LINK

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Glen Stansberry of LifeDev (feed).

Focus is something of a novelty these days. We’ve got cellphones for texting and calls, IM, Twitter, Email, RSS feeds, Facebook, Myspace… the list goes on and on. If you don’t have ADD before you start working online, it seems it’s almost inevitable thanks to these inputs. If you’re a web worker who uses the Internet for the majority of the day, you’re especially at risk for losing focus.

Focus is something that must be fought for. It’s not something that automatically switches on when you want to. You have to make sure your surroundings are perfect for working if you want to be focused. Here’s a few ways I’ve found this to work:

1. Use offline tools. Paper products, pens, and other physical tools are a Godsend for those of us who have a hard time focusing throughout the work day. They’re so simple that we can use them quickly, without having to worry about becoming distracted.
2. Take more breaks. More breaks = More productivity. It may sound wrong, but it’s true. Breaks allow us to re-group our thoughts and focus for the task at hand. They also keep us fresh so that we don’t end up burning out after only a few hours work.
3. Smaller tasks to check off. When you’re planning your day, make sure that your “action steps” (aka items in the checklist) are small actions. Instead of “Paint living room”, try breaking it down into many tasks, like “buy paint, buy rollers, pick colors” etc.
4. Keep a steady pace. Don’t try to do to much. Keeping the pace manageable allows you to keep your focus. Unfortunately, people can confuse this with “Work till you drop without breaks”. See number 2.
5. Keep a daily “purpose” card. It’s pretty easy to get lost staring at the computer all day long. We’ll find rabbit holes to wonder down (ie. Youtube, Myspace, etc.) if we’re not careful. Having your daily purpose card gives you clarity and a reminder as to what you’re doing today.
6. Develop the mindset that the computer is only a tool. It’s easy to try and use the computer for too much. At its core, the computer is merely a tool (albeit a freakin’ awesome one) that allows to do work more efficiently. If we’re using it as something more than that, (like as a solution for your life), you’ll ultimately fail. It’s like trying to eat a steak dinner with only a spoon.
7. Plan your day to the T. If you’re finding sporadic periods of laziness throughout the day, it could be because you don’t take enough breaks (see #2), and you don’t have the day mapped out as efficiently as you could. Make sure your list of todos has lots of small, actionable steps that can be done quickly. This will gives a really satisfying feeling when you’re crossing things off your list like crazy.
8. Notice your lazy routines. Everyone has recurring lazy spots throughout the day. Plan to have your breaks for those times. You’re going to be lazy then anyway, right?
9. Plan the night before. Planning the night before is a great way to really get focused on the next day. “Sleeping” on your tasks and goals for the following day can really help your mind expect what’s going to happen the next day. Essentially, you’re preparing your mind for the following day. Advanced focus.
10. Turn off extra inputs. These are IM and email for me, but we all have our Achilles heel. Completely turn off any distracting piece of technology that you own. Every one of these inputs tries to steal bits of your focus. And they won’t rest until they do.
11. Set time limits for tasks. There’s no motivation like a deadline. Giving yourself real deadlines is a great way to stay motivated and focused on the task. Given the fact that we human are natural procrastinators, it’s no surprise that we’ll take as long as we’re allowed to finish something. Setting real but attainable limits is a great way to keep the project humming, so to speak.
12. Keep a journal of what you did throughout the day. I like to use a moleskine notebook for my lists just so I can go back and review it every now and again, to see what I’ve done. Knowing how far you’ve come can keep you sharp and motivated to finish.
13. Use programs to track where you spend your time. This is a real eye-opener. Knowing just how much time you spend every day/week/month on a certain site or with a certain program can quickly show you where your priorities lie. I recommend Rescue Time, but there are many others.
14. Visualize the day in the morning, before it starts. A little pre-work meditation on the day’s events is a great way to start the day off focused and productive. Don’t worry about a full 30 minute session, a quick review before you start the day is fine.
15. Start the day right. Starting the day with a good breakfast, some quiet time and/or exercise is a great way to set your day up for success. Sounds like a cliche, but it really works.
16. Clean yourself up. It’s why my track coach in high school made us dress up for big races: you perform the way you feel. And if you feel polished, groomed and ready, you’ll be more likely to be productive. For me this is just taking a shower, brushing my teeth and putting on casual clothing. I used to work all day without taking a shower in my PJ’s, but I never got much stuff done. Let’s be honest here… if you’re dressed really casually, odds are you’ll be working really casually. Just taking the time to clean up a bit before you buckle down for the day is never a bad idea.

