BLUE INITIATIVE
Ocean-related
urgent environmental threats
The Blue Initiative deals with urgent environmental threats that, if left unchecked,
will result in irreversible damage to our planet, impacting its capacity to sustain life. The efforts are divided into two main charitable endeavors:
- Combating ocean water pollution
- Stabilizing and reversing rising sea levels and the related side effects on our ecosystem
No new water is created. We only have the water that is already here on planet Earth, and if that water gets contaminated, you are effectively contaminating a close-ended system.
Throughout our history, humans have had an abundance of natural resources at their disposal. Most activities related to waste did not became important until a significant problem arose. Us humans, we like to do what we are familiar with; we learned from our past that the natural way of dealing with dirty water was basically to discard it into an outgoing body of water (rivers, streams). It worked for thousands of years; however, the unprecedented volume of human population on our planet is so large today that waste water is now unmanageable. Adding to the fact that water does not understand borders and politics, contaminated water is an urgent global problem that we need to face and solve with the utmost priority.
Water pollution is, as you may expect, a complex problem that is generally misunderstood. The problem is not water consumption but rather water pollution. When you use water and combine it with other aggregates (dirt, soap, waste), you create water pollution.
We need to learn how to clean and recycle water to a pure state. Some cities in Africa that don’t have water rely on complete water sanitation closed circuits in what’s called potable water reclamation.
One of the contaminants that is very difficult to deal with is plastic pollution on water. Plastic pollution from discarded water bottles, polystyrene coffee cups, grocery bags, synthetic clothing fiber, and other waste break down into tiny microplastics, or bits of plastic so small, they are effectively impossible to see with the naked eye.
However, these microplastics are a significant health concern for all life that uses that water. Microplastics have been detected in water all over the planet, including our streams, rivers, lakes, and, obviously, oceans. In these waterways, the microplastics end up in the water we drink and the fish we eat, including shellfish.
Most of this contaminated water enters our oceans through rivers or direct discharges. Microplastic is threatening our health and is destroying our environment. It is believed that both marine life and human life is at risk of bioaccumulation of these plastics. Our ocean is so contaminated now that plastic exists even in the most remote marine areas, such as the Mariana Trench.
The Local Solar System Foundation is doing both activism to ban single-use plastic bags in jurisdictions where it is still legal and proposing implementation of close-ended supply chains where consumers may play an important role.
We can solve the problem by dealing with the consequences of ocean pollution. We can clean the water, clear our beaches, and clear our lakes. Most NGOs are doing this already; however, the Local Solar System Foundation wants to target and solve the root of the problem. The Local Solar System Foundation focuses mainly on solving the root of such problems directly by understanding current government practices and effective lobbying of new policies, developing relations with the industrial manufacturing supply chain related to plastics, and with careful distribution of information to the general public who do not understand the problem.
In some places, close-ended supply system make the reuse of plastic obligatory; this is that each kilogram of plastic produced should find its way back into the production supply chain
It sounds wonderful, but the problem is human nature. We like convenience and don’t like to overpay nor to deal with those problems ourselves.
PLACES, SUCH AS GERMANY, DEAL WITH THEIR PLASTIC PROBLEM BY ADDING A SPECIAL TAX INTO EACH AND EVERY BOTTLE OF PLASTIC (OR, IN GERMANY’S CASE, OTHER RECYCLABLES) THAT IS ONLY PAID BACK TO THE CONSUMER WHEN THEY RETURN THE UNUSED PLASTIC BOTTLE TO THEIR LOCAL SUPERMARKET.
By retaining a small percentage of the price of the plastic product and giving it back only when it has been assured that the plastic has been recycled, you are effectively forcing consumers to return it in order to recover money that otherwise would be lost (by the consumer). This assures an almost total percentage of plastics being recycled. If consumers decide to throw away their plastic bottle, someone else may decide to pick that up and exchange it for cash, since it is similar to finding cash sitting around in the street.
