Wednesday, October 2, 2013

2013- 2014 Kickoff

Fay's Challenge 20/20 Team met for the first meeting of the school year to explore the global problem of Maritime Safety and Pollution.

We agreed on group standards for participation and sought to answer the question "who's responsible?" when a marine disaster occurs.

Homework for the week is to define Maritime Safety and Pollution and to preview the Deepwater Horizon event for an upcoming activity.

15 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  2. The marine life takes up a big space in our life. For most of the developing countries, it is the source of jobs for workers. It is also where fishes and other marine animals we consume in our daily life live, for example Japan’s affection to sushi, fish dishes. The sea also affords us a beautiful view and a sparks of life. It is an attractive place where many tourists from every corner of the world come to see the exotic fishes in aquariums, play in the beach, or simply enjoy the breeze.
    Despite these wonderful perspectives of the ocean, humans make disasters that slowly extinct the maritime life: we carelessly throw countless amounts of wastes and unrecycled trashes to the water, where all living things suffer. We have to resolve this wide-spreading problem as soon as we can.

    We pollute the ocean in several different ways: oil, fertilizers, garbage, and toxic chemicals. Oils spills cause huge damages to the marine environment by damaging the whole cycle of life in the water. For example, the Rig Disaster, in which a transocean rig caught fire, it spilled all the oil tanks it contained and it was spread out to the sea. This gave damages to both the company and the sea. They were finally able to find solutions but it cost huge amounts of money and tension to the marine life.
    Fertilizers from farms are extremely negative for marine life. The extra nutrients cause eutrophication, which gives results of dense growth of plants and deaths of animals due to the lack of oxygen. It creates dead zones in the world, such as the Gulf of Mexico.
    Garbage is one of the major negative affects we give to the oceans. Marine animals suffer by consuming the plastic bags floating in the sea, touched by chemicals inside the trashes, suffocating and tangled by fish nets and ropes. Many turtles, whales, and fishes were found with plastic in their intestine and throat.
    Toxic chemicals contaminate the water very fast. They are mostly wastes from common products we make from industries and cities. Chemicals also decrease the pH of water, making it acidic and its temperature warmer. It gives the marine life problems involving the food chain, the reproduction, and diseases. This act was later banned by the London Dumping Convention in 1972 but there are still illegal chemicals trashed in the sea.

    Many organizations are created to maintain the safety of the marine life and establish preventions, such as IMO and EMSA. IMO is an international maritime organization to prevent disasters of ships in the sea and improving its safety. EMSA is a European agency that takes care also of the prevention and safety of marine life. It establishes preparations, detection, and responses for the pollution and also technical and scientific advice to other fields of maritime safety. Marine life is a natural source that needs to be protected and maintained by us.

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  3. Maritime means connected with the sea, especially in relation to seafaring commercial or military activity. Maritime safety involves keeping people safe from weather, vessel malfunction, fire, and pirates while at sea. If there ever is a problem, search and rescue teams are implemented to fix the situation as soon as possible.
    Pollution is when an object alien to an ocean enters and destroys the ecosystem. In the ocean, pollution comes in many forms, such as trash, sewage, and chemicals, all created by humans. Additionally, noise pollution from ships and oil rigs disturb the marine life, confusing their migration, hunting, and mating. All of this pollution is created by humans, who assume that since the ocean is so big, what they do will not have an impact on it. However, trash has started piling up, ensnaring animals, and clumping together to create massive swirls of waste. There are also dead zones in the ocean where chemicals have built up, which feeds a toxic kind of alga that depletes the water’s oxygen level, so almost no animals can live there. Raw sewage is dumped into the ocean in some parts of the world, making the water dirty and posing health risks for swimmers.
    The other job of Maritime Safety is to protect the environment from the boating accidents that occur, and prevent them whenever possible. Many Maritime accidents result in pollution, for example oil spills, or if a boat sinks. However, it would save a lot of time, and effort if these events could be prevented. This is what Maritime Safety is all about.

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  4. Marine life is a giant part of our lives. Every breath we take is effected by the sea, many make a living from the sea, and the oceans even take a giant part in our vacationing. However, many disasters and experiments since the start of the 20th century have altered the waters and turned areas into what is called a "marine dead zone" which is when it is very difficult or impossible for marine life to exist healthily in an area. In the 1940's there were many nuclear experiments being tested in the waters of the Bikini islands, and now virtually nothing exists in the water around the island. Many oil spills have also occurred, such as the Exxon Valdez and the major BP oil spill. These oil spills not only kill live underwater, but also harm many semi aquatic animals, such as birds and otters. Overfishing is also a major problem, as many animals that are not meant to be captures, such as sharks and whales, are becoming endangered.

