Science lesson of the day: popular lies

  'The Amazon rainforest is being clearcut at a dangerous rate." 

  "The Amazon Rain Forest is truly the lungs of planet earth."  

      Both of these are stupid lies, obvious to anyone with a modicum of education in science. 

    The Amazon, through photosynthesis, does affix carbon dioxode and produce oxygen...during the day. 

 At night of course the Amazon CONSUMES massive amounts of oxygen during cellular respiration, which goes on 24/7, unlike photosynthesis, so much of that oxygen made during the day gets used back up, leaving a modest surplus net gain.  If we clearcut the amazon completely, the loss of oxygen cycling would actually  be fairly small.  

    The Amazon produces about 16% of all LAND-BASED oxygen cycling.  But land only makes up about 29% of the earth's surface. So take all that land mass, add up the plant biomass there, and figure out the offsets for deforestation and Reforestation.

     Reforestation is a thing too.

 New England, for example, is being reforested at a shocking rate. Once America's Bread Basket, its' forests are criscrossed with old stone farm walls where wheat fields grew.  If you project ahead at the rate of reforestation in New England, by the year 2550, parking lots will cease to exist. 

   Enter phytoplankton- single-celled plants in the ocean, which covers about 71% of the earth's surface. Phytoplankton are the true lungs of the earth... and phytoplankton are doing great, thank you. 

   The rich green conferva soup of the ocean in the boreal and temperate latitudes, the spaces between arctic/antarctic and the tropics... that green seawater is rich in phytoplankton. In the tropics, where nutrients are tied up in the land, there are still phytoplankton, in more modest but massive numbers. 

       Globally, we have macroalgae- seaweeds. The Sargasso Sea comes to mind. It's growing, btb. Gets stinky when it washes ashore but that's a blessing of nature, just not for our delicate noses.  All that carbon and nutrients waiting to be released in the neotropics where free carbon and free nutrients are a bit scarce. 

   Globally we also have cyanobacteria, the smallest living single-celled plant on earth, often called blue-green algae. Both free in the water column and growing on EVERYTHING wet, even on land too. 

  You know those dark stains on rocky outcrops? Blue-green algae.  And it's an oxygen-making POWERHOUSE.  A conservative guess is that it alone produces HALF of all global oxygen, even before you get to the algae, diatoms and other oxygen-makers in the ocean. 

       So don't buy into the panic.   We're gonna be ok.  I like a clean, less-developed earth for my own quality of life, myself, but the poor ass Brazilian Indios are big fans of  not dying of famine or tropical diseases in their own backyard, so let the poor naked bastards sell off some land and buy some goddam shoes and address the Hierarchy of Needs if they want. 

    Oh, fun exception to the plants sucking down oxygen at night... the pothos plant.  They have oxygen storage capability- they pick up extra during the day and use it at night, but always release a surplus. 

      I really am a font of useless info. 

 But seriously, get a pothos.  They do a good.job of trapping dust and processing some nasty co ntaminants in the air.  We had one on the HQ for over 10 years- it circled the perimeter of the galley twice over, must have been 80+ feet overall.  Killed us when it finally died. The jungle motif was a treat. 

 

Being Eastern European Means Never Having To Say You're Sorry

 No, this isn't about world events, fitle notwithstanding. I mean it IS related though... 

       I finally got part of what I've been looking for, a job that wasn't fucked up. 

    Part of it went right, which is fhe first time in 20 days thst has happened. 

We loaded oil for 2 seperate ships the other day. The oil for first ship I pumped off myself, yesterday, and praise be, it went right and it went smooth.   Finally. 

     Tonight for part 2?   Naw, it's fucked up. Back to normal for what normal has been this tour.

          So tonight we run shorter 'dog' watches, where we cut them short to rotate our schedule. As I'm entering my final week aboard, it's my turn to take the back watch, 6pm to 6am.  