For more from Glen, check out his great productivity blog, LifeDev. He’s also the co-owner of the LifeRemix blog network.

Wonder why we don’t have a national energy policy or a serious push toward alternatives?

Follow the money that oil and gas companies send to Congress.

By Jim JubakThink it’s a matter of chance that we don’t have a meaningful national energy policy? Wondering why oil and gas companies don’t pay higher royalties to the Treasury now that oil is over $55 a barrel? Amazed that Washington loves to talk about energy research with promise 15 years down the road, but won’t put significant money into alternative technologies that could reduce energy consumption now?

For answers to all those questions and more, just follow the money. Nothing about U.S. energy policy should be a surprise if you know where the money’s been going and which legislators have taken the biggest payouts from the energy industry. So don’t miss your only chance in the next two years — the Nov. 7 election — to tell Congress what you think of its sellout to the energy companies.

It has become increasingly expensive to run for national office, and any politician who wants to win has to raise big bucks these days. In the 2006 election cycle, according to the Federal Election Commission, as of Oct. 20, challengers and incumbents running for the House of Representatives had raised $713 million for their campaigns. Those for Senate had raised $452 million. And these figures don’t include any of the money raised by “independent” organizations, so-called 527 groups such as Emily’s List on the left ($9.6 million raised) or Club for Growth on the right ($6.2 million raised).

Lawyers top contributor list

Corporations and affiliated individuals have coughed up a big chunk of that money. By industry, the top honor on the giving roll goes to lawyers and law firms, with $89 million contributed, according to Federal Election Commission data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, which describes itself as nonpartisan and nonprofit. As the Republicans have said in campaign after campaign, the bulk of that — 69% to 30% — has gone to Democrats. But the Republicans don’t need to worry; there’s plenty of money coming into their till from other industries. Second place goes to the retirement industry with $86 million (54% goes to Republicans). Third place? The real estate industry with $53 million (57% goes to Republicans.)The oil and gas industry comes in at No. 15 with $14 million in contributions.

The top five contributors were Koch Industries, ExxonMobil (XOM, news, msgs), Valero Energy (VLO, news, msgs), Chevron (CVX, news, msgs) and Occidental Petroleum (OXY, news, msgs), according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

That $14 million puts the oil and gas industry in the company of such heavyweights as electric utilities (at $12 million) and the pharmaceutical industry (at $14 million).

Most energy money goes to GOP

The oil and gas industry’s giving is highly, highly focused. Oil and gas executives seem to feel that with the Republicans in solid control of Congress, there’s no need to give to anybody but Republicans, since they’re the folks that can get things done. There’s none of the fence straddling of the securities industry, which has divided its $46 million in contributions almost evenly between Republicans (47%) and Democrats (51%). A whopping 83% of oil and gas money has gone to Republicans in this election cycle. To find similar imbalance, you have to look at such Democratic bulwarks as the public-sector unions, 84% Democratic in their giving, and the building trades unions, at 83% Democratic.So who did this concentrated dose of cash go to? Here are the top 10 — all Republicans — as complied by the Center for Responsive Politics:

Data from the FEC as of Sept. 11, 2006. Compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.

You’ve got to hand it to the oil and gas industry. They know how to support their favorite sons and daughters, of course: Texans Kay Bailey Hutchinson and John Cornyn, after all, are both senators from a big oil state.

But the industry keeps its eye on the prize. If you want to keep oil and gas royalties low; if you’d like to drill in environmentally sensitive areas; if you want to keep the government from admitting that global warming might exist; if you want to make sure that money flows to research in alternative energy technologies for the future but not to commercialize alternative technologies today, then you give to the key people who can get those jobs done.

So you contribute to the campaign of California Republican Rep. Richard Pombo, chairman of the House Resources Committee in charge of deciding how the oil and gas (and other industries) can use government land and how much they’ll pay for that use. Pombo has been a point man in the House in efforts to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling.

