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> The long-term financial benefits for the world could be multiple orders of magnitude larger. I'm curious how you came to this conclusion. What are the econom

> The long-term financial benefits for the world could be multiple orders of magnitude larger. I'm curious how you came to this conclusion. What are the economic benefits and how are they linked to this patch in the middle of the Pacific?

hobofan 2y ago
Its hard to put concrete numbers to it, but there are many ways you can generally draw connections from "intact wildlife ecosystems" to economic benefits on n-th order effects. E.g. - Less plastic in the ocean -> less microplastics in fish -> healthier people -> less cost due to sickness, and a more productive population - Less fishing net debris in the ocean -> less species of turtles going extinct -> more tourism for turtle watching (IDK if that's a thing) On some fronts with wildlife conservation you can also draw a more direct line. E.g. vulture conservation essentially pays for itself, as vultures do carcass cleanup of diseased animals for free (preventing the spread of the disease through the ecosystem, eventually reaching humans), where the equivalent cleanup would be quite expensive. My guess with ocean conservation is that the "direct economic benefit" is mostly in the realm of fish as food resource.
- concordDance 2y ago
  You're conflating "plastic in the ocean" with "plastic in the Pacific garbage patch". The plastic tends to accumulate far from land (or so the model animations I've seen indicate). And most of the fish and other wildlife are near land. Indeed, overlaying models of where the plastic is with a fishing heat map (e.g. globalfishingwatch.org) shows very little overlap between fishing areas and garbage areas.
  - hobofan 2y ago
    I'm not sure what you are seeing when you are overlaying those maps, but I am seeing a clear overlap between the western extent of the pacific garbage patch, and fishing activity. Besides that, you are conflating "where fish are fished" with "where fish live/grow up". Many fished species (and/or their prey) heavily migrate, and when migrating take advantage of the same ocean currents that lead to formation of the garbage patch, and are thus in close proximity. Of course the majority of fishing activity will be close to land, as that's more economical, but that doesn't mean that the fish fished there have only grown up their and/or not been exposed through to plastic via their food chain.

hobofan 2y ago

Its hard to put concrete numbers to it, but there are many ways you can generally draw connections from "intact wildlife ecosystems" to economic benefits on n-th order effects. E.g. - Less plastic in the ocean -> less microplastics in fish -> healthier people -> less cost due to sickness, and a more productive population - Less fishing net debris in the ocean -> less species of turtles going extinct -> more tourism for turtle watching (IDK if that's a thing) On some fronts with wildlife conservation you can also draw a more direct line. E.g. vulture conservation essentially pays for itself, as vultures do carcass cleanup of diseased animals for free (preventing the spread of the disease through the ecosystem, eventually reaching humans), where the equivalent cleanup would be quite expensive. My guess with ocean conservation is that the "direct economic benefit" is mostly in the realm of fish as food resource.

concordDance 2y ago
You're conflating "plastic in the ocean" with "plastic in the Pacific garbage patch". The plastic tends to accumulate far from land (or so the model animations I've seen indicate). And most of the fish and other wildlife are near land. Indeed, overlaying models of where the plastic is with a fishing heat map (e.g. globalfishingwatch.org) shows very little overlap between fishing areas and garbage areas.
- hobofan 2y ago
  I'm not sure what you are seeing when you are overlaying those maps, but I am seeing a clear overlap between the western extent of the pacific garbage patch, and fishing activity. Besides that, you are conflating "where fish are fished" with "where fish live/grow up". Many fished species (and/or their prey) heavily migrate, and when migrating take advantage of the same ocean currents that lead to formation of the garbage patch, and are thus in close proximity. Of course the majority of fishing activity will be close to land, as that's more economical, but that doesn't mean that the fish fished there have only grown up their and/or not been exposed through to plastic via their food chain.