The urgent issue of oceans deterioration

The ocean is easily one of the most absolutely beautiful things we have here on this planet, and it takes up a lot of space on Earth, almost 75 percent of it to be exact. When you walk along the beach or see the captivating photos taken of our many oceans they may appear to be perfectly fine, but that is not the truth. If you dive deeper you will discover that there are immense amounts of pollution that litters our seas, many beautiful creatures that are soon to go extinct struggling every day to make it, and so much more damage that we have caused to our planet. Our actions have caused our oceans to deteriorate day by day at accelerating rates and if nothing is done about it our oceans may never be the same. While we are not able to reverse the mistakes of the past we can definitely try to better the future not only for our sake but for marine life. There are many policies in place to help, some of the responsibility does fall on our shoulders. We must enforce these policies and fight for them.

Endangerment is when something is at risk of becoming extinct. In the past getting to the point of endangerment took a fairly long time, extinction of a whole species took even longer, but now it happens at expedentionally fast rates. Animal Endangerment is a very important issue that’s been happening from the very beginning of time and is still happening now. There is no certain place that it happens either, it’s in the air, on land, and in the seas. Though it has been going on for a very long time, it is a problem now more than ever, especially with the development of humans and technology. Previously endangerment, as well as extinction, were a part of the natural cycle, but with us humans taking advantage of our resources we have only made it worse. Marine life is endangered due to the overwhelming amount of sea pollution, overfishing, deep-sea mining, oil exploratory activities, bottom trawling, and other human activities in marine areas. The oceans do so much good for us. They provide us with food and give people jobs who would be unemployed otherwise. Overfishing is the removal of a certain fish at a rate that the species cannot repopulate in time, causing them to go extinct. This is something that we need to be careful of.

After the film “ Finding Nemo” clownfish almost went extinct due to the high demand of children wanting them as pets. When “ Finding Dory” released the same fear arose with the blue tang. Parents want to make their kids happy so the demand for these character species rises. A similar situation happened with Disney’s “ 101 Dalmatians” Thankfully there are organizations such as Saving Nemo fighting to get these issues attention so that history does not repeat itself. Organizations like these help to keep the marine life going strong. The Endangered Species Act of 1973 is one of the most important environmental laws to ever be created. Signed by President Nixon in 1973 this act provided guidelines on how to protect endangered plants and animals was backed up by the government. This was a big deal being that before people’s view was very much based around the idea that we could live without certain animals and saving them was pointless. It was originally created to protect our nation’s symbol, the Bald Eagle, but this act has saved many species from extinction, such as the bald eagle, manatees and is currently very close to taking the grizzly bear off the endangered animal’s list. Without this law and enforcement of this law, our animals will be doomed. More laws and regulations like these would definitely benefit the environment by forcing people to change.

In recent years there have been bills that present a threat to this act. Donald Trump is more concerned with the business aspect and less with the environment, this shows by the government saying “ We propose to remove the phrase ‘ without reference to possible economic or other impacts of such determination’” Meaning that if it benefits the economy they can do it, even if it may potentially harm the environment. Pollution has had a major effect on the ocean’s wildlife as well. Plastic six packs choking animals, swallowing loads of plastic, blocking their digestion tracks. It ultimately kills thousands of sea creatures every single year. We need systems in place to regulate the amount of trash being dispersed into the ocean due to these issues. 14 billion pounds of trash is dumped into the ocean each year and there must be a way that we can reduce that number or even get one of it out of the ocean. Being more cautious of your waste could be a great first step for all of us.

Global warming has also had a tremendous impact on the endangerment of marine life. With the warming of the oceans marine life that requires colder temperatures are also dying off. There are so many reasons to save these animals. They benefit us in a million different ways and we should want to give back. It is selfish to believe that that’s the only reason to want to help though, they deserve to live too.

Personally, I want the planet to be better than it is now for my children, grandchildren, and so on. There are ways for us to help our oceans and animals, but it is completely up to us to make sure the oceans recover. With more policies and more people willing to change, I believe we can make a change.