           Tonight's ship is an oil tanker, and the engineer kept calling for pump throttle changes, which is annoying and not normal but also not dangerous, so... so be it.  But then he kept calling for shut downs- not for emergencies but for whatever reason. After the 3rd time I refused to start back up until we had a heart-to-heart, where I noted that in our paperwork package he signed a document saying that he would provide a 10-minute early warning for non-emergency stops and starts.  Aside from safety issues related to that, I told him that my pumps would likely lose prime if we shut down while transferring the last 15% of he oil.  

 Less than 10 mins after our talk, he did it again, and sure enough, my pump lost prime, so now I have a foot of warm oil that will turn cold and solid in that tank, and will take a week or more to get rid of over the next few jobs, fucking with my volumes. 

       So, shit happens and safety first... we all want to keep the oil in the tanks, mine and his,  and while I'm positive this was just an anxious engineer's timidity and unprofessional behavior, I'm not going to bet my career on it. He says shut down, I shut down, and we can unfuck an inconvenience a lot easier than we can an accident.

   Here's the thing, though, and my point, finally. I don't think I have ever heard an Eastern European person apologize.  They're stereotypically very arrogant, at least in my trade. Not all, of course. But many. Most, even... and perhaps that's me. Cognitive bias, bigotry maybe, I dunno. And the language thing; when  speak without use article, modifier or preposition in English, it make sound asshole. 

  But typically when I ask for one of them to do something or not do something, the answer I get is that it is all my fault. 

 Tonight, for example, when I lost prime tonight , Ivan says 'This you problem, no my. You buy this pump. Is bad pump.' 

    I was good about not fussing at him... but not good enough.  My internal monologue was all, 'say nothing. Be professional. Anything you say will not help.' 

 So I said 'Well, you no can get more oil. This you problem, no mine, hoss.' 

 When annoyed, I like calling people 'hoss.'  I don't know when that started.  

 I'm glad I didn't yell, though, or swear.  The way things have been, if I started, I maybe wouldn't stop. Down deep I know it's not worth it. My recent distemper was here long before this trashbag came into my life and of all the pain in the balls people I've dealt with, this guy's merely the most recent. 

 Gotta stay positive. 

   Edit:   Now after the job is done and we are all.fast at a dock to wait for our next loading berth to open up, things are not as bleak.  

    I've been getting some really high quality tugboat deckhands helping us out at arrival and departure. Sadly, these kids are mostly working for 3rd party tugboat companies, but still it's good to see and good for the workplace culture I try to keep on here.  

 My outlook has just been so dark lately. It's beyond being in a brown study. I am downright down, after so many unsatisfying days... and so a bright, friendly and interested hard working Ordinary Seaman on board is a breath of.fresh air. 

     When we sailed away from the tub o' surly bohunks earlier, by the time we cast off the last line, the deckhand had cracked a joke and broken the tension.  An hour later, after we were all fast, I showed him a couple of tricks and good practices with marlinespike seamanship; using the 'handedness' of the lay of the line, stovepiping vs traditional making off of lines, how to ID the snapback and safe zones of any line under tension, just dumb little things thst will make him better and that were taught to my idiot ass long ago... and in doing that I could feel the tension headache slipping away. 

 Still, I'm glad my day's done... for values of done. I get 8 hours free than back at it.  Dog watch days can be long days. 

 

These are my clutching pearls

 I gotta stop uding this blog as my ombudsman/fainting couch/tear-stained dear diary.  Every post lately has been about who/what failed me this time and how I heroically saved the day/bore the burden with masculine stoicism. 

     To stop my bitching, it would be really, really nice if I could have a cargo that loaded and pumped off well, or a day at home where my day didn't end with existential dread or 'Fuck it, I'm too tired to care any more today.' 

    Nothing yet, but I'm trying to find that day. Sure wasn't yesterday and today my day was already ruined by 0435 when I walked into the galley to caffeinate, eat a handful of blood pressure meds and vitamins, and B says to me 'Fuck, man...' 

