Transcript source log - Ram Pages

SOURCE LOG
“YES” Sources
BACKGROUND
INFORMATION
How has marine pollution changed over time?
“Marine Anthropogenic Litter” by Melanie Bergmann (Senior scientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute for
Polar and Marine Research), Lars Gutow (Alfred Wegener Institute North Sea Office), and Michael
Klages (Researcher and Professor for the Department of Marine Sciences at the University of
Gothenburg); This source is not biased because of its foundation of research.
• Answer to my Research Question: This source gives a detailed history of research done on marine pollution
research.
• Strong Pieces of Evidence:
• “The reports in Science of large numbers of plastic pellets in the North Atlantic in the early 1970s
stimulated research interest in plastic litter at sea, with papers reporting plastics on the seafloor and
impacting a variety of marine animals.”
• “By the early 1980s, growing concern about the potential impacts of marine litter resulted in a series of
meetings on marine debris.”
• “By the end of the 1980s, most impacts of marine litter were reasonably well under- stood, and attention
shifted to seeking effective solutions to tackle the marine litter problem. Research was largely restricted to
monitoring trends in litter to assess the effectiveness of mitigation measures, until the last decade, when
concern about microplastics coupled with the discovery of alarming densities of small plastic particles in the
North Pacific ‘garbage patch’ (and other mid-ocean gyres) stimulated the current wave of research.”
• Fig. 1.1 Growth in global plastic production from 1950 to 2012
• Fig. 1.2 Numbers of papers on different aspects of the marine litter issue published in year intervals over
the last 50 years
• “Part of the problem is that mitigation measures may be effective in reducing the proportion of the waste
stream reaching the sea, but this decrease may be insufficient to decrease the absolute amount of litter
entering the sea, given the ongoing increase in plastic production.”
• “The rapid increase in global plastic production has resulted in an increase in the amount of plastic items
and fragments in marine systems...”
THIS SOURCE ALLOWS ME TO ARGUE…that as plastic production has increased over the years, plastic
litter in the ocean has increased as well.
FIRST RESEARCH
QUESTION
To what extent is the ocean polluted and what
is the negative impact that this has?
“Threat of Plastic Pollution to Seabirds is Global, Pervasive, and Increasing” by Dr. Chris
Wilcox (research scientist for CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, professional
biologist for 23 years), Erik Van Sebille (recipient of the 2016 European Research Council
Starting Grant on “Tracking of Plastic In Our Seas”, winner of the 2016 European
Geosciences Union Ocean Division Outstanding Young Scientist Award), and Britta
Denise Hardesty (research scientist for CSIRO Oceans and Atmospheric Flagship for 8
years); Due to a strong presence of scientific evidence that is not debatable, this source is
not biased.
• Answer to my Research Question: This source proves that marine pollution is very harmful to the
species that live within it and this is helpful because it shows that humanity’s wasteful and
irresponsible behaviors have a negative impact on wildlife.
• Strong Pieces of Evidence:
• “Eighty of 135 (59%) species with studies reported in the literature between 1962 and 2012 had
ingested plastic, and, within those studies, on average 29% of individuals had plastic in their
gut.”
• “We predict that plastics ingestion is increasing in seabirds, that it will reach 99% of all species
by 2050, and that effective waste management can reduce this threat.”
• “Plastic fragments can be found throughout the world’s oceans, with observed concentrations up
to 580,000 plastic pieces per square kilometer”
• “Over 600 species, ranging from microorganisms to whales, affected by marine plastic waste,
largely through ingestion.”
• “The fraction of individuals containing plastic in a study is increasing at ∼1.7% per year.”
THIS SOURCE ALLOWS ME TO ARGUE that plastic in the ocean is harming a large amount of
the species that live within it.
“Litter Survey detects the South Atlantic’s Garbage Patch” by Peter G. Ryan (academic
Coordinator of the Masters Program in Conservation Biology at the Percy FitzPatrick
Institute); This article is based solely on survey data, and is therefore unbiased.
• Answer to my Research Question: This article proves that there is a lot of litter within the
ocean that exists because of consumer’s waste. This is helpful because it shows that all
ocean pollution is not from large corporations, but a lot of it comes from the every day
person, who may not even be aware of their impact.
• Strong Pieces of Evidence:
• Table 1 on page 221—gives statistics of what types of litter are most commonly found in
the ocean.
• “Overall, 97% of litter items were made of plastic (Table 1). Glass was the most common
non-plastic litter material, followed by metal.”