(The committee’s jurisdiction also extends to gambling on Indian lands. Pombo and his personal political action committee, known as Rich PAC, reportedly are being investigated in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal. Indian tribes paid Abramoff and his lobbying firm big fees in exchange for promises he would get favorable rulings from lawmakers and members of the executive branch on their casino plans.)

Pombo is also involved in my favorite bit of election-year irony. He has been criticized for lobbying then-Interior Secretary Gale Norton to suspend regulations opposed by the wind-power industry because his parents collect sizable royalties from windmills on their ranch. Pombo, his critics have noted, has a personal interest in the ranch. So who should Pombo face in the 2006 election? Democrat Jerry McNerney, a wind-power engineer and CEO of a start-up wind-turbine manufacturer.

The oil and gas industry also gives heavily to Texas Rep. Joe Barton, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee; to Sens. James Talent of Missouri, Conrad Burns of Montana and George Allen of Virginia, all of whom sit on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee; to Illinois’ Dennis Hastert, speaker of the House, who plays a huge role in deciding what legislation moves to the floor for a vote and what doesn’t; and to Pennsylvania’s Rick Santorum, head of the Senate Republican Conference and announced candidate for Republican whip in 2006 if he wins re-election.

Control of Congress up in air

Among the top 10 recipients of oil and gas money, Pombo, Talent, Burns and Santorum face stiff races for re-election this year. That, plus the possibility of a shift in control of one or both houses of Congress from Republican to Democratic, creates some interesting angles for investors interested in playing potential changes in U.S. energy policy as the biases of Republican incumbents yield to the biases of Democratic replacements.Sometimes it’s hard to tell exactly what the effect might be. So for example, a shift in control of the House of Representatives would be likely to unseat Barton as chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. (Barton is a lock in his re-election. The incumbent has raised $2.7 million to Democratic challenger David Harris’ $22,000. Harris had $932 in his campaign treasury as of Oct. 20.)

Barton has been one of the fiercest congressional critics of global-warming theories. At a recent congressional hearing, he said, “As long as I am chairman, (regulating the gases that produce global warming) is off the table indefinitely. I don’t want there to be any uncertainty about that.” But Barton’s likely replacement would be John Dingell, D-Mich., a fierce advocate for the U.S. automobile industry.

In other cases, the effect of the change is easier to extrapolate. Pombo’s likely replacement as chairman of the House Resources Committee would be Nick Rahall, D-W.Va. Can you say “coal,” boys and girls?

Money and politics go hand in hand

No matter how the elections turn out this year, of course, the connection between money and politicians will survive. Incumbents of both parties know that taking the money out of politics — I mean, really taking it out — would destroy one of most effective tools they have for assuring their own re-election. Taking the money out of campaigns is less likely than the Easter Bunny passing out eggs in January.So vote your convictions. Throw this year’s bums out. They certainly deserve it. Then watch to see which newly elected politicians start quickly to work to become next year’s bums.

And always remember the great American humorist Finley Peter Dunne’s advice: “Trust everybody, but cut the cards.”

Dumb as We Wanna Be

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

It is great to see that we finally have some national unity on energy policy. Unfortunately, the unifying idea is so ridiculous, so unworthy of the people aspiring to lead our nation, it takes your breath away. Hillary Clinton has decided to line up with John McCain in pushing to suspend the federal excise tax on gasoline, 18.4 cents a gallon, for this summer’s travel season. This is not an energy policy. This is money laundering: we borrow money from China and ship it to Saudi Arabia and take a little cut for ourselves as it goes through our gas tanks. What a way to build our country.

When the summer is over, we will have increased our debt to China, increased our transfer of wealth to Saudi Arabia and increased our contribution to global warming for our kids to inherit.

No, no, no, we’ll just get the money by taxing Big Oil, says Mrs. Clinton. Even if you could do that, what a terrible way to spend precious tax dollars — burning it up on the way to the beach rather than on innovation?

The McCain-Clinton gas holiday proposal is a perfect example of what energy expert Peter Schwartz of Global Business Network describes as the true American energy policy today: “Maximize demand, minimize supply and buy the rest from the people who hate us the most.”

Good for Barack Obama for resisting this shameful pandering.

But here’s what’s scary: our problem is so much worse than you think. We have no energy strategy. If you are going to use tax policy to shape energy strategy then you want to raise taxes on the things you want to discourage — gasoline consumption and gas-guzzling cars — and you want to lower taxes on the things you want to encourage — new, renewable energy technologies. We are doing just the opposite.

