Destroying the deep seas

According to the U.N. (via Guardian Unlimited), "[d]amage to the once pristine habitats of the deep oceans by pollution, litter and overfishing is running out of control". Consider:

Last year some 85 million tonnes of wild fish were pulled from the global oceans, 100 million sharks and related species were butchered for their fins, some 250,000 turtles became tangled in fishing gear, and 300,000 seabirds, including 100,000 albatrosses, were killed by illegal longline fishing.

Into the water in their place went three billion individual pieces of litter -- about eight million a day -- joining the 46,000 pieces of discarded plastic that currently float on every square mile of ocean and kill another million seabirds each year. The water temperature rose and its alkalinity fell - both the result of climate change. Coral barriers off Australia and Belize are dying and newly discovered reefs in the Atlantic have already been destroyed by bottom trawling.

Are we not meant to be the stewards of our environment rather than its destroyers? It's like we don't care. And many of us -- too many of us -- don't.

Misanthropy is fully justified, in my view. There is simply no excuse for what we're doing.