Sunday, April 19, 2020

Ocean pollution research paper Essays - Ocean Pollution,

Ocean pollution research paper Natalie OBrien English 1A Dr. Walters The Dead Connection The land is an abundant source of flora and fauna which coexist in nature to obtain and depend on each resource that the land as to offer. All these organisms have learned to coexist with one another except for one, mankind. We have become a powerful force of destruction to nature because we were taught by one another that nature is to be a tamed commodity. We see nature as something we must overcome in order to sustain life on this planet. In fact, taming nature will become the destruction of all mankind. We must lead a life of recognition and appreciation of the land and all that it provides. To be able to maintain existence on our earth, humans must live on this earth recognizing that our destructive treatment of our land must come to end by reconnecting and restoring a better relationship with the land. Restoration with nature is a timely process that can take decades to recover from. Humans must take small steps that will make big changes towards the future of how we live on this earth. The process of reconnecting with nature not only begins on land, but also with the ocean. Humans maintain the idea that the ocean is too massive and resilient for anything to harm it. That idea that ocean is indestructible has met its end. The biggest enemy to our ocean is pollution. Ocean pollution is a big problem that has consequences of damaging marine life, and effecting humans as well. Ocean pollution occurs when waste products or other substances, such as microorganisms, chemicals, or sewage, change the physical, thermal, chemical or biological characteristics of the water. This affects living species and reducing the water's beneficial uses. Unfortunately, humans are the major contributors to the pollution of our ocean. Things such as plastic waste, sewage, and contamination of marine life is all apart of this major issue of ocean pollution. One major contributor is industrial sediments such as household products, automotive products contain harmful products that run back to the ocean. This is harmful to marine communities and to marine animals. Chemicals such as PCBs are harmful to both wildlife and humans. These chemicals have damaging effects on the neurological, and immune systems of both wild life and humans. A 2008 study in the journal Science reports,40 percent of the seas are heavily impacted, while only 4 percent remain pristine. Coastal sprawl and loss of habitat are also reducing our ability to restore our seas. Add to this the effects of fossil-fuel-fired climate change-including warming, rising seas, polar melting, and ocean acidification that make it harder for shell-forming critters from krill to corals to survive -- and its understandable why some leading marine scientists have begun to despair. Reports like this are devastating and alarming to read. H umans must realize that we are the number one contributor to the oceans pollution. There is only one ocean, and we must restore a better connection with the most vital and ONLY water source we have. Understanding our unfortunate part in ocean pollution will be the first solution to rewind from the damage humans have started in order to sustain life on this very planet. Humans have natural tendencies of wanting to be connected through technology. Social media, text messages, and the internet are just a few ways humans have to be connected to each other. But what about having a connected relationship to nature? Oddly enough, a society that has many ways of being connected has lost a connection to the foundation of life, the land. The land represents every aspect of nature including the ocean. Thousands of years ago, the ways humans maintained connection to each other was through the sea. The ocean was a vast interconnection between land and sea that humans used as a vessel of exploration. In todays world, the ocean has turned into a sea of plastic waste. Plastic is hazardous to both our wildlife but also to seafood that humans consume on a daily basis. Plastic is a major problem because plastic, unlike other materials, never degrades. We must help to reduce our usage of plastic for the sake and