• “Among plastic litter, packaging was the most common application, but the proportion of
packaging was greater in coastal waters than in oceanic waters (Table 1). Fishery-related
items (mainly pieces of fish trays) made up a greater proportion of litter offshore, as did
unidentified pieces of plastic (Table 1).”
• “Extrapolating with these corrections factors, the density of floating debris in coastal
waters (67 items km 2) was more than 20 times greater than the average density in
oceanic waters (2.9 items km 2). However, this is somewhat misleading because there
was a strong litter gradient moving offshore in coastal waters.”
THIS SOURCE ALLOWS ME TO ARGUE that plastic within the ocean is very prominent
along with other types of litter and that there is an existence of “garbage patches” that
people are not able to experience without going far out into the ocean.
SECOND RESEARCH
QUESTION
How informed is the public about the state of
our oceans?
“A Review of Public Attitudes Towards Marine Issues Within and Beyond New Zealand” by
Allison Arnold (Marine Program Officer for the World Wide Fund for Nature); The source
does not contain bias as it is solely based off of survey data in several countries.
• Answer to my Research Question: Although the article talked mostly about public
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awareness in New Zealand, I was able to focus on the section about the United States,
which provided strong evidence that people have a very limited knowledge of marine
pollution.
Strong Pieces of Evidence:
“Proximity to the oceans coincides with greater concern for damage to ocean beaches, but
not for damage to coastal waters or deep oceans. 50% of respondents rated the health of
coastal waters as fair or poor, but more than half of all respondents do not know about the
health of the deep oceans.”
“While 75% of respondents agree that the health of the oceans is essential to human
survival, respondents on average fail to answer three out of five questions on ocean health
and functions correctly.”
“Acceptance of general responsibility for ocean protection stems from the common belief that
humans are damaging the oceans, but respondents are more likely to see industry rather
than individuals as the culprit.”
“Less than 1% of California waters are fully protected areas in which all extractive activities
are prohibited, including oil drilling, mining, and commercial and recreational
fishing…Respondents rate the health of their oceans negatively, ‘with 64% saying the overall
health of California’s ocean is only fair-to-poor and 29% who say ocean health is good-toexcellent’. ‘Californians believe that a far greater percentage of their ocean waters are fully
protected from all human activities that could harm the ocean environment than is actually
the case.’ Respondents believe that 22% of the state’s ocean waters are fully protected…”
THIS SOURCE ALLOWS ME TO ARGUE that the general public knows very little about
the state of the ocean, in particular, the deeper areas of it.
“Public Awareness, Concerns, and Priorities about Anthropogenic Impacts on Marine Environments” by Stefan Gelcich
(Laboratorio Internacional en Cambio Global and Center of Applied Ecology and Sustainability), Paul Buckley (Marine
Climate Change Centre, Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science), John K. Pinnegar (Marine Climate
Change Centre, Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science), Jason Chilvers (Science, Society and
Sustainability Research Group), Irene Lorenzoni (Science, Society and Sustainability Research Group), Geraldine Terry
(School of International Development), Matias Guerrero (Laboratorio Internacional en Cambio Global and Center of
Applied Ecology and Sustainability), Juan Carlos Castilla (Laboratorio Internacional en Cambio Global and Center of
Applied Ecology and Sustainability and Centro Interdisciplinario de Cambio Global), Abel Valdebenito (Laboratorio
Internacional en Cambio Global and Center of Applied Ecology and Sustainability), and Carlos M. Duarte (University of
Western Australia Oceans Institute and School of Plant Biology and Department of Global Change Research); This
source is a scientific report and is therefore, unbiased.
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Answer to my Research Question: This article shows that a lot of people identify as not being informed enough
about the state of our oceans.
• Strong Pieces of Evidence:
• “When respondents were asked in the first marine-related (and open-ended) question of the survey to list the
three most important marine environmental problems that spontaneously come to mind, the main responses
identified pollution (33%), overfishing (8%), coastal erosion (5%), wildlife conservation (5%), and climate change
(4%) as the most important problems.”
• “European respondents felt only moderately informed about marine impacts; average values of informedness
ranged between somewhat and slightly informed (scores between 2 and 3 on a Likert scale).”
• “In fact, 57% of respondents assert that individual citizens’ actions are not effective. Research has shown
barriers to behavioral change when individuals feel their actions are ineffective, if they perceive that individual
change will be futile compared with the magnitude of the problem (35) and if they are not sure what to do (36).
Without understanding the benefits of behavioral and attitudinal changes, individuals can be left feeling
overwhelmed or opt to ignore the issue (37). Therefore, a key lesson from our results is the need to
communicate how individual behavior and lifestyle choices can collectively help improve marine health (27) as a
way to incentivize citizens to take greater personal responsibility for the oceans.”
