WEBVTT - Short Stuff: Friendly Floatees 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:06.280 Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and 0:00:06.320 --> 0:00:11.160 there's Chuck Ahoy maydie. This is short stuff. It's a 0:00:11.160 --> 0:00:13.920 fun story. Yeah. Have you you've heard of this before? Right? 0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:16.440 I have? And I mean it's about as fun as 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:20.760 an ecological disaster can get. I guess, well said, well said, 0:00:21.320 --> 0:00:24.400 And we are talking about an ecological disaster UM, and 0:00:24.440 --> 0:00:28.200 it's one that happens kind of frequently, which is UM 0:00:28.480 --> 0:00:31.840 the loss of a shipping container at sea. There's this 0:00:32.000 --> 0:00:35.360 UM insurance company, a marine cargo insurance company called t RG, 0:00:35.560 --> 0:00:39.960 and they estimate that every year anywhere from to ten 0:00:40.120 --> 0:00:43.720 thousand shipping containers you know, those big giant shipping containers 0:00:43.760 --> 0:00:47.640 that double is like an entire semi truck. Up to 0:00:47.680 --> 0:00:51.160 ten thousand of those just fall overboard into the sea 0:00:51.400 --> 0:00:55.640 every year. Did they get those out? No? No, they're 0:00:55.680 --> 0:00:59.440 going it's ten thousand, up to ten thousand these are 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:03.360 falling in every year. Like that's a problem at some point, right, 0:01:04.080 --> 0:01:06.919 I guess not. I think we shipped that much stuff 0:01:06.959 --> 0:01:09.200 that they're like, well, these people are gonna have to 0:01:09.200 --> 0:01:11.200 wait a month and we'll get them some more. No, 0:01:11.319 --> 0:01:14.559 I mean a problem for the ocean. Ohh, I thought 0:01:14.560 --> 0:01:17.480 she meant a problem for the consumer. I mean over 0:01:17.560 --> 0:01:20.960 ten years, Like it's up to a hundred thousand semitruck 0:01:21.160 --> 0:01:23.959 shipping containers, ten thousand lying on the ocean, ten thousand. 0:01:24.720 --> 0:01:28.199 What did I say, No, that's it over ten years though, 0:01:28.440 --> 0:01:31.240 Oh sure, sure, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I'm sure 0:01:31.240 --> 0:01:35.959 it is a problem. Or um, it's a They always 0:01:36.040 --> 0:01:42.040 say that, um, A problem is a benefit in disguise, 0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:45.880 isn't that that saying? So they probably make lemonade out 0:01:45.880 --> 0:01:48.680 of lemons down there. That's there's a window open. They 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:53.280 didn't know about all those metaphors. So you do make 0:01:53.320 --> 0:01:56.040 a good point this this shipping effects nature. I mean, 0:01:56.120 --> 0:01:58.680 we talked about in a noise pollution episode just how 0:01:58.800 --> 0:02:03.920 bad the shipping industry is for marine ecosystems. That's right, 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:07.160 But we're here to talk about one specific container that 0:02:07.280 --> 0:02:12.200 had the cutest little ecological spill in history. The Ever 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:15.360 Laurel was at sea. There was a bad storms Januar. 0:02:17.040 --> 0:02:20.200 It made it to port, but it lost a container 0:02:20.240 --> 0:02:24.320 along the way, and that container contained twenty eight thousand 0:02:24.760 --> 0:02:29.760 rubber duckies, frogs, beavers, and turtles called friendly floaties, and 0:02:29.800 --> 0:02:32.960 the doors opened and they were all released into the ocean, 0:02:33.080 --> 0:02:38.320 and that amazing. So these friendly float ees um there. 0:02:38.360 --> 0:02:43.040 There was some point moments after this, this disaster happened 0:02:43.320 --> 0:02:47.840 where all twenty eight thousand, almost twenty nine thousand friendly floaties, 0:02:47.960 --> 0:02:52.120 rubber duckies, rubber turtles, we're all just floating together in 0:02:52.160 --> 0:02:56.560 this one very local area of the sea. No human 0:02:56.600 --> 0:03:00.280 as far as we know, saw this. So you can 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:02.359 just say, you have to imagine it in your mind's eye, 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:04.720 but it's easy to do, and it's it's delightful in 0:03:04.720 --> 0:03:08.800 a way. It is delightful. But then they started to disperse, 0:03:08.840 --> 0:03:11.799 of course, because they're in the ocean, and of the 0:03:11.840 --> 0:03:15.640 twenty eight thousand nineteen thousand went south and started showing 0:03:15.720 --> 0:03:19.600 up in places like Australia and Indonesia. UM. Some others 0:03:19.800 --> 0:03:25.920 went across the Southern Pacific and west to South America, 0:03:26.200 --> 0:03:30.080 and the rest headed north. And it's cute, but it 0:03:30.160 --> 0:03:33.640 is an environmental disaster. Somebody wrote a book called Moby Duck, 0:03:34.280 --> 0:03:37.200 which is even cuter. But another guy named Dr Curtis 0:03:37.440 --> 0:03:41.720 Ebbsmire said, you know what, I'm gonna make some limit 0:03:41.760 --> 0:03:45.320 out