Final paper

Elon Musk has an idea of making mars another habitable planet but trust me there is no other better planet than earth and so we should all look into this matter with more seriousness. Our dying oceans are a cause of alarm .The effect of water pollution subsequently affects us as humans directly or indirectly and so we should be responsible of our planet. There are various causes of water pollution that individually destroy the aquatic life or in combination with other causes cause a massive destruction of marine life (Ivanina & Sokolova, 2015).

The impact of ocean dying is immense and requires very much attention, in one way or another, we as humans cannot escape the wrath of the adverse effects of ocean dying, for that reason we should all take part in the corrective action of resolving the problem that is threatening the oceans. The oil spillages from ships is one of the major cause of ocean pollution, crude oil will last for very may years on the ocean and that is very toxic to the marine life, it is a hard task to clean up spilled crude oil and it often entraps marine animals hindering movement and killing some of them, the oils even block the gills causing difficulty in breathing and death as a result. Additionally, spilled oil floats on the water surfaces and thus blocks sunlight from reaching to the animals and plants in the deep sea. Photosynthesis process requires sunlight and so it is hindered by oil spills, animals may have skin irritation and other problems over a long period of time. The other disastrous human activity that should be looked into in the process of solving the process of ocean dying is ocean mining. Human beings tend to carry out mining activities in the deep sea, the mining activities include drilling of zinc, gold and copper (Ivanina & Sokolova, 2015).

The deposits build up and hinder the ecosystem in the region, the mining can as well cause toxicity of the region. Pollution can enter the oceans through sewages, the sewages enter the ocean directly, and the drainages that flow into the ocean contain minerals, substances and other things from the mining camps. The drainage releases chemical nutrients into the large water bodies that serves as habitat for coral reefs and thousands of marine animals and causes reduced oxygen, plants start to decay and the quality of the water declines, the final result is that all the oceanic life become highly affected. Similarly, chemicals that are released as industrial waste or agricultural waste have the same impact on the ocean life the industrial wastes are hazardous because they lead to temperature rise in the ocean, this is called thermal pollution and this will make all the plants to perish since they cannot survive high temperatures. Land runoff is another source of pollution to the ocean, when water carries contaminants from the land including fertilizers, and all other forms of contaminants found in the soil they get into the ocean and create dead zones.

Water is life and so the effect of ocean pollution to humans and animals is very dangerous. In South Africa, the seals have been entangled in nooses but the country is coming up with a program to deal with such a problem that is caused by the pollution of the ocean. We all know for a fact that the ocean is just like a life support system of the planet because it harbors a lot of life ranging from plants through to animals and other microorganisms. The same animals serve as food to the millions of people in the world meaning that the effect of the pollution of the ocean is directly affecting human beings.

South Africa has been ranked as one of the top twenty worst polluters of plastic materials in the large water bodies, people have turned the oceans into dumping sites where they damp plastics, waste bags and even pesticides. South Africa being one of the most developed countries tends to use fossil fuels for energy and as a result there is a lot of air pollution that will lead to acid rain and consequent death of marine animals plus mortality rate increases. Mr. John Duncan and Renee Leeuwner of ocean aquarium explains how the effect of plastic pollution are far much broader than we people understand, the marine animals such as turtles ingest the plastics because of mistaking them for food while others get strangled by the waste and die as a result (Ivanina & Sokolova, 2015).

China is suspected to be the biggest contribution of marine plastic waste pollution, the several tons of plastic waste is damped to the ocean every year in China, this is very harmful to the marine life because the plastic absorbs other pollutants and is even harmful by itself. Water pollution levels in China cities are extremely high .approximately 40 percentage of water in Beijing is polluted, in Tianjin, less than five percent of water can be used for drinking. The government of china has not been able to deal with the industries that have majorly contributed in the pollution of the waters.

The improper management of wastes can cause the marine life to consume or even get entangled by the plastics. There are options for managing the plastics however, the plastics can be treated or recycled to reduce their quantities and reduce the risk that they pose to the marine animals (Kennish, 2017). 

Ocean dying should be addressed properly so as to minimize the risk that it poses to the human health and to maintain the aquatic life plus to protect marine life from extinction. The ocean pollution affects the reproductive system of sea animals because they accumulate in the fatty tissues of animals, failure of reproduction will threaten the existence of some marine species, remember that some of the marine animals are a source of income or food to the society. Without the marine life, people will lack food and others shall lack income, as in, in some way, we are all affected by the pollution of oceanic bodies and therefore we should all look deeply into this matter (Kennish, 2017). 

