BENEATH the BLUE

karen.ristuben@gmail.com

karen.ristuben@gmail.com

karen.ristuben@gmail.com

Hello all:

I will be presenting the performance/lecture, “Just, one word…” in
several locations in the coming weeks. Hope to see you at one of
them!!

Friday April 13, 1:30 pm:

karen.ristuben@gmail.com

I will be performing “Just, one word…” and speaking at some great
locations in the next few months!

February 15, 7 pm, at Ipswich Performing Arts Center, Ipswich, Mass.,
sponsored by The Town of Ipswich Recycling Committee (RAC), in
conjunction with the Ipswich River Watershed Association (IRWA) and
iCARE.

March 5, 7:30 pm at the Rose Performance Hall at Endicott College
Center for the Arts, Beverly, Mass., co-sponsored by Salem Sound
Coastwatch and the Endicott College Environmental Society.

April, 2012, date tbd, sponsored by the Blue Ocean Society, Portsmouth, NH.

I’ll be speaking at the Ocean Sciences Meeting in Salt Lake City on
February 21 on: MARINE EDUCATION THROUGH THE EYES OF AN ARTIST;
TRANSLATING SCIENTIFIC DATA THROUGH NEW MEDIA

Stay tuned…!

–

karen.ristuben@gmail.com

karen.ristuben@gmail.com

*Hello friends,

I will be presenting my performance/lecture, “Just, one word…” at NOAA’s
Gloucester headquarters, 55 Great Republic Way (Blackburn Industrial Park)
on Tuesday, November 15 (America Recycles Day), at 7 pm.

In this 45-minute multi-media presentation, I present the important
environmental issue of marine plastic pollution through photography, video,
sound, and archival images, addressing it through the various lenses of
marine science, economics, politics, and our consumer culture. Nina
Samoiloff, a Rockport artist, will have some of her marine-debris
constructed works on display in the lobby.

We hope to see you there!

Karen
*

After three weeks out of sight of land, we are finally approaching Vancouver. We’ll head into the Straits de Juan de Fuca, and sail up to Victoria BC, arriving late tonight. Then, a day in Victoria before we sail the 80 miles to Vancouver on Wednesday and home!

There is so much to report, so many details of this amazingly challenging and enriching voyage. Marcus Eriksen, our lead scientist, has written a comprehensive report of the voyage – what we gathered in the trawls, the organisms found on larger plastic trash pieces, what the seven scientists will be testing for once samples are sent off.

I’ve been busy editing my presentation with new photos and video clips, and much new information about the marine plastic issues that form the core of our crew’s research. I am so looking forward to sharing this experience with different groups of people, from the VT College of Fine Arts (Aug. 4), Cape Ann Museum (Sept. 3), NOAA’s Gloucester headquarters (Fall, tba), and various school and community groups. Seeing firsthand how microplastics pervade the ocean, how they are analyzed by leading environmental and marine scientists onboard, and discussing the many ramifications of their presence in all the oceans, has been an incredible journey. Over time, our small gestures as artists, advocates, activists, and educators will, hopefully, combine to change our addiction to plastics and the way we think about consumption and waste.

Ten things you can do:

1. Stay informed about our plastic world and environmental toxins.
2. Reduce your use of one-time, single use plastics.
3. Conduct your own personal trash audit.
4. Creatively reuse and repurpose your plastic products.
5. Refuse to use plastic shopping bags and don’t buy bottled water.
6. Support legislation that increases producer responsibility.
7. Support and try to improve local recycling efforts.
8. Pick a place and pick up the trash there every day.
9. Educate children about responsible use of plastic so they can teach their parents.
10. LIVE MORE SIMPLY.

See you soon,

Love, Karen

We’re heading north now, motor-sailing as we’re heading into a north wind until it shifts to NW in a day or so. We had our time change this morning. The 10-2 and 2-6 watches split the two-hour gain, so my team ended up losing 2 hours of sleep – ouch! Funny how time passes when it’s structured by our onboard duties. Sleeping happens when it need to, periods of work and socializing in between. The moon and stars and sun and wind are everything out here, much more central than the day of week or time of day.

We continue to deploy the high speed trawl and periodic manta trawl, and continue to pull in samples of microplastics in every one. We’ve been collecting a series of ten water samples from various locations which will be analyzed for the POPs (persistent organic pollutants) they contain. These are things like DDT, dioxin, flame retardants that end up in the ocean through industrial emissions and water pollution. They are known to cling to microplastics, and thereby make their way into the marine food chain. As it turns out, microplastics are not only ingested by creatures that hunt and eat food, like fish, but they’re also passively ingested by filter feeders like barnacles, mussels, and baleen whales.

Although we have collected microplastic bits in each of our trawls, we haven’t seen the large patches of macroplastic objects we had all expected. As our trip leaders say, the Garbage Patch is patchy, and we’ve had our share of rocky seas which make spotting debris a challenge. But the absence of one large area of visible plastic waste has changed my preconceptions about what the accumulation zone actually is. The issue is very real: there is evidence of our over-consumption of plastic throughout remote areas of this vast ocean, and it is in the marine food chain. But while the sensationalized image of a plastic island of sorts is not what we see, such an image might help for awareness and action. We’ve had interesting discussions about this: how to raise awareness, create a sense of outrage, and engender change while presenting the realities of the issue with scientific credibility. Sensationalization, after all, is anathema to science.

Meanwhile, we have occasional shark visitors, phosphorescence dancing in our night wakes, rich and companionable conversation, and lots of laughs.

Karen