of this because I study ocean currents, and all 0:03:45.360 --> 0:03:48.080 of a sudden I have twenty eight thousand little specimens 0:03:48.120 --> 0:03:51.000 floating around, and I can see if I'm right about 0:03:51.000 --> 0:03:53.160 what I think the currents due down there. Yeah, because 0:03:53.160 --> 0:03:57.480 those oceanographers usually use like booie transmitters, and those things 0:03:57.520 --> 0:04:00.600 are expensive and difficult to distribute and put out to see. 0:04:00.920 --> 0:04:03.440 Now they had twenty eight thousand of these things that 0:04:03.480 --> 0:04:06.240 they could basically use his stand ins for those booties, 0:04:06.280 --> 0:04:08.680 as long as you could kind of keep track of them. 0:04:08.680 --> 0:04:11.000 But Absmire went the other route. He's like, no, I'm 0:04:11.000 --> 0:04:13.840 gonna make predictions based on my models, and then we'll 0:04:13.880 --> 0:04:16.320 see if these things turn up where the models predict. 0:04:16.800 --> 0:04:20.560 And starting in nine six he predicted that, um, the 0:04:20.680 --> 0:04:23.960 first friendly floaties would start showing up in Washington State. 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:27.080 I think he was a you dub professor, UM, so 0:04:27.160 --> 0:04:30.440 he talked about Washington specifically, and he was correct. They 0:04:30.440 --> 0:04:33.760 started showing up in nine and that definitely caught the 0:04:33.800 --> 0:04:36.760 attention of the media from that point on. I wonder 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:39.280 if when it happened he was like, oh man, I've 0:04:39.279 --> 0:04:43.560 been wanting to release thirty rubber duckies for years now, 0:04:43.760 --> 0:04:45.440 and they just won't let me do it because it's 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:52.000 not safe. Uh. I would guess he had those fantasies 0:04:52.040 --> 0:04:55.760 in his darkest moments. So let's take a break and 0:04:55.800 --> 0:04:58.720 think about that, and uh, come back and talk more 0:04:58.720 --> 0:05:02.120 about this. The Q just ecological disaster of all time. 0:05:23.920 --> 0:05:25.920 So they found the first ones of these in sit 0:05:26.040 --> 0:05:31.440 Alaska at the end of and then I think, you know, 0:05:31.520 --> 0:05:34.040 it took months and years for things, these things to 0:05:34.120 --> 0:05:36.599 kind of wash all over the world. And this was 0:05:36.800 --> 0:05:41.039 this was that guy's big chance, what's his name, Dr 0:05:41.080 --> 0:05:44.640 Curtis Ebbsmire, ebbs Meier's chance to see if his predictions 0:05:44.640 --> 0:05:48.480 are right. You're right, and he was right. Remember he 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:51.080 started predicting him that they would show up in Washington. 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:52.600 He's right about the first one. I didn't see how 0:05:52.680 --> 0:05:54.280 right he was about the rest. He was right about 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:57.520 the rest almost exactly. Like one of the great triumphs 0:05:57.520 --> 0:06:01.719 of the Friendly Floaty Saga is that um Dr Curtis 0:06:01.720 --> 0:06:06.240 ebbsmires um models, where like these things are dead on 0:06:06.640 --> 0:06:09.680 it actually advanced oceanography as far as I can tell. 0:06:11.360 --> 0:06:13.360 So a lot of them ended up, like you said, 0:06:13.360 --> 0:06:16.000 all over the world, but the ones that really kind 0:06:16.040 --> 0:06:18.800 of gripped everybody the most were the ones that ended 0:06:18.880 --> 0:06:22.320 up in the North Atlantic up near Scandinavia and then 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:25.960 eventually down to the UK. And the reason that these 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:28.960 are so gripping is because they think that those are 0:06:29.000 --> 0:06:32.720 the ones that moved northward from this um wreck site 0:06:33.680 --> 0:06:36.560 and they went up past Alaska where the first ones 0:06:36.600 --> 0:06:40.160 are found, up into the Arctic, where they became frozen 0:06:40.160 --> 0:06:44.080 and ice, and because of the the conveyor belt by 0:06:44.120 --> 0:06:48.000 ocean currents even up that far north, the ice eventually 0:06:48.000 --> 0:06:51.680 moved its way eastward. And then as the ice got 0:06:51.720 --> 0:06:54.760 into warmer and warmer waters, that started to melt, which 0:06:54.880 --> 0:06:58.120 freed those friendly floaties, which means that they made their 0:06:58.120 --> 0:07:01.960 own kind of reverse northwest passage through the Arctic, which 0:07:02.000 --> 0:07:04.000 people have been trying to do for hundreds of years. 