Op-Ed: The Ocean Gives Life, Humans Take it Away

Op-Ed%3A+The+Ocean+Gives+Life%2C+Humans+Take+it+Away

Inbar Feldman, Contributor

Pollution is one of the largest environmental issues that has caused major contamination for our climate and land. It is one of the biggest problems that our beautiful Earth faces. When thinking about pollution, we generically think of not recycling–which is only partially true. A larger form of pollution is ocean pollution. Practically everything we use is made of some sort of processed plastic or paper. We are not aware of the damage we are doing to our planet by not recycling or properly disposing of our waste. All the pollution that we have ends up in oceans as toxic waste or sewage sludge. The things we throw down the drain in our homes or toilets without a single thought end up in the oceans sewage system, killing sea animals. We tell ourselves that someone else will be doing the job for us. Someone else will pick up after me. Someone else will pick up the empty water bottle or soda can I just threw in the street. Someone else will pick up the crumpled up paper that I was too lazy to actually pick up and throw away into the trashcan bin. Yet, we are wrong because as we see, the amount of ocean pollution has greatly increased over the past few years and it is due to the fact that we all rely on others to do the job for us. We humans are the number one cause of pollution on this planet. Unfortunately, sea animals are affected the most by this.

One unfortunate example is jellyfish, a turtle’s favorite snack. Plastic bags that are carried into the oceans confuse turtles into thinking they are jellyfish. They then eat the plastic bags and suffocate to death. The average production of plastic has increased to 299.0 million metric tons from 1.5 million over the past 70 years. Of this, about 4 to 12 million metric tons enters the oceans a year. Even miniscule bits of plastic can negatively impact tutrtles’ digestive tracks so that they stop eating altogether. So the question remains: Why should we kill off nature? Nature is what brought this Earth to us. In order to give back to our planet, we should watch out for the things we recycle. Two more species that are endangered and almost extinct are Monk Seals and Blue Whales. Monk Seals have been declining in their population due to erosion of the seawater and are being suffocated by fish nets. Blue Whales’ population is also decreasing throughout the oceans–there are only about 5,000 left. The Whales are decreasing not only due to suffocation of fish nets, but also because of the plastic they encounter. Many soda can covers which are made of plastic attach onto the whale’s’ tails and fins, making it hard for them to come up to the water surface. The Endangered Species Act (ESA) is what helps the government to track the different types of species that are endangered and threatened by the change in the environment. Thanks to the awareness and monitoring of endangered species, critters like the Bald Eagle have been brought from the brink of devestation. These changes are a result of climate change which results in oil spills into oceans, toxic waste and pollution.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an excellent resource that has been helping protect our oceans from pollution. The image below shows the different types of ocean disposal sites all over the United States. The EPA also regulates the amount of ocean dumping that occurs, making sure that the oceans are not a harm to animals or humans. The large impact that ocean pollution has on us is very large yet we are blind to it. We need to open our eyes to the truth and realize that “…the ocean is a victim of other, bigger processes. The emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere is changing damaging corals and encouraging organisms to migrate towards the poles the marine environment along with the rest of the planet. The ocean has warmed by 0.7°C since the 19th century, in search of cooler waters. As we can see, the emissions are not only harmful to us, but also to the organisms in the waters. If our fishing and whaling industries cannot provide jobs for fishers and such due to the harmful waters, then they will be out of jobs. If they are out of jobs then they are out of a job that provides income to their families. This large impact of the ocean being polluted affects not only the planet and organisms living on it, but also affects our own living standards.