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Community Problem Report: Marine PollutionThe University of Texas at El PasoDillon Zachary MoyaIntroductionFor thousands of year humans have relied on the ocean for food, transportation, and the production of oxygen. Billions of people rely on the ocean for their main source of protein and every day shipments are made using the ocean to travel, but have you ever wondered, is there something harming the ocean that could end up harming human civilization? Many researchers believe that humans are polluting the ocean which will end up causing many people to suffer, but some researchers believe the ocean is too big to be harmed. Regardless what view people have, understanding what marine pollution actually is and what is causing it will help society with future actions.What is marine pollution?Most researchers can all come to the conclusion that the amount of marine pollution is always growing, most has been in the last sixty years (Farrington, 2014), but what does marine pollution mean? If you split up the words marine and pollution you can have a good idea where to start. Marine, according to the Webster dictionary, means “of or relating to the sea” and pollution’s definition is “ the action or process of making land, water, air dirty and not safe or suitable to use”(2014). So together it means making the sea or anything related to the sea dirty and not safe or suitable to use.The ocean, which covers 70% of the earth’s surface, is very important for life. Marine plants produce between 70-80% of the oxygen in the atmosphere. Stated by Garrad, et al. “Global oceans have absorbed over 500 billion tons of CO2 since preindustrial times.” (2013) this is very important to humans because every breath we take we are sipping in the oxygen that is oh so vital to the cells to produce energy and life. Without the ocean we would be in deep trouble, but it is also very important to remember that is if the ocean is becoming polluted, “dirty and not safe or suitable to use,” this puts many oxygen producing plants in harm. The pollution could be damaging the oxygen producing plants, but we also have oxygen producing plants on land. We do have many oxygen producing plants on land, but one thing to think about is that the land is not all covered in plants. In many places such as Antarctica, Sahara desert, and even large cities there are little to no plant life. When you consider the size as a total that does not contain plant life you will see that the land does not contain as many oxygen producing plants that the ocean does. Marine pollution has been shown to have effects on marine life (Islam and Tanaka, 2004) and even some ways of trying to clean pollution has been shown toxic effects (Wilson, 2014). Yet with all this evidence it’s hard to come to a conclusion due to many unknown facts about the ocean. We don’t completely know what happens with the pollution in the sea because we can’t track it and see if anything happens. It’s a big mystery where people are researching to find answers but what is important is informing people and to stop dumping in the ocean (Islam and Tanaka, 2004).What are the main causes of marine pollution?Marine pollution has shown to come from many sources including oil, fertilizers, ordinary trash, and other pollutants. One thing that is big to note is they found that eighty percent of marine pollution comes from the land (what is the, 2014). This pollution, which originated from the land, is a great place to start since such a vast amount comes from the land. This pollution travels from the land to the sea usually as runoff after rain. The soil is plowed which allows the soil to erode; therefore, when it rains the water carries all the loose soil to the sea. This rain picks up fertilizers, pesticides, and even oil from cars. Granted it does take some time for this to happen since this runoff first makes its way to rivers, since the ocean only surrounds the whole continent, but all of this runoff in the rivers flow right into the ocean (what is the, 2014). This pollution can be so bad after a storm that some beaches will shut down until the pollution dilutes and drifts away, but not all pollution can just dilute itself such as oil. (Farrington, 2013)Oil pollution in the ocean is becoming an immense issues due to the increase drilling in the ocean. The oil spill in 2010 by BP really opened up everyone’s eyes on the concern for oil pollution, but that was only such a big concern because it was so close to the shore. When in reality we have had twenty of the top oil tanker spills in the past forty years (Farrington, 2014). Many of these spills were never a concern to the public though due to the spill being so far off shore and it was “safely out to sea”. There may be adverse effects to the ocean ecosystem but since many of these spills happened so far off shore there has been very little scientific study done to prove anything. Most oil spills don’t receive the attention they need because they are far off shore and after a while the oil slick on the top of the ocean goes away. This doesn’t mean that there is not any adverse effects though. (Farrington, 2013) Also many of this oil travels to the bottom of the ocean into fine grained sediments which leak to over laying water columns. This means that the oil contamination on the sediments on the bottom of the ocean, can be a long- term source of ecosystem oil contamination in the food web and water column. (Farrington, 2014)Another main source of marine pollution is coming from plastic. All those plastic bags and water bottles find their way to the ocean. Plastic in the ocean is found everywhere nowadays, floating on the top of the ocean and in piles down on the sea floor. Plastic pollution in the sea can be split into two parts. The first one is macroscopic which include plastic that you can see with your bare eye such as bottles, bags, toys, etc. and the other one is microscopic plastic which are plastic fragments smaller than five millimeters (Microscopic plastic is usually formed from the breakdown of macroscopic plastic). Research has been done by Depledge, et al. that shows plastic pollution is most likely due to the