Tag: Boyan Slat

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The Critics

When I first started publishing my own books, I had lots of people criticize my efforts.  People who seldom even wrote an e-mail and thought that was publishing, were telling me they never would have made the mistakes I made, or done it the way I did.  They judged my every decision as if they knew better than me.  I am glad I did not pay them much attention.

One of my heroes is now undergoing criticism and scrutiny and I hope he ignores it all.  Boyan Slat, is a 24 year young man attempting to clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a massive expanse of mostly plastic flotsam covering an area the size of Texas.    https://www.theoceancleanup.com

This is a monumental undertaking.  The people who criticize the current systems failures have no idea what a formidable task this is, as huge and as complicated as going to the moon.  And like going to the moon, has never been done before.

The ocean is a hostile, massive, deep body of water, with incredible powerful forces.  This is not some environment you can write reports about and then everything will work fine. You have to get out there and experience it.  And this is what Boyan Slat is doing.

We need to encourage people like Mr. Slat that he should never give up.  We made it to the moon with far less technology and beyond.  We can now clean up our oceans and restore the world.  We can learn from our mistakes and revise and rebuild.  One day Mr. Slat will be the most celebrated hero of the day.

Critics forget, this has never been done before.  The only real way to make it work is to get it off the drawing board and go DO it.  President Kennedy realized the same truth about going to the moon.  We had to do it.  Not just talk and write science fiction about it.  The rubber has to meet the road.

Boyan Slat is my inspiration, an example of perseverance and resilience, doing something you and I could never do.  He has the right attitude – learn from the mistakes and the unexpected and revise and rebuild until it works.  We need to silence the critics.

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What’s in a Name?

Here’s a name you may not know, but you should – Boyan Slat.

Allow me to introduce him to you.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-N9-g_IzAY&feature=youtu.be

Someone has to do it.  That’s just it, is the first words he says.

This is a young man attempting to clean up our oceans while billionaires like Bezos, Musk and Branson send junk up into space to fuel their egos.

While brain dead politicians like Trump try to convince us there are no environmental problems.

But Mr. Slat can see for himself.  He had this vision, this passion, to clean up the plastic from our oceans as a teenager, and with great tenacity is making that dream come true as a young adult.

He’s had to solicit funding from uber rich slobs who will only fund such feats if there is dollars in it for them.  If the collected plastic can’t be recycled (and hence not generate any money) or the project fails, out they go.  They could care less about the environment.

As Mr. Slat states, the answers to our problems is not to go back to what we were.  Our technology has enabled us to live greatly improved lives and to live longer.  We now need to use that technology to save the environment, and hence ourselves so we can continue making our lives better.  Not only this, but to get to a point where we are self sustaining, so we no longer have to keep taking from nature – we are separate, and no longer causing such great harm.  What an awesome young person!

We have so many uber rich people in this world who could fund such projects to clean our air, water and land and many brilliant minds who could put their talents to better use than designing yet another damn telephone.

The time for debates and another 500 page report on environmental issues is OVER.  We have to stop listening to our politicians – this is the only thing they excel at – TALKING – endlessly and say nothing, and worse, do nothing.  We have to be vigilantes now, like Boyan Slat and take matters into our own hands and save the world and ourselves, by ourselves.

That 12 year clock is ticking down.