Pollutions affect on Marine Animals

How pollution affects Marine Animals

This week, I watched three ted talks, which are videos with experts in their field talking to an audience about their research. The ted talks that I watched focused on Our ocean and how it is being affected by global warming and pollution.The main idea of these ted talks are to show us how our Ocean environments are changing due to climate change and due to all the pollution. One idea that I found interesting was that there are these dead zones that sea animals are not able to live in. I thought it was interesting because I thought this was interesting because these dead zones cover thousands of square miles but yet no one really thinks anything of it until now.

(Singh, Yogendra. Water Pollution.)

            It made me wonder how many animals are affected by pollution and global warming. So I looked up some more information about this idea. I read an article from WWF about Pollution threats, I found more information about how animals in the oceans are affected by pollution.

One piece of information I found was about how one little change in the food chain can affect a large amount of different animals that need them to survive that sets off a huge ripple effect all the way across the food chain. They also talked about how all the animals higher up on the food chain have a lot more pollution inside of them from eating all the different animals lower on the food chain that contain a ton of metal and plastic inside of them. This information supported the information in the original ted talks because it shows us how these animals are affected by pollution and how important it is to keep our environment clean. 

(Atds. "Hazards in Our Ocean.")

            I agree with this idea because it is so important to realize how much pollution is affecting our environment around us. One piece of evidence that supports my view comes from NRDC. It states that “an estimated 80 percent of marine litter makes its way there gradually from land-based sources”. This supports my view because pollution is our fault, they said 80 percent of litter in our oceans comes from the lands, and that another twenty percent comes from cargo ships. So none of this is a natural occurring thing. This is why we are the only ones that are able to fix what we have caused. We may not have noticed what it was doing then but we do realize it now and we need to take strides to correct it before marine life is lost forever. 

Another piece of evidence that supports my view is from NOAA.  In this article it talks about how billions of gallons of trash get dumped into our ocean and what really happens to it as it enters the ocean. This supports my view because they talk about how plastic never fully decomposes, it just gets smaller and smaller and never goes away. In fact one of the Ted Talks by Andrew Forrest, that I watched focused on this and different strides we can take to get people to clean up our environment and stop pollution. And all these animals and coral that are living in the polluted oceans breathe and consume and have amounts of small particles of metal and plastic inside of them. And as it talked about in the WWF article the further you go up the food chain the more amounts of these tiny particles you will find inside these animals.

(A_Different_Perspective. Sea Gull Caught in Trash.)

            This is why I feel that it is so important for us to stop polluting our environment and take the necessary steps to save our environment. Every day that we weigh more animals are at risk and more trash we will need to clean up. This is why it is so important to make the necessary changes as soon as possible because the more time that goes by, the longer we will spend trying to save our oceans and all the creatures that call it their home. That is if there will be anything left to save by the time we realize how bad pollution really is. So I leave you with this, next time you go to the beach and look out into the ocean and think of the billions of plastic and metal particles that are causing so much damage. And I ask you, what will you do to stop pollution?

 Citations

A_Different_Perspective. Sea Gull Caught in Trash. 27 Mar. 2018. Pixabay, 4 Apr.
     2018, pixabay.com/images/id-3289550/. Accessed 18 Dec. 2020.

 Atds. "Hazards in Our Ocean." 11 Jan. 2018. Pixabay, 11 Jan. 2018, pixabay.com/
     images/id-3075857/. Accessed 18 Dec. 2020.

 Dead Zones of the Gulf of Mexico. Narrated by Nancy Rabalais, Ted Talk, 2017.
     Ted Talk, www.ted.com/talks/
     nancy_rabalais_the_dead_zone_of_the_gulf_of_mexico#t-703456. Accessed 18
     Dec. 2020.

Denchak, Melissa. "Ocean Pollution: The Dirty Facts." NRDC, 22 Jan. 2018,
     www.nrdc.org/stories/ocean-pollution-dirty-facts. Accessed 18 Dec. 2020.

Forrest, Andrew, narrator. A Radical Plan to End Plastic Waste. Ted Talks, 2019.
     Ted Talk, www.ted.com/talks/
     andrew_forrest_a_radical_plan_to_end_plastic_waste#t-647036. Accessed 18
     Dec. 2020.

"Ocean Pollution." NOAA, Apr. 2020, www.noaa.gov/education/resource-collections/
     ocean-coasts/ocean-pollution. Accessed 18 Dec. 2020.

"Pollution." World Wildlife Fund, 2020, www.worldwildlife.org/threats/
     pollution#:~:text=Pollution%20may%20muddy%20landscapes%2C%20poison,or%20kill%20pl
     ants%20and%20animals.&text=Long%2Dterm%20exposure%20to%20air,some%20species%20uns
     afe%20to%20eat. Accessed 18 Dec. 2020.

Singh, Yogendra. Water Pollution. 12 Mar. 2019. Flicker, 20 June 2019,
     pixabay.com/images/id-4286704/. Accessed 18 Dec. 2020.

"What Is the Biggest Source of Pollution in the Ocean?" NOAA, 12 June 2020,
     oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/pollution.html. Accessed 18 Dec. 2020.

Why I Still Have Hope for Coral Reefs. Narrated by Kristen Marhaver, Ted Talk,
     2017. Ted Talks, www.ted.com/talks/
     kristen_marhaver_why_i_still_have_hope_for_coral_reefs. Accessed 18 Dec.
     2020.