non-permeable barriers are used, although some bycatch may occur in the near
vicinity of the platforms extraction equipment. To prevent the possible impact on
vertebrates, active deterrent techniques could be implemented near the extraction
equipment.
48

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
AT Economic Viability
Multiple options for recycling ocean plastic that do not require
sorting by plastic type. Means ocean clean up can still cover its
own costs.
2014
Plastic can only be recycled if its clean ocean () plastics are about the worst
possible feedstock for recycling imaginable
Boyan: Partly true. Of course plastics degrade (oxidise) when exposed to the marine
environment for years to decades. But when we (in collaboration with Universidade
de Caxias do Sul) quantified the oxidation rate of ocean plastic using infrared (FTIR)
spectroscopy, the quality turned out to be much higher than expected (feasibility
study, chapter 9.1). Because many people wonder what to do with the plastic once
extracted, we included the post-processing into the scope of the report. First we
proved ocean plastic can be turned into oil, and is just as suitable as normal waste
plastic. There is a large market for oil, but the net value is modest. Hence we then
also tried mechanical recycling (both heat pressing and injection moulding), which
showed the plastic can actually be turned into new materials. The only preprocessing was washing; the plastic didnt even have to be sorted into different
polymer types. (feasibility study, chapter 9.2) And even if most damage occurs near
the coasts, with an estimated 1.27 B USD of annual damages in the APEC region,
removing almost half the plastic within the North Pacific Gyre for just 31.7 M euro
per year seems like a pretty good deal, even leaving the value of the plastics aside.
49

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
Passive collections is the only cost effective option and annual

operating costs can be covered by selling plastic recycled from
the project.
Project, 2014
The Ocean Cleanup Array is estimated to be 33 times cheaper than conventional

cleanup proposals per extracted mass of plastics. In order to extract 70 million kg
(or 42 percent) of garbage from the North Pacific Gyre over 10 years, we calculated
a total cost of 317 million euro.
In the calculations, a limited lifetime of 10 years is applied instead of a general

economic lifetime (for most equipment 20 years). This is because projections
indicate the mean amount of plastic mass will decrease with time. Thus, the
average mass of plastic that will be collected per year will likely be lower than what
has been calculated using the 10-year deployment time. As expected with the
passive cleanup concept, capital expenditures outweigh the operating expenditures.
The total annual estimated operating expenditures is estimated at five million euro.
A break-even cost of 4.53 per kg of plastic collected must be realized in order for
The Ocean Cleanup Array to be profitable. This amount falls in the range of beach
cleanup costs, estimated to be 0.07 18.0 per kg. This is also less expensive than
the plastic-caused damage to the maritime industry in the APEC region.
****Cost estimates in the piece of evidence are stated in Euros

() the type of money used in most of Europe. While the value
of currencies fluctuate as a general rule 1 Euro is equal to
about $1.33. So operating costs of 5 million a year would be
about 6.65 million $ per year.
50

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
AT Experts Agree
Passive collection method has been tested and supported by
experts.
2014
Its a great story, but its just a story. () Gyre cleanup is a false prophet hailing
from La-La land that wont work () Slats project as it stands is in the fairy tale
phase
Boyan: We have just published a 530-page report, concluding that The Ocean
Cleanup Array is a feasible and viable method for large-scale gyre cleanup, marking
the successful end of the preliminary engineering phase. Because of its length and
diverse nature, a journal wont publish it. Hence we have asked external experts to
do an informal peer review, which the report passed. Furthermore, part of the report
(the plastic processing, the vertical distribution and computational fluid dynamics)
will be separately published in a journal. We are currently increasing the size of the
vertical distribution dataset through new expeditions, in collaboration with the Royal
Netherlands Institute for Sea Research.
51

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
AT Size / Depth of the Ocean

