Sylvia Alice Earle talks about the misconception that the oceans are too big to fail. With different issues coming to light in today’s world – be it the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, overfishing, the Pacific Trash Vortex, or some other piece of news it would seem that this is not the case but I think a greater illustration of this fact is relating the size of the oceans to our planet in general. David Gallo, Director of Special Projects, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA came up with a simple illustration that everyone on this planet should understand.
Fresh and salt water volumes as compared to the Earth
You might need to enlarge the photo above to really understand what you are seeing. The Earth is obvious. The first ball on the right is the total volume of the oceans of the Earth, and the tiny blue speck further to the right is the volume of all the freshwater on the planet. Now imagine if you had a basketball that represented the Earth and a cup of water proportional to the salt water volume. If your task was to spread that around the ball to model the oceans it would not be an easy task.
Now what do you think? (Yes, freshwater might be a problem for the future as well)
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