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  5. Maritime Safety :
    Maritime safety focuses on the safety of ships and their crew at sea and when entering ports. This type of security encompasses a broad range of issues such as sovereignty, routing and navigational conditions, and responses to illegal acts like piracy.

    Pollution:
    the presence in or introduction into the environment of a substance which has harmful or poisonous effects.

    Deepwater Horizon was an ultra deepwater, dynamically placed, semi submersible offshore oil owned by Transocean. It was built in 2001 in South Korea and later it became part of Transocean. In September 2009, the rig reached the deepest oil at a vertical depth of 35,050 ft. On April 2010, when they were drilling at the Macondo Prospect, an explosion was caused by a blowout which killed 11 crewmen and ignited a fireball visible from 35 miles away, which was pretty far away. The fire was not easily distinguished. On April 22 2013, Deepwater Horizon sank which caused the largest offshore oil spill in U.S history.

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  6. The word maritime means "connected with the sea, esp. in relation to seafaring commercial or military activity". When we talk about maritime safety and pollution, we means the safety and pollution of seas.

    How to make sure the seas are "safe"? The answer is simple: No pollution and the seas would be safe. Any form of pollution, including plastic, chemical waste and so on, can affect the marine animals, or animals living in the sea, considerably. More than that, a safe sea environment makes sure human beings have the opportunity to use the sea properly. Sea provides us food and space for transportation, and even more valuable stuff like oil. If the sea is not in a well state, the fate of human beings will not be good as well.

    However, nowadays many people still haven’t realized this fact. From the event of rubber duckies we can see that people just don’t care about ocean or sea, especially those the one that they do not own. Their lack of ability to think long-term, think about the potential impact it could have on themselves, can lead to serious problems and trouble.

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  7. Maritime Safety: "Maritime" means connected to the sea, and "safety" means being protected, no matter how you are protected. So, "maritime safety" would mean making sure the ocean (and everything it connects to) is protected and does not come to any harm, especially by humans. These thing include: water, fish, sea creatures, divers, and sea plant life. If we do not keep them safe, not only are we being inhumane, but we are also hurting ourselves.

    Pollution: Pollution comes in all different forms (air, water, noise, etc.) However, Maritime pollution means pollution of the water and oceans. This kind of pollution can mean a lot of different things. Fish get harmed daily because of plastic, boat exhaust, and over fishing. Oil spills are another part of it, as well as humans dumping waste into the ocean, poisoning it for its inhabitants.

    Together, "maritime safety and pollution" means protecting the ocean and its family from pollution, which is not all caused by humans, but a large portion of it is, and there are steps we can take to act against pollution. We must remember that the ocean is not just water; it is millions of living organisms that die everyday because of oil, pollution, and fishing. Using the example of the rubber ducks, that is the kind of thing that we are responsible for preventing. If we can stop these random accidents from occurring and spilling accidental plastic/pollution into the ocean, we can stop a good portion of our pollution.

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  8. Maritime Safety and Pollution has a relatively simply definition which is as follows: the protection of the sea and its inhabitants from humans as well as the prevention destruction of the ecosystem from alien substances. It can also refer to the wellbeing of humans who are on the water.
    Maintaing Maritime Safety is an extremely important part of our own lives as land-dwellers. Without the ocean being properly protected, not only would we loose valuable resources, but jobs and much of our own ecosystem would be endangered. What we breathe, eat, and how we exist is all dependent on the sea. Our own existence would be threatened by an injured ocean.
    The safety of ships and oil drills is Maritime Safety. If a boat were to sink or and oil spill to occur, calamity would strike. Any sort of marine business would be threatened, and it would cost millions of dollars to clean the shore lines of the area, which would also cause a decline in tourism. However, if safety features and better technology were added to boats and oil drills, there might not be a problem. These features would protect the entire ocean.
    Pollution is not necessarily caused by a major incident, but rather by a multitude of oils and toxic substances being released into the water every time a person rides their boat. An important part of Maritime Safety and Pollution is understanding what we as humans can do to reduce the amount and risk of these detrimental substances being leaked into the ocean.

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  9. When asked what is maritime, it is something nautical or essentially related to the sea. The sea in this case, plays a huge role as when we affect the ocean, we effect ourselves. When it comes to maritime safety, the question "how can we conserve the sea?" appears. Maritime safety emphasizes the reality of keeping the sea safe while facing such things as boat transportation, nautical tours and most importantly, littering. These “realities” that we mentioned can be the cause of pollution. For pollution, we pollute the sea in many ways like littering and oil/chemical spills from factories. Such activities can destroy and inevitably harm the ecosystem of the sea.
    Example of pollution and maritime safety may include a recent activity that happened in Thailand. In August 2013, there was a disastrous oil spill that led to several areas of the sea with oil hovering and our famed beach, Koi Samui’s shore being wiped up with oil. This is an example of pollution but in order to save the sea, us Thais joined hands; from celebrities to volunteers helped out to suction out the oil with a special fabric. This resulted in a relieving amount of oil left. Also, it was heard that this particular oil can cause severe effects with the blood, kidney and liver and two people were caught dizzy while swimming. Not only that it can affect us people, how about the animals whose dwelling is the sea? This disastrous event affected several fishes and until now, the government is finding ways to resolve this problem as soon as possible.

