What am I looking for again? Ah, yes.
Frenzy Mini.
You know, I don't actually recall the last time I updated this, but I'm gonna be about
as surprised as you. How are we feeling today? How am I feeling? That's an important question.
I feel like I will go by how I'm feeling today.
Nobody has asked how you're feeling in a while.
Is that a rhyme?
I don't know. I wasn't paying attention.
I feel like that was so Dr. Seuss of me. I'm feeling...
Oh, I learned something yesterday that I feel like I didn't know before, but it makes sense.
What was it?
We were watching how the Grinch stole Christmas, like the original cartoon version.
It's too early for that.
I thought so too, but I bought it last year instead of renting it because I wanted to
make sure...
I felt like we'd watch it more than once.
Okay, okay.
It was worth it. And I wanted to get my money out of it. So I actually watched the opening
credits. I did not know Dr. Seuss wrote the songs for that.
Or did he just...
No, he wrote it.
Okay.
And by Dr. Seuss, to me, it was like, wow, it makes sense. But I don't know. I always
picture him even older than the cartoons for some reason. And by cartoons, I mean that
one.
Like he died like thousands of years before the cartoons were ever around.
Well, because he wrote during World War II. Like he did comics for World War II against
fascism.
Really?
Yeah, that's a whole other thing. Anyhow, what's your friend Jiminy Chelsea?
Well, I got distracted by that. Well, now I'm feeling bad. So let's all feel bad together.
Well, we're already all feeling bad after that news. This is from Fizz.org. Hey, you've
used this one before.
Yeah, Fizz.org. It's a science paper. Fizz is in like PHYS, right? Not F-I-Z-Z. Okay.
And it's not iPhone something.ca. Oh, right here. I have it open. iPhone began to not
see. I have it open. It's on one of my open tabs. I can never have so many open tabs. Oh,
no, I lost my article. This is taking way too long. There's too many tabs. I found it
and there was not too many tabs. Scientists make disturbing in quotes find on remote island
plastic rocks by Joshua Huitberger, March 21st, 2023, Fizz.org. There are a few places
on earth so isolated as Trinidad Island. It's not Trinidad. I was just going to ask that
actually. Well done. How do you- Because Trinidad is not that far off the coast of South America.
Either somebody put an E on there by accident. Oh, no, I lost it again. Here it is. I'm going
to move it to the start. It's Trinidad. Volcanic outcrop, a three to four day boat trip off
the coast of Brazil. Geologist for- Who wrote this article? So geologist Fernanda Avalokir-Santos
was startled to find an unsettling sign of human impact on the otherwise untouched landscape.
Rocks formed from the glut of plastic pollution floating in the ocean. Santos first found
the plastic rocks in 2019 when she traveled to the island to research her doctoral thesis
on a completely different topic, landslides erosion and other geological risks. She was
working near a protected nature reserve known as Turtle Beach, the world's largest breeding
ground for the endangered green turtle when she came across a large outcrop of the peculiar
looking blue-green rocks. Intrigued, she took some back to her lab after her two month expedition.
Analyzing them, she and her team identified the specimens as the new kind of geological
formation, merging the materials and processes the earth has used to form rocks for billions
of years with a new ingredient, plastic trash. Quote, we concluded that human beings are
now acting as a geological agent, influencing processes that were previously completely
natural like rock formation. Quote, she told AFP. Quote again, it fits in with the idea
of the Anthropocene. Oh, that we're in the plastic age, yeah.
Oh, that's what that is? Yeah, because we went on from the Triassic
to the Anthropocene. That is disturbing. It's where plastic actually forms a layer.
You can see it, if you were to dig in 10,000 years you would see a layer and they call
it the Anthropocene. That's crazy. I didn't know that. That is so crazy.
What you just blew my mind. Which scientists are talking about a lot these days. A geological
era of human beings influencing the planet's natural processes. This type of rock like
plastic will be preserved in the geological record and mark the Anthropocene, which is
what Taylor just said, but way better. The finding left her disturbed and upset said
Santos, a professor at the Federal University of Carona in South Brazil. She describes Trinidad
as like paradise, a beautiful tropical island whose remoteness has made it a refuge for
all sorts of species. Sea birds, fish found only there, nearly extinct crabs, and the
green turtle. The only human. And Chelsea, just going to share my screen
so that you can see how remote this is. I want to. So I don't know why I'm on the
map. I'm looking at a map. Google Maps. Anyhow, it's really throwing me off how it has decided
to cut up Brazil like that on South America. I don't know what's going on there. Anyhow.
