Urista 1 Julie Urista Professor May English 1302 Nov. 6, 2021 Our Ocean is in Danger A vital part of our survival is water, the human body can have up to 60% according to “The Water in You: Water and the Human Body” by the Water Science School. We use water in many ways for example, we use it to clean ourselves, to cook, and even recreationally like water parks. All life requires water and for instance plants use it to grow and produce oxygen and we need it to live too. There has always been an issue with pollution and littering and its caused havoc on our environment. We need to be more cautious and try to save the ocean because we aren’t only hurting ourselves, we are also hurting our aquatic life. There is a lot of plastic in our ocean, and it is very well known. When I was a little girl there was a commercial that had said that there is so much plastic in the ocean it could wrap around the earth twice. Wildlife gets caught in our plastic waste and can suffocate. People are little by little changing their products for instance we now use paper or metal straws, because a while back a turtle died due to a plastic straw. There was a video of researchers extracting a 4inch straw out of the turtle’s nose. The straw reached his throat, and he couldn’t eat and was very disoriented. (Cuda) Marine Plastics by the IUCN states that, “At least 8 million tons of plastic ends up in our ocean every year.” In short, they also say that 80% of the marine debris is plastic and more is found in tourist destinations and popular beaches and 300 million tons of plastic is made a year for a variety of products. This is a lot of plastic and most end up in oceans by the looks of it. Plastic isn’t the only thing hurting our ocean we have a big issue with oil too. Urista 2 Oil is a versatile tool, we use it in cars, jet fuel, and even asphalt. We try to attain oil all the time to keep up with production and to keep our society functioning. There are oil rigs in the ocean, and it is easy to spill over and refueling ships it is common to accidentally spill it too. Accident happens often and in 2010 the biggest spill occurred it was the Deep-Water Horizon it was in the Gulf of Mexico. In the article Deepwater Horizon – BP Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill by Unites States Environmental Protection Agency readers learn it had occurred on April 20, 2010, the rig had exploded and sank causing 11 people to pass away. 4 million barrels of oil spewed out and it lasted month and it was resolved on July 15, 2010. The spill caused issues with our aquatic life and this oil could have moved across the ocean. “Oil spills” by NOAA gives us some examples of what the oil does to our ocean life. Oil can cover the wings of birds and they won’t be able to fly, and it can strip the coat of sea otters which could cause them to freeze to death. The spills can also cause health problems, immune system effects and heart damage. These animals don’t deserve this, and we need to be more careful to reduce death because of our mistakes. We should find ways to resolve these problems and start as soon as possible to save the animals we can. We all have a moral duty to protect life at all cost and pollution is a big problem. If we followed a few steps and if we were more environmentally conscious, we could save our aquatic life. The article “How can you help our ocean” by the National Ocean Service give us examples to help us keep our oceans a little cleaner. A good way is to reduce waste and not throw away so much stuff. We should also volunteer to clean beaches because so much waste shows up in shorelines. Catch and release can also help our ocean so we can keep as many fish as possible alive. Caviar should not be allowed, it’s a delicacy but you are eating fish eggs imagine how many fish could have hatched and live. I have other suggestions such as recycling we should try to reduce our plastic waste to not only save the ocean but the environment. Schools try to Urista 3 persuade students to recycle but we should aim it towards adults and enforce this because if we keep damaging the earth our children will grow up in a bad environment. These issues will pile on if we don’t act and there is no telling how bad it could get. There have been future predictions of the ocean if we don’t take actions immediately. They are very concerning because they all are like stating it to be the demise of Earth. The article “By 2050 there may be more plastic than fish in the sea. This 10-step plan can change that” by McCauley, Douglas predicts that in 2050 that there could be more plastic than fish or even no fish at all. The possibility of 90% of the coral reefs could be dead by then and can cause all marine life to die. The ocean could be left over heated, and no oxygen left to sustain life. That is a very harsh prediction and 2050 isn’t so far ahead of us and we could potentially kill off an entire ecosystem. We all need to act because this will not only affect us but future generations to come. Everyone deserves a chance to see and experience the ocean and see the beauty, we won’t get the chance if we don’t act. We have a variety of choices and tweaks to preserve our ocean, but the change won’t happen overnight and if we all pitch in we could change the world. Urista 4 Work Cited “The Water in You: Water and the Human Body” by the Water Science School USGS.gov. Web. https://www.usgs.gov/special-topic/water-science-school/science/water-you-water-and-humanbody?qt-science_center_objects=0#qt-science_center_objects “The Turtle that Became the Anti-Plastic Straw Poster” by Heidi Siegmund Cuda and Elizabeth Glazner. Published Nov 11, 2015. Plastic Pollution Coalition. Web. https://www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org/blog/2015/10/27/the-turtle-that-became-the-antiplastic-straw-poster-child “Marine Plastics” by the International Union for Conversation of Nature. IUCN.gov. Web. https://www.iucn.org/resources/issues-briefs/marine-plastics “Deepwater Horizon – BP Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill” by United States Environmental Protection Agency. EPA.gov. Web https://www.epa.gov/enforcement/deepwater-horizon-bp-gulf-mexico-oil-spill “Oil Spills” by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Published Aug. 1, 2020. NOAA.gov. Web. https://www.noaa.gov/education/resource-collections/ocean-coasts/oil-spills “How can you help our ocean?” by National Oceanic Service. Oceanservic.noaa.gov. Web. https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/ocean/help-our-ocean.html “By 2050 there may be more plastic than fish in the sea. This 10-step plan can change that” By McCauley Douglas. Published Feb. 28, 2021. Theprint.in Urista 5 https://theprint.in/environment/by-2050-there-may-be-more-plastic-than-fish-in-the-sea-this-10step-plan-can-change-that/612878/
