I have traveled across vast oceans in my lifetime, it’s a sight to behold, the sun rising and falling into it, takes my breath away every time. The deep blue sea has mysteries to discover, we pardon the pun have not even scratched the surface. The underwater world is still full of mysteries as we have only explored 5% of it to date. There is so much more to it deep within the waters, creatures so peculiar and unique that you only hear myths about them. I love the sea as it delves deep into the unknown, and creates a shroud of mystery unlike any other. Yet with great sadness, I realized while reading The Empty sea The Future of the Blue Economy by Ilaria Perissi and Ugo Bardi that we are completely stripping it for parts like an old car at a dump yard
The ocean is more than just a resource candy machine, it is a source of life for so many living things in it, and even more importantly it’s a source for our life as well. Now I am not saying that we can live free from society’s shackles and that we don’t need to use resources or that money isn’t important from those resources but what I am saying is money isn’t the be all or end of all of everything. Money can buy you all the things you want and need in life. It can pay for your family’s wellbeing; it can build a future for many people but it can’t buy the essence of life.
After reading the empty sea I did my own research and found out through various studies show that about 8 million tons of plastic end up in the ocean every year, furthermore, about 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic are currently floating at sea. All of this leads to what experts call “plastic pollution” which directly threatens native ecosystems. If you don’t care about ocean life then lets it into numbers, it causes around $13 billion in damages to fishermen, shipping, and other related businesses. Going beyond even the monetary loss when the chemicals in the plastic enter the human body through the fish and seafood we eat, humans become at risk of developing a number of different diseases such as cancer, also it can cause malformation, and in many cases lead to impaired reproduction.
You might not be passionate like me about the ocean, maybe when you look at it all you see is just water and a place where different species are living and inhabiting it. Either way, you can’t deny what’s happening to it? Imagine if someone ripped apart your home for their own gain and yet gave nothing back to you? This what we are doing to the seas but a million folds more. Nothing is forever, we all live and then we all die, but we need to ask ourselves, do we want to leave behind an ocean that when our great-great children are born only see the chaos that we left for them?
Its time for us to change because the oceans are truly worth fighting for!