Are you sitting down?

Few Americans know it, but for almost a year now, Congress has been bickering over whether and how to renew the investment tax credit to stimulate investment in solar energy and the production tax credit to encourage investment in wind energy. The bickering has been so poisonous that when Congress passed the 2007 energy bill last December, it failed to extend any stimulus for wind and solar energy production. Oil and gas kept all their credits, but those for wind and solar have been left to expire this December. I am not making this up. At a time when we should be throwing everything into clean power innovation, we are squabbling over pennies.

These credits are critical because they ensure that if oil prices slip back down again — which often happens — investments in wind and solar would still be profitable. That’s how you launch a new energy technology and help it achieve scale, so it can compete without subsidies.

The Democrats wanted the wind and solar credits to be paid for by taking away tax credits from the oil industry. President Bush said he would veto that. Neither side would back down, and Mr. Bush — showing not one iota of leadership — refused to get all the adults together in a room and work out a compromise. Stalemate. Meanwhile, Germany has a 20-year solar incentive program; Japan 12 years. Ours, at best, run two years.

“It’s a disaster,” says Michael Polsky, founder of Invenergy, one of the biggest wind-power developers in America. “Wind is a very capital-intensive industry, and financial institutions are not ready to take ‘Congressional risk.’ They say if you don’t get the [production tax credit] we will not lend you the money to buy more turbines and build projects.”

It is also alarming, says Rhone Resch, the president of the Solar Energy Industries Association, that the U.S. has reached a point “where the priorities of Congress could become so distorted by politics” that it would turn its back on the next great global industry — clean power — “but that’s exactly what is happening.” If the wind and solar credits expire, said Resch, the impact in just 2009 would be more than 100,000 jobs either lost or not created in these industries, and $20 billion worth of investments that won’t be made.

While all the presidential candidates were railing about lost manufacturing jobs in Ohio, no one noticed that America’s premier solar company, First Solar, from Toledo, Ohio, was opening its newest factory in the former East Germany — 540 high-paying engineering jobs — because Germany has created a booming solar market and America has not.

In 1997, said Resch, America was the leader in solar energy technology, with 40 percent of global solar production. “Last year, we were less than 8 percent, and even most of that was manufacturing for overseas markets.”

The McCain-Clinton proposal is a reminder to me that the biggest energy crisis we have in our country today is the energy to be serious — the energy to do big things in a sustained, focused and intelligent way. We are in the midst of a national political brownout.

Erika Morgan brought this to my attention. It is good material outlining what the solar shift looked like in 2007.

Click the photo to open the PDF

Dear Friend,

Recently, President Bush delivered what was billed as a major
speech on global warming.

What a disaster! Rather than staking out a set of ambitious
goals for America to strive for, the President argued that the
United States should do nothing about global warming until 2025.

That’s completely irresponsible — and President Bush needs to
hear it.

Senator Barbara Boxer is going to deliver a petition to the
White House, demanding that President Bush stand up and join the
fight to stop global warming. I hope you’ll join me and add your
name to the petition by clicking on the link below:

http://ga6.org/campaign/bush_gw?rk=v7d3sw1qb7kRW

and feel free to use strong language

-Tim Padden
House of Solar

I thought this was very interesting.

Sometimes I post things and team members comment that my post was not about solar energy. My goal is to share information about the world and how we can create a world we want to live in . I think out current state of living has been caused by lack of consciousness about our actions and our results. I we can become more intentional about our results we can change the world. If we can organize our own closets , we can change the world.

-Tim Padden
House of Solar
“If you want to go quickly , go alone. If you want to go far , go with others.”

10 Green Social Networks You Should Know -Posted on www.earth2tech.com

What’s going to be the viral element that gets us to cut down on our collective carbon emissions? Who’s going to deliver us the iPod of cleantech? If we knew for sure, we’d be off building it, but these 10 web sites think they have the key ingredients to motivate their users to fight global warming and cut carbon. Do you think they have what it takes? Here’s our thoughts and our list of 10 green social networks you should know:

Carbonrally: When Jason Karas thought up Carbonrally in mid-2007, his idea was to capitalize on the desire to compete. He launched the site in mid-November and after 5 months says he has almost 2,000 active users and has had 20,000 visitors. Unlike a lot of the sites out there, Carbonrally doesn’t focus on raising or donating money or using carbon calculators, instead it uses the draw of being on a team to help members focus their efforts on challenges that reduce carbon emissions.