Dealing with these problems should be ideally dealt with at the top of the supply chain, not on a consumer level. However, the main problem is seen in places where the population lacks proper knowledge. Places lacking a clear understanding of their footprint are more prone to mismanage waste. It’s no surprise that the largest contamination sources are often related with the least educated population; therefore, informative media created by the foundation oriented at educating about the problem and mitigation is paramount.
By teaching the general public worldwide, engaging in relations with local authorities, and pushing for local ordinances to ban the single use of plastics, we are effectively improving the health of our water.
Creating new habits— where people bring reusable bags to stores, prefer natural biodegradable packaging instead of plastic, and think about their impact when consuming anything—is essential to stop the irreversible damage we are doing to our ecosystem. The local solar system foundation is developing informative media oriented at reaching out to populations that are unaware of these challenges, effectively creating social pressure in economies where these problems are more recurrent.
GLOBAL WARMING HAS SIGNIFICANT NEGATIVE EFFECTS ON OUR PLANET AND ON HUMAN LIFE. THE MOST URGENT AND IMMINENT PROBLEM IS THE RISING OCEAN TEMPERATURE WHICH RESULTS IN INCREASED SEA LEVELS.
Temperature increase is responsible for a considerable toll of human life every year. The increased amount of weather-related disasters has never been so high, and weather storms have never been so extreme. Despite these short-term consequences, increased water temperature will cause potentially a myriad of disastrous consequences for humans living near the coast or at lower altitudes.
RISING SEA LEVELS ARE A SIGNIFICANT THREAT TO HUMAN LIFE IN VARIOUS WAYS; SEA LEVELS HAVE CONTINUED TO RISE SINCE THE EARLY 1900S, WHEN AN INCREASED RELEASE OF GREENHOUSE GASES STARTED TO SATURATE THE ATMOSPHERE.
Precise data gathered from satellite radar measurements reveal an accelerating rise has been occurring since 1993. There are two main problems with rising water levels: one, the destruction of cities and entire populations at coastlines and those near or below the ocean level and, two, the negative impact on the weather as discussed earlier.
THE MAIN REASONS THAT CAUSE GLOBAL SEA LEVEL TO RISE ARE THE HIGHEST AVERAGE TEMPERATURES THAT INDUCE ICE SHEETS TO LOSE ICE FASTER THAN THEY FORM FROM SNOWFALL. THIS ALSO INCLUDES GLACIERS AT HIGHER ALTITUDES THAT ARE MELTING AT AN ALARMING RATE.
Sea level rise since the start of the 20th century has been dominated by the retreat of glaciers and expansion of the ocean, but the contributions of the two major ice sheets in our planet (Greenland and Antarctica) are expected to increase in the coming years. These ice sheets store most of the land ice (∼99.5%), with a sea-level equivalent of 7.4 m (24 ft) for Greenland and 58.3 m for Antarctica.
EACH YEAR, ABOUT 8 MM (0.31 IN) OF PRECIPITATION (LIQUID EQUIVALENT) FALLS ON THE ICE SHEETS IN ANTARCTICA AND GREENLAND, MOSTLY AS SNOW, WHICH ACCUMULATES AND, OVER TIME, FORMS GLACIAL ICE. MUCH OF THIS PRECIPITATION BEGAN AS WATER VAPOR EVAPORATED FROM THE OCEAN SURFACE. SOME OF THE SNOW IS BLOWN AWAY BY WIND OR DISAPPEARS FROM THE ICE SHEET BY MELTING OR BY SUBLIMATION (DIRECTLY CHANGING INTO WATER VAPOR).
The rest of the snow slowly changes into ice as its compressed. This ice can flow to the edges of the ice sheet and return to the ocean by melting at the edge or in the form of icebergs. If precipitation occurs, surface processes and ice loss at the edge balance each other, and the sea level remains the same. However, as things stand, a large portion of ice is being lost every year and at an accelerating and alarming rate.
MOST OF THE ADDITIONAL HEAT TRAPPED IN THE EARTH’S CLIMATE SYSTEM BY GLOBAL WARMING IS STORED IN OCEANS. OCEANS STORE MORE THAN 90% OF THE EXTRA HEAT AND ACT AS A BUFFER AGAINST THE EFFECTS OF GLOBAL WARMING.
