Do you glaze over during scientific explanations? Feel sleepy when steeped in statistics? Find data to be deadening? Many of us do. Which is why more than 300 artists worldwide are donating their time and talent to illustrate how we can save our oceans by painting marine life murals – so far over 300 – across the globe. The murals take difficult-to-convey scientific information and turn it into artwork.

ARTivism is the brainchild of the not-for-profit PangeaSeed Foundation which calls it a marriage between art and activism. Their goal is, through creating original art that is both compelling and educational, to help people understand how they are hurting our oceans and encourage involvement.
The murals are done on underused, otherwise dull buildings and surfaces that are turned into focal points of thought-provoking art to open the way toward understanding the importance of ocean and marine life health. Not surprisingly, the art serves to transcend language, cultural and educational barriers.

We all know a picture is worth a thousand words. The hope of the ARTivism project is that an artwork will be worth the saving of our oceans and marine life.

If you’re interested in learning more, log onto www.pangeaseed.foundation or look at the video here: https://www.facebook.com/OurPlanetbyattn/videos/260932218069549/?fb_dtsg_ag=Adx26U4zzHWoJ5h6f2d5aPcBG8BSFEsLFsB6D1JDVlRhkg%3AAdzAQlHeK-mo8KtgOenNv2OuMmnA2lLvNY6SZFKr9LSs0w

If you’d like to do even more, sponsor a mural as an Anglerfish, Swordfish or Great White Shark. Further information is on the Pangea website.

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Caratoes Portrait by Nate Peracciny (Pangeaseed foundation)


Steven_J._SchleiderBy Steven J. Schleider, MAI, LEED-AP BD + C President, Metropolitan Valuation Services

Can you even imagine 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic? 80,000 tons of it plus fishing line and other assorted trash? In a watery scrapheap twice the size of Texas?

It’s the Great Pacific Garbage Patch located between Hawaii and California that has long been a cause of great environmental concern for the ongoing viability of marine life.

Now, a not-for-profit company named The Ocean Cleanup, founded by its CEO, 23-year-old Boyan Slat of The Netherlands, will soon launch its technology into the Pacific with the goal of reducing the patch by 50% within five years.

The technology was extensively tested using a 200-foot long pipe with a hanging skirt that drifts with the tide. Solar-powered, it is self-directed and finds optimum pick-up sites using an algorithm.
According to The Ocean Cleanup, “On September 8th, 2018, the 600 meter long Array 001 (note: 600 meters is just shy of 2,000 feet) will make its way out from Alameda, under the Golden Gate Bridge, and out into the Pacific ocean.”

As there never seems to be a solution without critics, many conservationists prefer effort to be expended in reducing ocean waste rather than cleaning it up. Others have expressed concern that it will entrap marine life.

The Ocean Cleanup responds by saying the pipe and its skirt are passive, moving very slowly with the tide, allowing plenty of time for marine life to escape under its skirt. They are in agreement that their goal of ridding earth’s oceans of plastics by 2050 will require a joint effort of both clean up as well as source reduction.

You can see the technology for yourself in the video or by logging onto https://www.theoceancleanup.com/

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PHOTO: Ocean Cleanup


Steven_J._SchleiderBy Steven J. Schleider, MAI, LEED-AP BD + C President, Metropolitan Valuation Services