If you’re one of those team-spirit types who always dresses up for your work’s Hawaiian Shirt Friday (or were heavy into the greek system) then this site could really resonate with you. That also makes it a really good fit for corporate customers to organize company carbon programs, and Karas tells us that the site has brought in two corporate Google teams, in Boston and Pittsburg. Corporations could also be Carbonrally’s real moneymaker, as businesses could be willing to pay for more premium subscription services. The site will need to get more viral traction to really make it big.

Zerofootprint.net: Zerofootprint is one of the startups that actually seems to have a sustainable business model. Funny that it’s also one of the few that’s a nonprofit. The Toronto-based company creates branded carbon calculators and community sites for cities and large organizations, and back in May 2007, when there weren’t that many carbon calc sites out there, the startup launched its first branded site with Toronto. We’d say one of the biggest hurdles for the site is actually that darn .net! (the dotcom and dotorg must have already been taken).

MakeMeSustainable: As the name suggests, this site is basically a personal workout to reduce your carbon footprint. The “Manager” section monitors your carbon emissions over time via “actions” you’ve taken like “Joining a carpool” or ‘Installing better power management on your PC.” Then there’s a social-networking component where you can join user-created groups and see who’s involved in the site in your local area.

Out of most of the sites around, this one is one of the better designed, with easy-to-read charts and Google maps of other MakeMeSustainable members nearby. The team seems well versed in web 2.0 features. It’s also particularly appealing for someone who is swayed by hard data and graphs. But if you’re looking for something less personal-carbon-fitness and more feel-good-team-spirit, this one might feel a little cold.

Celsias.com: Celsias used to be a blog we read regularly, but in January it also became a social network community site for climate change-fighting advocates. Celsias organizes its community around “Projects” that users can create and join. Right now, a good deal of the projects are organizations or companies promoting themselves, and they don’t seem to add that much value to the community aspect. To build community, the site should provide its users with better ways to interact with the projects and to take more advantage of web features.

Change.org: The do-gooder social network, launched by Ben Rattray in February 2007, offers a variety of philanthropic actions to focus on, but highlights several green projects like “End Dependency on Oil,” and “Stop Global Warming.” Rattray tells us that the site has just over 110,000 users, is growing at about 4,000 new members a week, and the team is currently preparing for a major relaunch over the summer. (Also take a look at Rattray’s slide show presentation on peer-to-peer fundraising at a convention).

We particularly like how the site uses events in the news to organize issues, and features “take action” and “donate” buttons directly under the appropriate news stream. We also like the “network graph” which lets you take a look at all your recruits and contacts around the cause you’re fighting for. One aspect that was a bit off-putting was constant requests for us to input our friends’ and families’ email addresses to get them to join our causes. A bit aggressive for our tastes.

WorldCoolers.org: WorldCoolers is a browser add-on made by marketing company Collactive that alerts you to news and announcements on global warming. The site also has a section for online campaigns and a blog that was in hiatus for about a year. The site design could be a lot better and we wish the app itself did something more interesting than alerts.

BigCarrot: Are cash prizes the answer to the world’s problems? BigCarrot.com; is looking to turn the trend of offering prizes for innovations (such as the Auto X Prize and Virgin Earth Challenge) into a distributed community project. Individuals can pool their resources into a cash offering, which they can then doll out for goals like bringing greywater recycling systems to communities or building a language-teaching web app.

Big Carrot’s founder and CEO, Kent Pepper, tells us that the site, which launched into beta in January, will make money from a combination of a 5 percent fee for transactions, advertising on its website and investing the cash prizes in “low-risk financial” tools. To grow the site Pepper says he’s looking to raise a round of $1 million from investors. While we understand that the site did just launch, it clearly hasn’t brought in a community of users yet. The cash prizes are all put up as “starter prizes” by the company itself. Pepper hopes that over the next few months the audience will grow enough that community members start organically creating group prizes.