         Maybe tomorrow. Sorry for all the whining. 

   

Upping my game

 So this morning there's some training to do. 

        For assorted reasons, mostly legit, I have to do some supervisor training for booze and drug, as well as sexual harassment policy awareness.  This seems to be a once every year or two thing. 

  Drunks on boats are pretty common. Adding oil to the mix makes it a big no-no.   Drugs too. And with all the weed legalization going on, it's a huge issue. Guys pissing hot for weed during testing has massively increased in rate and it's still illegal AF for anyone working in transportstion.  

   Honestly that's a mixed bag. We've lost some good young guys with shitty impulse control over that, but we've also lost some absolute fucking idiots and scumbags, too, so I'm cool with testing. 

           The sexual harassment thing is a bit more academic for me. I'm fortunate to have never seen it in person, and I've worked with a few female mariners, most of whom were VERY competent... thst being said, I've also been aware of harassment towards women I HAVEN'T worked with but whom I know somewhat, and not even all that long ago, and it's ALWAYS been absolutely real and unjustifiable.  

     As I wrote above, though, it's a bit academic for me, and there's a story involved.

   About 10-12 years ago, we had a female tugboat deckhand who took the classes and got the endorsement from the Coast Guard to be raised to tankerman and start turning valves with us in the Retard Circus (the tankermen pool). 

    Thing is, this girl was a pretty and young latina, which shouldn't matter but matters. 

         Having no female tankermen at the time, a young and competent girl would be a real feather in my company's cap, so the powers thst be asked B and I to train her. 

 B said Fuck No, on the spot, his exact words being 'No, I'd like to stay married, thanks.' I said something along the lines of 'Yeah, my wife ain't having that. I need to stay married more than I need this job.'  

     What was cool about the issue was that the fleet manager absolutely understood. 

    Sure enough, she was trained elsewhere and later married her trainer. She was a good catch, he was smart to snatch her up. 

        There IS a difference between a tugboat and an oil barge. At times we're isolated and there's only 2 of us on board. At those times we have only each other for mutual support. 

      When I told Inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife (who is NOT the jealous type) that we were asked and said no, she responded calmly, texting me a picture of a kitchen knife and the words 'Eu viu seu cortar sua pinto, voce e meu.' (I'll cut your dick off, you are mine). 

   Anyhow, I had already said no, and it's nice to know she was concerned.  

    Now I joke, and of course spending 2 hours watching videos is and answering dumb questions in a test at the end is brutal. You can't speed things up. I don't have attention issues, but my brain works fast. I either know something or I don't.  Making me wait 45 seconds between individual multiple-choice questions means 4-5 seconds of thinky, 40 seconds of no thinky. It's cancer. My mind doesn't work like that when I'm not engaged in drudgery... and this is drudgery. I'm not bragging. I read fast and think fast and not being able to have a reasonable pace is a millstone around my neck. It makes me resent the subject being considered, which is dead nuts opposite to what the goal is. 

       I work really diligently at not working with people. I get annoyed with everyone regardless of sex. I am not bigoted in my hate. So, admire me. 

   As for booze, yeah, I'm really into going home alive and with a job to come back to. If there's a booze-related issue aboard, there's already been a clusterfuck and I resent anyone bringing MORE clusterfucks aboard. We're brimming to the top already.  Making clear that booze and drugs aboard will result in them being thrown over the side while they're still in your corpse's pockets is a fairly simple but effective strategy. 

   Also, for legal reasons, that's a joke. 

 Also also, I don't like strangers aboard, which is an additional safety-enhancing strategy. 

 I had a junkie sternman when I was still a lobsterman.. this was maybe 2004?  Asshole fooled me, right up until him and his trashbag baby mama nodded off at home while giving their baby a bath and killed the poor little bastard.  Ever since, I've had no tolerance for shitheads. I think that's why my go-to emotion is anger when the issue pops up at work. Get fucked up on your own time, you know? 

