A Climate-Conscious Lent: Oceans choking on plastic

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Studies project that by 2050, there could be more plastic in our oceans than fish. Researchers estimate that on average, 8 million metric tons of plastic trash enter the ocean every year, an amount that keeps increasing. This pollution is ravaging our marine ecosystems, entangling and choking wildlife, such as seabirds, dolphins, fish and turtles, and even displacing plankton at the base of the food chain.

Scientists warn that pollution harms not only marine life, but also human health, and that as climate change warms surface waters, health threats like algal blooms and outbreaks of water-borne diseases, such as cholera, are likely to become more frequent.

"Facing intensifying global efforts to curtail the use of oil and gas for transportation and energy — and at the same time seeking markets for the torrent of oil and gas from the U.S. fracking boom — the fossil fuel industry is looking to plastics as a lifeline," writes Antonia Juhasz in Sierra Magazine.

"Today, 14 percent of oil and 8 percent of gas is used for the manufacture of petrochemicals, the essential feedstock of plastic production. The International Energy Agency predicts that by 2050, 50 percent of the growth in oil demand will be related to petrochemicals, overtaking the oil-demand growth related to automobile transportation," she adds.