fact that the production of plastic has increased dramatically from 1.5 million tons in the 1950s to around 280 million tons in 2011 (2013). Plastic pollution also has a correlation with the population, which they found has a direct correlation. So if the population increases the amount of microscopic plastic increases as well. One thing that has also been studied is they found that the amount of microscopic plastic found in marine animals (guts and respiratory track) has increased (Depledge, et al., 2013). They have not come to any conclusions about how dangerous this is to all the marine life, but has been found to be very harmful to some marine mammals. Also, it has been shown that chemicals found in the plastic can be transmitted through a food web, so if we were to eat some fish contaminated with a chemical than we will have that chemical in us. (Depledge, et al., 2014)What views do professionals/researchers have on marine pollution?Marine pollution does have views from both sides, professionals believe that the ocean is so vast that the pollution does not even effect the environment and others believe there is a direct effect with the pollution and harm. (Farrington, 2014) The size of the ocean is what makes the ocean so hard to study, say you spill some juice in the ocean well you wouldn’t be able to see any effects from that juice because there is so much water in the ocean it gets too diluted. This is exactly what many professionals think what happens when there are oil spills in the ocean (Wilson, 2014).Not only is oil hurting the marine ecosystem, but the ways they are cleaning the oil could be doing more harm than good. During 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, 4.9 million barrels of crude oil entered the sea, but one thing may people didn’t hear about was that 1.7 million gallons of Corexit was used to disperse the oil. Well Corexit, which does its job of migrating the oil, is a toxic chemical. They used it as a quick and easy way to protect the shore, but maybe they overlooked the toxicity of it. The long term effects of this are unknown but they do have the potential to damage the marine ecosystem. The short term effects have shown that the toxicity levels are higher from the Corexit than the actual oil spill. Many professionals believe that the use of Corexit was needed to protect the shore lines from being contaminated with oil, but many believe that it is doing more harm to the ecosystem than good. This potential harm could take years to solve. (Wilson, 2014)On June 2013, one hundred scientists from six countries met up to discuss what they currently know on plastic pollution in the ocean and what needs to be answered (Al-Muzaini, 2013). One thing that is interesting to note is that Al-Muzaini put down that “Policymakers, politicians and the public remain largely unaware of the extent of the problem and the magnitude of the threat to marine ecosystems.” This right here shows that the pollution in the ocean may be harmful and there may not be enough policies to protect from pollution since he is talking about politicians. He also noted that the plastic contamination will increase in the future, but what will happen to this plastic? Will this plastic harm the marine life? These two questions are very important for the future of the ocean. More studies are currently being done to try to answer these questions as soon as they can before the damage has gone too far. (Al-Muzaini, 2013)Many of this trash is actually being tracked. Currently researchers at the University of New South Wales in Sydney are using math to track the path that the trash in the ocean is tacking. Since the ocean and wind travel in circular paths they will be able to use that knowledge to track the origin of the trash, which will help us stop the trash from the source so we will not have to clean up the ocean directly (Mole, 2014). This not only will this help stop or decrease the amount of the pollution but also decrease any effects the pollution may have on the sea. ConclusionAs you can see marine pollution does exist, but they are still trying to find out if it is truly something harmful to everyone. Debates have gone on for decades, but they do have facts that it is hurting many marine mammals, mussels, and has some toxic effects. They just don’t know if this is something to worry about, something that needs to be fixed. I believe that at least making the public aware of what is currently happening to the ocean will help the pollution decrease and possibly even make some laws to protect the ocean more. Awareness is the first step to making a difference.BibliographyAl-Muzaini, S. (2013). Management of land-based sources of marine pollution. Aquatic Ecosystem Health & Management, 16(3), 347-356. doi:10.1080/14634988.2013.825564Depledge, M. H., Galgani, F. F., Panti, C. C., Caliani, I. I., Casini, S. S., & Fossi, M. C. (2013). Plastic litter in the sea. Marine Environmental Research, 92279-281. doi:10.1016/j.marenvres.2013.10.002Farrington, J. W. (2013). Oil Pollution in the Marine Environment I: Inputs, Big Spills, Small Spills, and Dribbles. Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, 55(6), 3-13.Farrington, John W. (2014). Oil pollution in the marine environment iii: fates and effects of chronic oil inputs. Garrard, S., Hunter, R. R., Frommel, A. A., Lane, A. A., Phillips, J. J., Cooper, R. R., & ... Bjoerk, M. M . (2013). Biological impacts of ocean acidification: a postgraduate perspective on research priorities. Marine Biology, 160(8), 1789-1805. doi:10.1007/s00227-012-2033-3Islam, S., & Tanaka, M. (2004). Impacts of pollution on coastal and marine ecosystems including coastal and marine fisheries and approach for management: a review and synthesis. Marine pollution bulletin, 48(7), 624-649.“Marine” and “Pollution” (2014) Mole, B. (2014). Sea trash defies ocean boundaries. Science News, 186(7), 13.“What is the biggest source of pollution in the ocean?” (2014, February 19). , G. (2014). Deepwater horizon and the law of the sea: was the cure worse than the disease?. Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review, 41(1), 63-131 ................
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