Introduction
Oceans are one of the most expensive gifts of the nature. There are many ways it can give us benefit and the most highlighted ones are providing quality food and fats transportation ways. In a perspective of a human eye as well as the nature, many oceanographers as well as the scientists who are currently active in studying the ocean pollution and concerned to its health have explained that the earth oceans are deadly polluted and in many areas of the world, the death of fish is increased. The main topic of this essay is the discussion of general pollution of the oceans. Oceanic ecosystem is highly damaging in all this and a huge number of natural death of fish and sea creatures is happening which is an alarming situation. The main aim of the paper is to discuss the ocean health and the general pollution of the oceans, and the ways to prevent and reduce it.
Discussion
Pollution was not a concern in the past because of less industry and unnatural use of the natural resources. The general discussion of the water pollution was started when big cities have started to pollute the rivers and streams. Water pollution was intensified during the industrial revolution. It took a century to cause deadly effects on ocean health. The natural causes of ocean pollution could be neglected because the organic pollutants are dissolved in the water and don’t cause any deadly effects on the larger scale. There are outnumbered problems raised because of the ocean pollution on the ocean’s ecosystem as well as the coastal areas.
In the history, the scientists have assumed that the seas and the oceans are extremely big and humans are very less and ineffective to cause any severe effects on the oceans. They assumed that it would only cause a little or minimal consequences on the oceans if a little pollutants could be thrown into it. They are assumed to be correct even now because if a little is spill into ocean that makes sense but continuously a century ago a huge number of polluted rivers and canals are directed towards the ocean which is a continuous cause of ocean pollutants. All the four oceans and a number of connecting seas are polluted as a result of the human consequences for over a millennia by now. In past there were a number of incidents which were the main source of the pollution and damage of the oceans.
Sources of Ocean Pollution
There are an outnumbered sources which are causing the damage to the ocean health in which the most concerned ones are the oil spills, toxic wastes, floating inorganic solid waste and nature.
Firstly the nature itself is causing the ocean pollution. The process has started since centuries when for the first time world was created. The sea water have already higher intensities of minerals and salts which are driven from the land towards the sea because of the process of rain. It is a natural process and could neither be minimized nor be ended. There are some toxic minerals and acids which came into existence due to the reactions of water with the solid rocks on the land but they happen in very less quality. They are the source of pollution to the oceans but an ineffective one.
Now comes the human activities. One of the worst time for the oceans started when the first industry was started and it’s all toxic waste, liquids and many other pollutants caused the rivers, lakes and oceans pollution. It is estimated that the 80% of the pollution to the oceans and seas is coming from the lands.
The biggest sources of the ocean pollutions include the nonpoint sources. The nonpoint sources includes the cars, boats, farms, ranches, mountains and the forests. There are uncountable and ignored incidents of oil leakage of road vehicles which makes its way directed towards the seas and oceans.
Nonpoint sources could also include the incidents in which the oil tankers spill a huge quantity of crude oil in the ship. There are many incidents in the oil transportation field in which the world known oil transportation corporation’s ships spill the oil in the seas and oceans. The cleaning was performed but the water was found contaminated to a huge scale which made them step back instead of pointless cleaning to perform. One of the main incident happened in the red sea whose consequences were observed even after a half decade and in a week a huge sea life was found dead on the Arab and African shorelines.
Mexican bay is considered as the deadly polluted sea. The most active toxics were thrown in the sea water and there are tons of solid waste seen on the surface of the sea. It was never assumed that the effects would be that much worst but uncomfortable environment is considered currently the cause of damaging tourism industry.
Dirt can be considered as a pollutant. The contaminated air dissolves in the flowing water. It is harmful to the fishes and the other water creatures.
Many emerging superpowers and developed countries like China, Israel and India are also one of the top performer in polluting the oceans. It is internationally known that they are not processing the liquid before spilling it in the oceans. China has started working for decreasing the pollution but it is pointless because the actions are not effective over the best performers of the industry. Bombay shore is also highly polluted and no doubt in the next few years the conditions will be worst rather than improved.
Plans & Strategies for Securing Health of Oceans
In a discussion to check how healthy the overall five oceans are, the results after reviewing the facts concludes less than 60 out of 100. It means that there are great chances of improvement. A lots of ways the oceans could be cleaned. Since there are some countries which are best performers in polluting the oceans so there are some of the best countries which are the best performers of the cleaning of the oceans. The countries whose most of the economy is coming from the tourism and they are economically strong including the France, USA, Australia, Mexico and England. They have started cleaning the oceans by an initiative of removing the solid waste from the coastal regions. The staff is hired which is performing in eliminating the solid waste coming from land as well as from the ocean and removes them from the shore to keep the environment tidy and clean. These tasks are known as beach sweeps. The waste is recycled and reused. The throwing of solid waste is fined by the government officials.
Last year all the sea shores were seen to be highly polluted by solid waste in the United States but after the actions of the general public, NGOs, government and the social workers from all over the United States, approximately all the shore of the country are clean. The awareness to the people about the little contributions for decreasing the pollution and saving the ecosystems in the oceans is also performed which is also highly effective.
Australia have the best surf riders and they are also acting as ocean cleaners by sweeping the surface of ocean and eliminating the solid waste. The government have started cash prices for the one who cleans the most.
The awareness programs of cleaning the oceans is so good and effective that people from over the planet have started performing in cleaning the oceans. Locally as well as on the international levels the campaigns resulted in installing of the recycling plants beside the oceans for recycling the waste as well as making incredible pieces of art which are sold for charity purpose as well as investment collection for enhancing the ocean cleaning performance. Most of the ocean cleaning activities are being performed by non-government organizations with the help of the public fund raising programs. The scientific research by the scientists is also conducted which explains the best ways to limit the ocean pollutions. According to the analysts, if these activities would be performed sincerely for the next ten years than the oceans would may be rated 40 out of 100 in pollution estimates.
Conclusion
In a nutshell it can be explained that the health of the oceans is extremely important for the humans living on the land both on the coastal areas as well as land locked countries. There are many sources of ocean pollution and they are polluting the ocean currently. The highly effective are the nonpoint sources, oil tankers leakage, industry’s releasing the toxic waste and the agricultural fertilizers. All over the world including the developed as well as developing countries have discussed this issue deeply and even the UN have organized collective discussions on this point so that the problem could at least be minimized. The cleaning of oceans has been started and the dumping of solid waste is also minimized and in most of developed countries, eliminated. The industries are using the processing plants which throw the harmless and non-toxic wastes in the rivers and oceans to decrease the pollution increase.
Works Cited
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Alava, Juan Jose, et al. “Ocean pollution indicators for the Strait of Georgia.” (2017).
Wilcox, Chris, et al. “Using expert elicitation to estimate the impacts of plastic pollution on marine wildlife.” Marine Policy65 (2016): 107-114.
Selig, Elizabeth R., et al. “Measuring indicators of ocean health for an island nation: the Ocean Health Index for Fiji.” Ecosystem services 16 (2015): 403-412.