THIS SOURCE ALLOWS ME TO ARGUE that people are not as informed as they should be about marine
pollution and this affects the amount of effort they put into helping to resolve the issue.
THIRD RESEARCH
QUESTION
How does environmental public awareness
affect the amount of action taken to prevent
pollution?
“Values as Predictors of EnvironmentalAttitudes; Evidence for Consistency Across 14 Countries” by P. Wesley Schultz (Professor of Psychology at
CSUSM and the Dean of Graduate Studies and Research) and Lynnette Zelezny(Provost of Fresno State and past Professor of Psychology); I
do not believe that this source is biased. It is based off of survey data.
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Answer to my Research Question: This source allows me to show that the reasoning for people’s environmental efforts is mainly
based off of values—those that are egoistic, social-altruistic, and biocentric.
Strong Pieces of Evidence:
• “Stern and Dietz (1994) proposed a value-basis theory for environmental concern which states that environmental attitudes are
the result of a person's more general set of values. Specifically, they proposed that there are three distinct bases for
environmental attitudes: the individual, all people, and all living things.”
• “A similar tripartite classification has been proposed by Merchant (1992) who termed the dimensions egocentric,
anthropocentric, and ecocentric respectively.”
• “We use the terms social-altruistic and anthropocentric interchangeably, as we do biocentric and ecocentric.”
• “A recently published scale by Thompson and Barton (1994) pro- vides a third alternative measure of environmental attitudes.
Their scale is designed to measure two (rather than three) value-based environmental attitude clusters. Both sets of attitudes
reflect concern for environ- mental issues, but for different underlying reasons.”
• “The overall results for the New Environmental Paradigm supported our predictions—NEP scale scores were predicted by
tradition, power, and universalism.”
• “The results from our multinational study provide support for the value-basis theory; we found the predicted relationships
between environmental attitudes and values. In addition, we found U.S. respondents scored lower on the New Environmental
Paradigm than respondents from all countries except the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, and Peru. These results are consistent
with recent findings by Dunlap et al. (1994). The findings are contrary to the notion that environmental concern is a postmaterial
attitude, and suggest that other factors must be considered in understanding environmental concern.”
• “Self-transcendence is a measure of the degree to which a person values goals and ideals that are not directly linked to their
notion of self (e.g. broad-minded, a world of beauty, loyal, honest, forgiving) while self-enhancement is the degree to which a
person values goals and ideals that are directly linked with tangible rewards for self (e.g. successful, ambitious, wealth, social
power).We propose that self-enhancement reflects a general orientation to self-benefit because people who score high on selfenhancement have a narrow definition of self that does not include other people or other living things. In contrast, selftranscendence reflects a broader cognitive representation of self, and measures the degree to which a person includes other
people and other living things in their notion of self. It follows that values of self-transcendence would be positively associated
with biospheric concerns, while values of self-enhancement would be positively related to less biospheric concerns and more
egoistic concerns. We are suggesting that the New Environmental Paradigm, and more broadly biospheric environmental
concerns, reflect the degree to which people define self as part of nature.”
THIS SOURCE ALLOWS ME TO ARGUE…that the reasons for which people take part in environmental efforts are based off of
self-transcendence and self-enhancement.
SOURCE LOG
“NO” Sources
Murphy, M. (1999, February). Test Your Environmental Awareness. Retrieved February 20,
2017, from http://ac.els-cdn.com/S002605769980227X/1-s2.0-S002605769980227Xmain.pdf?_tid=378b8c24-f987-11e6-a17c-00000aacb362&acdnat=1487827163_9eeb34
13c1125136b806740b90b9a42c
• This source doesn’t currently work for my research because I was unable to
find any information about the author. Also, the article had very little useful
information, and I was able to find the information it supplied elsewhere, with
more credibility and more useful information.
R. (2017, January 07). 20 Facts About Ocean Pollution. Retrieved March 05,
2017, from http://www.conserve-energy-future.com/various-ocean-pollutionfacts.php
• This source does not have an author listed at the top, but has a short
biography at the bottom. The author “Rinkesh” without a written last name
has the following biography on the site: “Rinkesh is passionate about clean
and green energy. He is running this site since 2009 and writes on various
environmental and renewable energy related topics. He lives a green lifestyle
and is often looking for ways to improve the environment around him.” I would
not consider passion to be credibility, along with the fact that the grammar in
the second sentence is incorrect. Within the writing, the author also cites
Wikipedia for a definition and there are advertisements all throughout the
article.