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  10. What do we mean by: Maritime Safety & Pollution

    Maritime safety is pretty much the law of the sea. Its an agreement where every country's which is near the sea have to make sure there part is protected. This means each country is responsible for their pollution on the part of the ocean so they have to clean it up and better protect it so that in the future that will not happen again. Maritime Safety & Pollution is the laws of sea and how its protect by the countries, people need to do a better job at protecting the sea so that they will have the sea for many years to come and the animals in it, but if we keep this up all the oceans are gonna be polluted and there will be no more marine animals.

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  11. Maritime Safety and Pollution refers to the ocean as a whole, but especially the ocean itself. It is the regulation of the ocean as an environment, and ensuring that it remains safe and healthy. Several Years ago, BP had a major oil spill that vastly effected the ocean and everything within it. The oil effected the waters, and the habitats of the animals within it, and eventually the animals within it. This was a huge violation of Maritime safety, and an excellent example of pollution in the ocean.

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  12. What is Maritime safety and pollution?
    So Maritime is a word referring to something about the ocean. To combine the word Maritime and safety, it basically means the protection of the ocean habitats.
    Now the ocean is at the verge of been polluted. Its safety and purity cannot be guaranteed at all. Due to the lack of knowledge for the citizens, they gave up their responsibility for protecting the ocean. If someday all of as begin to stop protecting our ocean, or even going to the depth of trying to hurt or own earth, then the result cannot be imaginable.
    There was one oil spill incident where lots of sea animals are killed and a lot of sea water are polluted. Think about the ocean as a web. The oil spill not only hurt the ocean habitats but also many of the habitats on the land. If this keeps on happening, then the whole world will be destroyed.

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  13. EMSA:
    http://emsa.europa.eu/about/what-we-do-main.html

    IMO:
    http://www.imo.org/OurWork/Safety/Pages/Default.aspx

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  14. Who’s responsible?

    • Human
    • BP PLC, the company of the oil ship
    • The inhabitants of the coast
    • Everyone in the world’s responsibility to recover the Earth’s environment
    • The organizations that are responsible of the maritime safety

    Who’s affected?

    • The marine animals, wildlife (top kill procedures and suffocation of oil)
    • The Earth and environment
    • All of us, especially the inhabitants of the area
    • Tourists visiting the beaches near the area
    • Workers of the ship
    • Company (for recovery and the one who created the problem)
    • Officials (including of federal and state) charged to track the oil spill
    • Scientists
    • U.S. military
    • Southern Louisiana
    • Fishers
    • President Barak Obama (government)

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  15. The timeline was basically about a major oil spill, caused by the crack of Deepwater Horizon oil rig which is owned by BP.

    I think the one with most responsibility with this accident is BP industry.
    Some people say it was an accident and no one could control it, but if the company has regularly checked the rig with enough attention, I think the crack wouldn't have caused something this serious.
    But the responsibility also applies to American government as well because they also could have checked it during their shipping process.
    Of course there would be many other small organizations that have played a roll in this accident but I think those two are the major problems.

    The ones, who got affected by the oil spill, are numerous.
    Above all, the marine lives got the most serious affect. Fish and turtles and many other creatures ate and swam the oil that killed them. Also the fire has killed many of them as well. It caused the rigs to break into pieces and sink down into the ocean.
    It’s not only about fish and turtles, but also about birds as well.
    They ate the dead fish full of oil and rig parts, walked on the oil-covered shore and flew over the fire and smoke. The number of marine lives killed by the accident is uncountable.
    It killed humans, too.
    11 people who were in the rig at that time went missing and now, assumed as dead.
    Another major affect was economy.
    BP, the company which owned the rig that started this whole thing, had to volunteer to fund all the money to clean the mess. Also, the knock-down of the Deepwater Horizon caused them serious economic damage. Also, their reputation towards public went bad as well.
    American government wasn’t an exception, either.
    They had to send numerous people and money to clean the oil and the ships they sent that day were gone, or destroyed.
    Their loss of money both came from the cleaning itself, and the rapid decrease of tourism.

    This is my thinking of who got affected, and who affected the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.



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