Passive technology is scalable. Allows for ocean clean up in all
5 oceans for a limited cost.
Project, 2014
The main advantage of passive cleanup is that it is scalable. Using conventional

ship-and-net methods, it has been estimated that it would take about 79,000 years
to remediate the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (Moore and Philips 2011). And that
estimate assumes that vessels cover the entire oceanic area, and that the plastic
pollution is spatially static. While the former assumption is
perhaps naive or unrealistic, the latter is false. Ship-and net methods are less
efficient as the high variability in current directions caused by eddies makes them
either repeat their run on the same patch of the sea or to miss some of the plastics.
In contrast, our concept uses the natural movement of the water to its advantage.
In combination with the circulation period of the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, the
cleanup duration could be drastically reduced (a minimum of 5 years).
Due to the passive collection approach, operational expenses can potentially be

very low, making the cleanup more cost-effective. Furthermore, converting the
extracted plastic into energy, oil or new materials could cover (a large part of) the
costs of the execution.
52

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
Technology exists to moor the ocean clean up system in 4,000

meters of water.
2014
Boyan: In fact, many small moorings have been placed in over 5000 m of depth by
oceanographic institutions like NIOZ and NOAA. The deepest moored oil rig is the
Shell Perdido Spar at 2500 m of depth. The Ocean Cleanup will be placed at 3900 m.
So we collaborated with the market leader in offshore anchoring systems, who came
to the conclusion that The tools and methods that are available to offshore
engineering world can readily be applied for the realization of this project. It is
Vryhof Anchors professional opinion that with the current knowledge and
technology, the mooring of the objects at the given water depths is feasible. The
mooring configuration and deployment procedures are similar to proven solutions at
2500 m water depth. (Senol Ozmutlu, PhD). (feasibility study, chapter 3.7)
53

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
Outside experts agree the mooring system for the platform

would be less complex than many oil and gas drilling
operations.
Project, 2014
Keeping the array in position at all times will place substantial demands on a
passive mooring system. At the given water depths, a fiber rope mooring system is
the only option to use. To ensure integrity of the system, chain and wire rope is used
at the bottom and top ends.
A Stevmanta Vertical Load Anchor (surface area 14 m) is sufficient to withstand the
design loads including the safety factor.
Although it is a new type of floating concept, the size and weight of the object as
well as the potential risks (environmental as well as commercial) are less severe
than the majority of offshore structures in oil and gas. The tools and methods that
are available to offshore engineering world can readily be applied for the realization
of this project. It is Vryhofs professional opinion that with the current knowledge
and technology, the mooring of the objects at the given water depths is feasible.
The mooring configuration and deployment procedures are similar to proven
solutions at 2500 m water depth. The concept is executable regarding anchor and
mooring line installation and load transfer from the tension member to the
seafloor.
Senol Ozmutlu, PhD, Projects Director, Vryhof Anchors
54

WDCA 2014-15
Novice Packet
Most plastics are found near the surface especially the large
plastics which make up 80% of the trash in the gyres.
2014
Perhaps one of the worst assumptions evident in this design is that the plastic will
be on the sea surface. Researchers have shown that plastic suspends in the water
column at 100-150 meters due to wave action and sea state.
Boyan: This is misleading. It is true that the mixed layer can stretch to these depths
during winter months, and its true that very small amounts of plastic can be found
throughout the water column, but as our past 3 expeditions to the gyres have
shown, the vast majority of plastics can be found in the top 1-3 m (depending on
wind and sea state). This explains why researchers (as well as 5Gyres themselves)
sample the surface layer of the oceans to measure plastic pollution. When we
conservatively look at the data taken in winter months only, the surface layer
contained 10x more microplastics than the layer at 4.5 m of depth. Hence our
barriers stretch down to 3 meters, to capture the most of plastic. And in fact, here I
am only addressing the small particles. The large plastics (that make up over 80%
of the plastic in the gyres) are all at the sea surface. (feasibility study, chapter 2.2,
2.3)
55

Ocean Clean Up Aff

Diunggah oleh

Informasi Dokumen

Hak Cipta

Format Tersedia

Bagikan dokumen Ini

Bagikan atau Tanam Dokumen

Opsi Berbagi

Apakah menurut Anda dokumen ini bermanfaat?

Apakah konten ini tidak pantas?

Hak Cipta:

Format Tersedia

Ocean Clean Up Aff

Diunggah oleh

Hak Cipta:

Format Tersedia

Ocean Clean Up Affirmative