Care2.com: Care2 is an example of a mainstream green community site that got in on the Internet’s do-gooder focus way early — it was launched back in 1998. And thus it’s been able to bring in a sizable user base over that period of time. The site claims to have 8 million members, and Compete says it has 1 million unique visitors. It’s definitely got the look and feel of a ’90s style internet portal. We’re thinking the site is in need of a serious redesign, though it does have some more modern features like a digg-style news ranking.

2People.org: 2 People is another site that’s been around a few years and needs a serious redesign. It gets its name from the motto: “How do you move a nation: 2 People.” The only thing we really like about the site is that its trying to organize people around climate policy, through its “Focus the Nation - Climate Dialogues” and “Climate Elections 2008″ initiatives. Getting people motivated around climate policy and education is crucial, particularly this year.

BeGreenNow: While this site is a little sparse on innovation, it was created by Austin, Texas-based clean-electricity provider Green Mountain Energy, so it’s interesting to see how companies are using green community sites to market themselves. It’s got a carbon calculator and ways to offset your carbon emissions. GigaOM writer Stacey, who’s based in Austin, says Green Mountain seems to be losing a bit of popularity in her area, so marketing like this must be one of its strategies to grow its business.

ECO-THREAT TO ALES
SOMETHING MUST CHANGE !!!

By DAVID K. LI

April 22, 2008 — High beer prices are on tap, and global warming could be to blame.

The environmental crisis has hit suds-lovers where it hurts most - at the bar and in the wallet - as prices of grains and hops soar, activists said yesterday.

“When we’re trying to deal with young people, you have to define issues that are attractive to them, and this is something that’s caught their attention,” said Matthew Silverstein, president of the Queens County Young Democrats, which was set to host a “Save the Ales” forum last night on the impact of global warming on beer prices.

As global temperatures rise, radical shifts in weather and more parched lands are making it harder to grow grains and hops, activists and beer makers agreed.

Kelly Taylor, brewmaster for Kelso of Brooklyn beers, said his customers have paid between 10 and 15 percent more in the past year. He warned that more hikes are inevitable.

“I think prices are going to be going up every year - steep price increases,” Taylor said. “My malt prices went up by 50 percent in one year.”

Taylor, whose brewery is in Clinton Hill, said hops and grains were in short supply worldwide.

“We saw a drought in Australia, a bad harvest in Europe, flooding in Germany and hailstorms in the Pacific Northwest. Across the board, we saw significant rises in the price of grains and hops,” he said.

The beer man chalked up the wild weather to global warming but said many of his customers don’t take the issue seriously enough.

“Some people are just calling it a bad year,” he said.

Shane Welch, brewmaster at Six Point Craft Ales, in Red Hook, Brooklyn, said even small brewers are locking themselves into costly, long-term deals for hops and grains at hefty annual price boosts.

But even with those deals in hand, Welch said, it doesn’t assure brewers will have the ingredients they need.

“You can sign all the contacts you want to guarantee a price and certain amount of pounds - but who’s to say they’ll even have that product available?” the veteran brewmaster said.

“If there’s none to go around, then what?”

Microbreweries like Six Point and Kelso could be hit especially hard.

“It’s going to have an impact on a slot of small craft breweries, this is going to shake out a lot of people who can’t deal with these price increases,” Welch said.

“It’d be one thing if you’re talking about costs going up 10 to 20 percent over a few years. We’re talking 50, 70, 120, 200 percent on certain strains, the most sought-after hops.”

david.li@nypost.com

Feds Want to Survey, Possibly Clean Up Vast Garbage Pit in Pacific

JUSTIN BERTON / San Francisco Chronicle 30 oct 2007

The so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a stewy body of plastic and marine debris that floats an estimated 1,000 miles west of San Francisco, is a shape-shifting mass far too large, delicate and remote to ever be cleaned up, according to a researcher who recently returned from the area.

But that might not stop the federal government from trying.

Charles Moore, the marine researcher at the Algalita Marina Research Foundation in Long Beach who has been studying and publicizing the patch for the past 10 years, said the debris — which he estimates weighs 3 million tons and covers an area twice the size of Texas — is made up mostly of fine plastic chips and is impossible to skim out of the ocean.

“Any attempt to remove that much plastic from the oceans — it boggles the mind,” Moore said from Hawaii, where his crew is docked. “There’s just too much, and the ocean is just too big.”