It looks like it's in all its provinces, maybe. This appears to be the island of Trinidad
right here. Okay. Yeah. Which is like. I like how Trinidad and Tobago. Yeah, that's where
it first sent me. I would say it's about a fifth of the way across from Brazil towards
Namibia. And it seems like it is literally like there's nothing there. And it is a territory
of Brazil. So I learned something today. It's fairly off the coast of Rio. We're all learning
new things right now during this mini. Hopefully you don't have a maximum things you're allowed
to learn for the week because you're just about at them. If not already at your quota.
The only human presence on the South Atlantic Island is a small Brazilian military base
and scientific research center. It's marvelous. She said in this link to you still you can
the military base military base. Okay, I'm going to send this to you in general just
so you can open the article and see these rocks and the landscape that we're looking
at. Oh, that is a rock. Yeah, you can open it and see more pictures that to perfectly
set the actual picture I was referring to quote. So it was all the more horrifying to
find something like this and on one of the most ecologically important beaches and that
being probably untouched by humans where the plastic is popping up. There's no humans
littering. She returned to the island late last year to collect more specimens and dig
deeper into the phenomenon. Continuing her research, she found similar rock like plastic
formations had previously been reported in places including Hawaii, Britain, Italy and
Japan since 2014. But that's notably where humans live. Yes. Yeah. I'm catching on here.
See that would make sense. But I think it's the remoteness that is shocking. Trinidad
Island is the remotest place on the planet. They have been able to find so far. She said
she fears that as the world plastic right. Yeah, because we have we have more remote
areas that I think it's called like point Nemo is the place where if you go into it
on the planet, you're the furthest away from any human anywhere. Really? Yeah, you're closer
to people on the International Space Station when it flies over than anyone else. That's
cool. But it's it's in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Oh yeah, there it is. Oh yeah, that's
pretty far away. I'd hate that. That's terrifying. Okay, lost my tab again. Here we go. Continuing
her research, she found similar rock like plastic for me. Oh yeah, I read that she fears that
as the rocks erode, they will lead to micro plastics into the environment and further
contaminate the island's food chain. She thinks that hasn't happened yet. Yeah, that's what
I was just about to say. It seems like it's already. It's a good thing all the plastic
is just stuck together and not going anywhere else. Okay, anyhow, there's a little bit more
and the next part's called Paradigm Shift, but I think we are fairly familiar with the
Paradigm Shift that probably needs to happen as a result of finding this out. It had to
happen long before she found this out and is worried that it will lead you into the
island. Yeah. But the effects are already here. I find it hard to believe that this is
surprising. Like we've known about Garbage Island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean
for what, like 20 years now? And it's like twice the size of Texas. So we know that they
get to remote places. Would it not be like the size of like North America by now? It's
been happening for a lot of years. Plastic doesn't break down, but it does disintegrate
down to very minute particles, which it's doing in that area because like it will break
down. It's just not the way we really want it. So then it just breaks down so that you
don't notice it. So the ocean is pretty much plastic and then we replace it. Yeah. Yeah.
And then we replace it with more plastic. So it's not getting like bigger per se. At
least I don't know. I haven't looked in on it in a while. Well, technically it is because
the water is just becoming plastic. Yeah. So that was really feel bad episode. I wonder
if this I would love to hear from an oceanographer or somebody who studies ocean currents and
see if we can learn anything from like all this plastic washing up here and see if like
it's changed anything. How they view ocean currents because that probably means there's
a direct current from somewhere that's heavily populated with people polluting to there. Or
maybe I don't know it's fishnets or something like that. Yeah. And you would think it would
be a first world country because I don't know that they have as much plastic to throw. Oh
no, they have lots of plastic in the third world. Okay. Well, sounds like no, it doesn't.
We don't need to. And they don't really know what to do with the plastic in the third world.
Okay. Okay. There's something to ponder, I guess, for the next 48 hours. But hey, it's
educational. I'm feeling uncomfortable. I want out of this episode. And I hope we all
feel uncomfortably smart now. Anyhow, bye.