 

    

A good job

 It took 14 days, but we finally had a cargo that came on smooth and pumped off smooth too. 

     It's been a bear this past tour. The whole no running water thing for 5 days, and on top of thst we've had daily small parcels of oil to move, and of those, more than 1/2 tested out as out of range for one chemical property or another, or the ship orders a blend of oil and then only takes part of it, and so the remainder sits in that tank and solidifies in the cold, giving us a list to one side or another, etc etc etc... anyhow there's been problems every single time. 

   Today, the ship was on time, the crew were nice, hard working and good communicators, and I even had nice deckhands from our tugboats when it was time to go.

        One good job in the books. I pray the momentum will keep it going. 

Water woes, revisited

 This time we went 5 days without running water.  We just got it back, now that it's above freezing, but who knows for how long?  Long enough for me to shower and do laundry, because the inside of the house smells like onions and hot dog water. 

 Don't even feel writing. I am, however, grateful for having a washed ass again. 

weather day

 

  A gust of wind just hit us hard enough to be felt from inside the house.

 

  It’s blowing a gale tonight here on HAWSEPIPER’s Afloat Global HQ/Center for Excellence in Creative Profanity.

 

  It’s been busy. Oil is not flowing like the proverbial wine. The oil is flowing like the urine stream of a middle aged man with prostate issues.

 

 (I don’t have prostate issues. No funny ideas, God, please).

 

  Big E, my partner on here and quite probably The World’s Nicest Man, has been about ready to burn the boats and go ham on the natives, as we’ve been getting oil that is not as advertized- that is to say, after blending on board the HQ, the oil is consistently not coming out according to receipe, which, turns out, is not the fault of the cooks (us). We look like assholes, but if instead of a nice broiler, you’re unknowingly putting a roadkill opossum into the cookpot, there’s not much you can do when your Coq Au Vin tastes like the shag carpet welcome mat in a gas station men’s room.

 

 

  Plus, the weather is... well it’s the Northeast. At Halloween it starts blowing, and it stops around May. Gales 3x a week. I’ve been getting rained on and snowed on and ice-pelleted on for all but one night since I got back aboard and that night I got shit on.

  Fucking seagull.

  No, I bitch, but under the 20lbs of foul weather gear, while staring down at a gauging tape in the cargo tanks, eyes streaming from the volitiles doing to eyes what onions do to eyes but with carcinogenic flavorings, there’s definitely a couple of things bubbling through my mind that are keeping the general misery of being cold wet and tired at bay. My recent very positive biopsy results being chief among them.

  Yeah, it hasn’t been great out, but I am starting to understand Billy D, my high-school English teacher and employer, the guy who bought the lobsterboat I grew up from the old timer who taught me to fish, and who consequently manipulated my schedule in high school so so we could go fishing in the afternoons twice a week after lunch.

 

  Whenever one of his crewmen bitched about the shitty weather in the fall and winter, Bill would always should the same thing. “IT’S A BEAUTIFUL DAY! THIS DAY WILL NEVER COME AGAIN!”

  Bill was a smart man. A good man too, in a way that the world no longer produces often. He passed on a few years ago, and he closed his obituary with those very words.

  As I age I understand him more. The days that suck are still better than the days spent looking at the grass grow from underneath.

  Looking back, I’m more impressed at the things Bill didn’t say. For example, during the fall semesters in college I worked for him on Saturdays, hauling lobster pots with him and one of his high school students, and I’d share my vast wealth of knowledges gained from my experience as a college biology student who traveled a whole 17 miles from where he was born to go to university.

  How the hell Bill didn’t tell me to be quiet and stop acting a fool 3-4 times a day I don’t know. But looking back I value his forebearance. Older, probably-should-be-wiser-by-now me

 is not sure I could have done the same. Nonetheless I eventually figured things out. Better late than never... and I still shoot my mouth off more than I should, but at least I have learned enouigh that at least SOME of what I say isn’t utter bullshit.