The chemicals that are released to the ocean from the industries or due to erosions dissolve and sink to the bottom of the ocean, the smaller animals feed on these chemicals and are later eaten by larger animals and that is how the food chain becomes affected. We the humans tend to be affected health wise, from the effect of the food chain, when humans consume fish or other marine foods, they ingest the toxins from them and are deposited in the tissues of people leading to cancer, birth defects and several other health problems that are long term (Kennish, 2017). 

Human beings also suffer from waterborne diseases such as typhoid and cholera due to release of dirt into the water bodies where the water for consumption is fetched from. Since we all know that ocean dying can directly or indirectly affect us we should come up with strategies on how to minimize the pollutants that get into the water bodies. Building gabions and terraces, crop rotation and intercropping are some of the ways that land runoff can be reduced, people should get better damping sites or even try recycling plastics to avoid interfering with marine life.in short, we know that the consequences are bad and so we should protect ourselves by doing what we got to do to stop ocean dying (Connell, 2018). 

The issues of ocean dying is so serious that some species of marine animals have reduced in population, the continuous exposure of pollutants to the marine life’s can eventually cause decrease in the number of fish in the ocean, the fish tend to de due to blockage of the gills and the other fish who feed on those fish end up dying too because of lack of food (Connell, 2018). 

Pollution of water also causes the marine animals to behave differently, when the marine animals have been strangled by litter that is damped in the ocean, they even tend to have a difficulty in feeding their young ones, their life’s becomes a struggle. Some of the marine animals lose their vision due to the pollution of the ocean, the expose to these chemicals destroys their vision. Pollution of water bodies have disastrous consequences on the life on this planet, efforts should be made to eradicate air and water pollution, measures should be employed to reduce these levels of pollution as much as possible (Connell, 2018). 

Air pollution contributes to the pollution of the oceans in some way, acid rain occurs naturally due to industrial and automobile pollution, the smoke and poisonous gases that are emitted from the industries and vehicles are released to the air where they combine with water from the rains and form acid rain that carries the toxic gases into the water bodies and destroy the aquatic life’s (Kennish, 2017). 

Acid rain can contribute in the acidification of the ocean which can cause the destruction of the shells, leading to destruction of the food web, less food for human consumption and tourism becomes halted Coral reefs are plants that do well in the coastal region and require that the water is very clean and clear, when there is runoff of the land, there will be sediments and other pollutants that will enter the water bodies and smoother the coral reefs, the algae grow faster and causes damage and the quality of the water becomes lower making the coral reefs susceptible to the various diseases that are deadly to the coral reefs. The food structures of the coral reefs are as well changed, the growth and reproduction will be interfered (Kennish, 2017). 

We as humans are not immune to the effect that pollution has and we should deal with any form of pollution whether air or water pollution. It begins with us and also ends with us and so it is up to us to guard ourselves from the serious consequences of air pollution (Langston, 2017). The natural causes such as earthquakes and tsunamis cannot be avoided but for those that can be avoided we should do something about.

For instance we can stop buying substances that have a lot of packaging, plastics can be recycled since they are not biodegradable plus they are the major threat to our oceans, use of biodegradable materials and buying the organic or even free range things like fertilizers. We can as well avoid using poisons or pesticides, take our own bags when going for shopping or containers when buying take away foods so as to minimize the quantity of plastic bags that are flying all around. Policies should be made that hinder the use of polystyrene packaging and individuals should even learn to have a habit of picking litter when they come across just to keep our environment clean (Kennish, 2017). 

Everyone should act responsibly and think of a solution to the major problem of pollution, parents should teach their children on the importance of conserving our planet and also serve as role models to others. Since an ecosystems are defined by a multipart collection of interactions among organisms and again between organisms and their physical surrounding, any disruption of any part of the ecosystem will lead to adverse effects throughout the system, the effects include variations in predator and preys and modification of the habitat (Kennish, 2017). 

References

Connell, D. W. (2018). Pollution in tropical aquatic systems. CRC Press.

Ivanina, A. V., & Sokolova, I. M. (2015). Interactive effects of metal pollution and ocean acidification on physiology of marine organisms. Current Zoology, 61(4), 653-668.

Kennish, M. J. (2017). Practical handbook of estuarine and marine pollution. CRC press.

Langston, W. J. (2017). Toxic effects of metals and the incidence of metal pollution in marine ecosystems. In Heavy metals in the marine environment (pp. 101-120). CRC Press.