Here’s a frigging idea. Maybe it’s not the ice melting (which has recently been reported are re-freezing)? Follow along, please.

I recently read an online article from EcoWatch which popped up in my news feed. The article indicated “glaciers lose about 335 billion tons of ice a year, the equivalent of one millimeter per year of sea level rise.” Curious, I explored this statement a bit. According to some quick math, 1 ton of ice equals about 264.5 gallons of water (I know it’s not as simple as this, but this is the internet, so we’ll run with it).

So, 335 billion tons of melting ice would be something crazy like adding 88.6 Trillion gallons of water a year to the oceans just to push the level up 1 mm. However our planet also has other things which “displace” water, like boats. These things would also have the effect of adding volume to the oceans and would also contribute to “sea level rise.” According to the 2018 e-Handbook of statistics, globally, we have a growing fleet of commercial (those over 1000t capacity) vessels in the neighborhood of 1.9 Billion tons, this would be the equivalent of an additional 502.6 Billion gallons of water added to the oceans. And trash also displaces water. According to the earth day folks, we add an estimated 8 Billion tons of plastic alone to the oceans, each year. This would be like pouring in an additional 2.1 Trillion gallons of water every year. if we’ve dumped at the same rate for the last 10 years, we’re at an additional 21.2 Trillion gallons and rising. And of course, our rate of “contribution” for plastics in the ocean is set to increase tenfold by 2020. And this doesn’t include all the other garbage we generously include, like
cruise ships pumping a billion gallons of sewage (that’s poop, feces, or sh*t for the layman) in to the ocean a year. We dump or pump untold quantities of junk into our oceans. Sadly.

I don’t dispute our climate can and does change. I don’t dispute we, as people, can have some level of influence on any possible change. I ‘m just not convinced melting ice is our problem. I do think our “problem” comes from an ironically deeper, darker place. A place where we keep disregarding the natural world around us. We keep reaching for those shinny brass rings on the bright loud carousel ride of life and not looking around. we’re distracted by the loud music and bright lights. I think we need to get the hell off the ride and leave the noise of the amusement park sometime. We need to walk in grass with bare feet. Look at the stars at night. Hike up a mountain sometime. Sit with the warmth of the sun on your body and smell clean air. Maybe then we’ll appreciate more, and take better care of, what our mother nature has given us.

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