The heat needed to raise an average temperature increase of the entire world ocean by 0.01° C would increase the atmospheric temperature by approximately 10° C. Thus, a small change in the mean temperature represents a very large change in the total heat content of our close-ended climate system.
WHEN THE OCEAN GAINS HEAT, THE WATER EXPANDS AND SEA LEVEL RISES. THE AMOUNT OF EXPANSION VARIES WITH BOTH WATER TEMPERATURE AND PRESSURE. WARMER WATER AND WATER UNDER GREAT PRESSURE (DUE TO DEPTH) EXPAND MORE THAN COOLER WATER AND WATER UNDER LESS PRESSURE. THIS MEANS THAT COLD ARCTIC OCEAN WATER WILL EXPAND LESS COMPARED TO WARM TROPICAL WATER.
Heat gets transported into deeper parts of the ocean by winds and currents, and some of it reaches depths of more than 2,000 m (6,600 ft); these currents rely on water temperature differentials.
It is believed that injection of cool water coming from melting ice in Greenland can result in catastrophically global weather effects for Europe and the East Coast of North America (U.S. and Canada).
Sea level changes depend not only on the cumulative emission of CO2 but also on the time profile of those emissions. The longer CO2 has been emitted, the larger the sea level impact. In other words, the total amount of CO2 added into the atmosphere is not the only thing that matters; the time period in which it was released is also important, which means we need to act now.
THEORETICALLY, SEA LEVEL RISE IS REVERSIBLE. REDUCING AND STABILIZING CO2 EMISSIONS, THUS HALTING THE SEA LEVEL RISE, MAY BE POSSIBLE. REMOVING CO2 FROM THE ATMOSPHERE WOULD, IN THEORY, REVERSE IT. THIS REQUIRES RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT OF SPECIALIZED TECHNOLOGY TO CAPTURE AND STORE CO2.
The Local Solar System Foundation is aiding in the research of direct air capture technologies creating a carbon negative solution to this problem.
Although the Local Solar System Foundation supports the reduction of CO2 emissions, our focus, as with all other initiatives, is on solving the source of the problem. Together with banks, we are developing financial solutions that are aimed at the most CO2 contributing industries in an effort to solve the problem from the source.
THIS TECHNOLOGY EFFICIENTLY REMOVES CO2 FROM AMBIENT AIR, WHICH CAN BE THEN STORED UNDERGROUND, OR, MORE SPECIFICALLY, UNDER THE SEA FLOOR. WE BELIEVE THIS APPROACH IS SAFER AND WILL ALSO HELP TO SLOW THE ALARMING ACIDIFICATION OF THE OCEANS, WHICH IS ALSO INCREASING AT AN ALARMING RATE.
By donating to the Blue Initiative, you are:
– Directly combating ocean water pollution.
– Stabilizing and reversing rising sea levels and the related side effects on our ecosystem.
Activities related are: support, campaigns, and lobbying aimed directly at the supply chain in underdeveloped countries producing and distributing plastics by promoting use of responsible close-ended recycling solutions at pre-consumer level.
Seeking international government cooperation to enforce regulations on banning or limiting single-plastic use and introduction of systems that reuse all plastics in circulation by the use of tax retention.
Research and development of cheaper technologies on water reclamation, introduction of systems that reuse wastewater on cities, and teaching the general public worldwide via our social media campaigns, creating new habits and conscience to stop the irreversible damage we are doing to our ecosystem.
Aiding in the research of direct air capture technologies, creating a carbon negative solution that stores CO2 into the ocean floor.
Developing, along with banks and financial entities, solutions that are aimed at the most CO2 contributing industries.
Teaching the general public worldwide via our social media ads and campaigns, creating new habits and conscience to stop the introduction of more CO2 into our ecosystem.
These sub initiatives have independent budgeting and are completely segregated.
Help spread the word by
wearing one of the LOcal Solar System Awareness Bracelets.
- Combating ocean water pollution.
- Improving overall air quality.
- Stabilizing and reversing rising sea levels and the related side effects on our ecosystem.