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The Baltic Sea is 1,000 miles long and about 120 miles wide. The average depth is 180 feet, although its deepest part is 1,506 feet deep. The sea has about 5,000 miles of coastline.

The Baltic Sea and the surrounding area has a rich history, white beaches, cliffs, huge woods, and it is ringed with medieval cities.

But, according to many sources, it is also the most polluted sea in the world.

The Baltic Sea is a heavily trafficked shipping route, and tons of chemical weapons and radioactive waste has been dumped into it since World War II. Much of this dumping was done by the Russians, although they continue to deny it. The Baltic Sea also receives millions of tons of untreated sewage from the 90 million inhabitants along its shores.

The sea is so polluted that advisories exist against eating any fish caught from it, especially for pregnant women.

But there may be hope yet. Nine countries in the region, including Finland, Poland, Russia, Germany, and Sweden (which has the longest Baltic Sea shoreline), have agreed to work together to clean up the sea by 2021.

The clean-up is not without politics: Russia has plans for a major gas line through the sea, and critics fear more environmental damage could result.

But many are still hoping for the best, and the fact that the countries of the Baltic Sea are aware of the issue and are finally starting to work together is a positive sign.

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If you're old enough you'll remember the string of 1970s eco-disaster movies such as Soylent Green.

These movies portrayed a bleak vision of the future, and centered on the themes of overpopulation, pollution, famine, and war over scarce resources. Thankfully, the bleakest and most dire predictions have not come true.

But watch this 2007 video from BBC News, and see how close the eco-disaster movies came to predicting at least part of what our world would be like 40 years later.

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The Green Man Blog is written to spread environmental awareness and appreciation of the natural world around us. Thank you for visiting! Stay green, support the organic movement, and be sure to visit www.greenmantshirts.com or www.robjuszak.com for the best in organic cotton and bamboo t shirts!

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The Japanese were able to defeat the proposed ban on bluefin tuna fishing, and this event sparked a few comments on a YouTube video.

Some of the people who posted are unbelievably stupid, and as an example we put excerpts here from some of these idiots:


From "iamqqqqqqq:"

It is "lolling", because you should get off your high fin about tuna, because humanity itself has far more problems.

If it all comes down to humans starving, and some fish that evolved to be over millions of years roaming free and natural, I say fucking kill and eat the fish so that we can sustain ourselves.

Species have gone extinct for the entire history of populated Earth, and you yourself are never, ever going to stop a single beast from dying off, as the decades tick by.

From "2012HolyRomanEmpire:"

@INA101a I don't eat fish so I don't give a Sh** I hope they wipe it out just to spite losers like you

From "pochamking:"

any kind of fishing are carried out under the strict restriction to save resources. whaling as well.nevertheless, some guys who insist that they conserve environment try to earn money or appeal their activity to the world by alleging that species are in endanger. i think we need to tackle down poverty or HIV rather than those kind of matters. shame on environmentalists, u guys lead people to devastation.


Our question is: can someone really be this stupid? Besides the atrocious grammar and foul language, the warped logic and nihilism exhibited by these particular posters is beyond belief.

In the meantime, since the effort to temporarily ban bluefin fishing has failed, no one knows if the species will survive much longer.

The countries that voted against the ban were concerned about the economic damage their fishing industries would occur under a ban, but what happens when the bluefin are gone forever? What then?

Surely, countries realize that decimating a natural resource like bluefin to extinction makes no ethical, moral, or economic sense. We continue to hope, anyway.

Here is the link to the video that sparked these types of comments.