The trash collects in one area, known as the North Pacific Gyre, due to a clockwise trade wind that circulates along the Pacific Rim. It accumulates the same way bubbles gather at the center of hot tub, Moore said.

A two-liter plastic bottle that begins its voyage from a storm drain in San Francisco will get pulled into the gyre and take weeks to reach its place among the other debris in the Garbage Patch.

While the bottle floats along, instead of biodegrading, it will “photodegrade,” Moore said — the sun’s UV rays will turn the bottle brittle, much like they would crack the vinyl on a car roof. They will break down the bottle into small pieces and, in some cases, into particles as fine as dust.

The Garbage Patch is not a solid island, as some people believe, Moore said. Instead, it resembles a soupy mass, interspersed with large pieces of junk such as derelict fishing nets and waterlogged tires — “an alphabet soup,” he called it.

Also, it’s undetectable by overhead satellite photos because it’s 80 percent plastic and therefore translucent, Moore added. The plastic moves just beneath the surface, from one inch to depths of 300 feet, according to samples he collected on the most recent trip, he said.

By Moore’s estimation, the “floating landfill” is also simply too far from land to conduct any meaningful cleanup operation. It’s about 1,000 miles west of California and 1,000 miles north of the Hawaiian Islands — a week’s journey by boat from the nearest port. It swirls in a convergence zone located about 30 to 40 degrees north latitude and 135 to 145 west longitude.

There’s no doubt that a stew of marine debris exists in the convergence zone of the gyre, said Holly Bamford, an oceanographer and director of the marine debris program at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, but there is some debate as to its size.

Moore has led most of the research and publicity surrounding the Garbage Patch, so Bamford said her federal agency, which oversees ocean conditions, is collecting its own data to assess the area and density.

Bamford said she has noted some “gaps in the research” that suggest the affected area is not as large as Moore estimates. Yet there’s no question that marine debris is gathering in the area and is having a negative impact on marine life, such as fish who mistake the particles for food.

“But before we embark on a huge removal process,” Bamford said, “we need to understand what we’re dealing with.”

Bamford added that the agency had attempted to take satellite photos of the area last year, but the overhead photos were inconclusive. “It’s hard to distinguish a whale reaching the surface versus a piece of plastic,” she said.

Still, Bamford said the agency is considering flying unmanned aircraft that can be launched from boats to skim the ocean’s surface and collect data.

But launching the drones is 18 months away, Bamford said. It could be two years before a federal plan is enacted to remove the plastic — if it’s warranted, Bamford said.

“Once we get to that stage, we’d need to ask, ‘If we can remove it, what would be the best way? And what would we do with it afterward? If we collect it, would we bring it back to shore — and then what, put it in a landfill?’ ”

In the meantime, as the production and the use of plastic continue to grow, so will the Garbage Patch, Moore said. The only way to reduce marine debris, all sides agree, is to cut it off at its source — on land.

The dramatic growth in plastics use over the past two decades is what distresses activists like Moore. The annual production of plastic resin in the United States has roughly doubled in the past 20 years, from nearly 60 billion pounds in 1987 to an estimated 120 billion pounds in 2007, according to a study by the American Chemistry Council, which represents the nation’s largest plastic and chemical manufacturers.

Keith Cristman, a senior director of packaging at the American Chemistry Council, said the plastics industry is aware of its connection to marine debris and said the council is working with federal and state agencies to put more recycling bins on California beaches in an attempt to stop plastic bottles and bags from making their way to the sea.

At the end of November, Cristman said, the council is co-sponsoring its first marine debris workshop with state and federal agencies.

Cristman said he’d rather see more plastic recycled than production slowed.

“Plastic is a valuable resource,” he said. “It shouldn’t be wasted, it should be recycled.”

Asked if the council would assist in any cleanup of the Garbage Patch if the federal government called on it, Cristman said, “We’re always interested in working with NOAA and the EPA.”

Moore said his crew had collected new data that suggested more plastic is entering the gyre, yet he was hesitant to elaborate until he finalized the research.

“The ocean is downhill from everywhere,” Moore said. “It’s like a toilet that never flushes. You can’t take these particles out of the ocean. You can just stop putting them in.”

More on plastic in the oceans

 Map of Plastic

source: 30oct2007