0:07:04.000 --> 0:07:06.400 Now they're friendly float He's figured out, you just have 0:07:06.480 --> 0:07:09.200 to get trapped in ice for ten years. Yeah, Like 0:07:09.279 --> 0:07:13.280 they should not probably have gone north to come south 0:07:13.320 --> 0:07:16.880 into Europe normally. Like, there's no way you predicted that, right, 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:20.520 I believe he did, really, Yes, he predicted that they 0:07:20.520 --> 0:07:25.040 would start showing up in um in the UK about 0:07:25.080 --> 0:07:28.240 ten years after the disaster, and they did, And I 0:07:28.280 --> 0:07:30.360 think it was because he had predicted they would go 0:07:30.440 --> 0:07:33.800 north and it would take that long to make it across. Well, 0:07:33.840 --> 0:07:35.880 another good thing about this whole thing was that it 0:07:35.880 --> 0:07:39.559 did bring some more attention to the Great Pacific garbage Patch, 0:07:39.640 --> 0:07:42.360 something we talked about in the very early days of 0:07:42.360 --> 0:07:45.600 stuff you should know. Uh that may not have even 0:07:45.640 --> 0:07:51.320 been me. It was, of course the North Pacific subtropical gyre. 0:07:52.400 --> 0:07:54.760 Uh and we talked about that garbage patch a few times, 0:07:54.760 --> 0:07:58.160 I think, but uh, some of them obviously made their 0:07:58.160 --> 0:08:00.800 way there and just became a part of that disaster. 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:04.120 And uh So anytime a little bit of media attention 0:08:04.200 --> 0:08:07.080 is going to come that that way, that's a good thing. Yeah. 0:08:07.160 --> 0:08:11.640 Between that guy Donovan Hones book Moby Duck and Curtis 0:08:11.640 --> 0:08:16.320 ebbsmires uh press that he got from his models and predictions, 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:19.880 I feel like that might have been what introduced the 0:08:19.960 --> 0:08:23.360 average person or the media to the Great Pacific garbage paths. 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:26.680 I think this may have been what did it actually, 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:29.880 because it really alerted people to just how long plastic 0:08:30.000 --> 0:08:32.640 lasts in the ocean. Because those ones that entered the 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:35.600 Great Pacific Garbage Patch, they're never going to make land. 0:08:35.640 --> 0:08:38.760 They're gonna stay stuck in that circular current and then 0:08:38.840 --> 0:08:41.319 over time they're just gonna break down. Further and further 0:08:41.440 --> 0:08:45.520 into smaller and smaller plastic. It doesn't biodegrade at photodegrades, 0:08:45.840 --> 0:08:49.720 so chemically speaking, it keeps. It never breaks apart. It 0:08:49.840 --> 0:08:52.199 just gets smaller and smaller, and then it enters the 0:08:52.240 --> 0:08:54.920 food chain and once it's in there, it sticks around 0:08:54.960 --> 0:08:57.920 for a really long time, like hundreds and hundreds of years, 0:08:58.240 --> 0:09:02.720 which that's where that ecologic Old disaster a part came from. Right, 0:09:03.920 --> 0:09:07.240 I think that these things were supposed to he I think, 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:10.920 he said, besides those that are out there forever. He said, 0:09:10.920 --> 0:09:13.880 I think the last ones will probably wash up somewhere 0:09:13.880 --> 0:09:16.719 in the UK. And you looked into his crystal ball 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:19.880 and said maybe two thousand seven, And there was one 0:09:19.920 --> 0:09:23.040 found in Cornwall in two thousand seven, so he's right 0:09:23.080 --> 0:09:26.400 about that. And they've become kind of hot tickets on eBay, right, yeah, 0:09:26.440 --> 0:09:29.040 I think at least a grand is the most that's 0:09:29.080 --> 0:09:32.880 been paid for one that's definitely a first Year's Friendly 0:09:32.920 --> 0:09:37.400 floaty that was in that shipping container. What do you 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:39.560 do with that thing though, that you paid a thousand 0:09:39.600 --> 0:09:43.040 dollars for? You hope somebody comes over and notices it 0:09:43.120 --> 0:09:48.080 on the shelf and just conversation starter. I guess I gets. 0:09:48.120 --> 0:09:50.000 I don't know why else you would want to possess it, 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:52.400 And there there's like a whole group of beach combers. 0:09:52.440 --> 0:09:55.240 It's like a really big deal that I think that 0:09:55.240 --> 0:09:57.800 that would be a prize. But I think being a 0:09:57.840 --> 0:09:59.880 beach comer, you'd want to find it yourself rather than 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:02.719 buying it on eBay. Who knows. Yeah, I don't know. 0:10:02.720 --> 0:10:05.959 I'm not gonna look anyone's yung. No, definitely not. If 0:10:05.960 --> 0:10:08.280 you need that to get a good conversation going in 0:10:08.320 --> 0:10:11.440 your life and more pepper to you. You got anything else? 0:10:11.960 --> 0:10:14.480 I got nothing else? Okay, Well that's it for short 0:10:14.480 --> 0:10:17.120 stuff everybody. And that's it for friendly floaties because they've 0:10:17.120 --> 0:10:20.600 all made land or photodegraded into almost nothing by now. 0:10:21.120 --> 0:10:27.679 And since I said that short stuff is out. Stuff 0:10:27.720 --> 0:10:29.720 you should Know is a production of I Heart Radio. 0:10:30.240 --> 0:10:33.360 For more podcasts my Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, 0:10:33.559 --> 0:10:36.480 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.