The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness
by Sy MontgomerySetting: Massachusetts
Published on May 12th 2015
Pages: 261
Octopuses have varied personalities and intelligence they show in myriad ways: endless trickery to escape enclosures and get food; jetting water playfully to bounce objects like balls; and evading caretakers by using a scoop net as a trampoline and running around the floor on eight arms. But with a beak like a parrot, venom like a snake, and a tongue covered with teeth, how can such a being know anything? And what sort of thoughts could it think?
The intelligence of dogs, birds, and chimpanzees was only recently accepted by scientists, who now are establishing the intelligence of the octopus, watching them solve problems and deciphering the meaning of their color-changing camouflage techniques. Montgomery chronicles this growing appreciation of the octopus, but also tells a love story. By turns funny, entertaining, touching, and profound, The Soul of an Octopus reveals what octopuses can teach us about consciousness and the meeting of two very different minds.
I love octopuses. I think they are fascinating. I’ve never had the chance to meet one though like this author did. She got to know three octopuses over the course of a few years. It was amazing to hear about the ways their physiology lets them interact with the world. They can taste with their skin, camouflage even though they are color blind, and work through complex puzzles.
She also lets you get to know the people working behind the scenes in the aquarium who love these animals.
This book is wonderful for anyone who is interested in finding out more about these animals. I am looking forward to reading more from this author.
News media brought the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch"--the famous swirling gyre of plastic pollution in the ocean--into the public consciousness. But when Marcus Eriksen cofounded the 5 Gyres Institute with his wife, Anna Cummins, and set out to study the world's oceans with hundreds of volunteers, they discovered a "plastic smog" of microscopic debris that permeates our oceans globally, defying simple clean-up efforts. What's more, these microplastics and their toxic chemistry have seeped into the food chain, threatening marine life and humans alike.
Junk Raft: An Ocean Voyage and a Rising Tide of Activism to Fight Plastic Pollution
by Marcus Eriksen
Setting: Pacific Ocean
Length: 8:05
Published on July 4th 2017
Pages: 216
Far from being a gloomy treatise on an environmental catastrophe, though, Junk Raft tells the exciting story of Eriksen and his team's fight to solve the problem of plastic pollution. A scientist, activist, and inveterate adventurer, Eriksen is drawn to the sea by a desire to right an environmental injustice. Against long odds and common sense, he and his co-navigator, Joel Paschal, construct a "junk raft" made of plastic trash and set themselves adrift from Los Angeles to Hawaii, with no motor or support vessel, confronting perilous cyclones, food shortages, and a fast decaying raft.
Plastic pollution in the ocean is a huge problem but it doesn’t manifest in exactly the ways that it has been portrayed in the press. Most of the ocean is polluted with microparticles of plastic that make any clean up operation almost impossible. The author’s goal is to require companies to take on more of the burden for reusing or recycling plastics they produce. Now they are freed from responsibility by requiring consumers to recycle if they don’t want the plastic going into a landfill.
This book used the framework of the several month journey on Junk to tell the story of the Earth’s plastic pollution problem. It is full of ideas for making the problem better but there needs to be buy in from a lot of people to make it happen.
The stories in the book are scary. So much damage is being done through human carelessness. Getting the word out about what needs to be done is important.
