It’s safe to say that nearly everyone has seen, or at least heard of, Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth addressing the depleting Planet Earth. Pollution, the controversial issue of global warming, and product waste, are only the beginning to the problems we are beginning to face today. So as landfills fill up, and sewers overflow, and gas prices sky rocket to Mars, the Earth as we know it will be ever changed. As it is apparent that the land Earth is changing (temperature wise, more natural resources being drained up, etc), one can only wonder how The Ocean is holding up.
For the first time ever, fish resources are scarce in certain areas of the world, and fish prices are excruciating high. The irony is hilarious. Because for hundreds of years, fish have been our main source of food dependency. We thought we could fish forever, because the sea was a limitless protein mine. But dawning now is a realization that we were wrong about that. But how naive were we? And what price will be paid? Ocean life is dying back in unexpected ways: although there are fewer fish and other sea animals, more of them are starving, while waves of sickness spread as primitive microbes gain the upper hand (The Starving Ocean: The Fishery Crisis).
Furthermore, i live in Portland, Oregon. Probably one of the most liberal cities in the United States. But recently, us Oregonians have/had sea lion issues. We are one of the most prominent fishing states, along with our neighbor, Washington, in the united states. From the Indian reservation in the Columbia Gorge to the Coast, we catch anything with a tail. Fishing has gotten so intense that our government officials were forced to create laws limiting the total number of fish able to be caught per fisherman.So when sea lions in the Columbia Gorge became the fisherman’s biggest competition for the daily catch, protests were set in motion. These sea lions were able to eat unlimited amounts of fish daily and the local fisherman had something to say about that. In may, the sea lions were caged, and on the 5th of may, the six “trouble-makers” were killed. So consequently, we have an animal rights issue and environmental issue here. The sea lions death demonstrate how humans see aquatic animals and mammals. We see them as a low priority. Need more proof? How about baby seal killings, poachers, and Japanese dolphin killings.
In addition, garbage dumping is the dumping of harmful materials into the ocean like human waste, ground-up garbage, water from bathing, and plastics. Most of the waste that has been dumped into the ocean in the early 1990’s is still there today. One main cause of garbage dumping occurs when sewage pipes share their space with storm water drains. Rainfall causes the sewage pipes to overflow and the sewage waste mixes with the storm water drain, which flows into another water source such as a lake or river. After that, the garbage pollutes the ocean, kills plants and animals in the water, and makes the water dirty. When toxic waste gets into seas and oceans by the leaking of landfills, dumps, mines, and farms(Protecting the Home We Live In: Environmental Issues).
So please, think about the opportunity costs are you eliminating when you are consuming. Like the saying, think before you speak, i say, think before you act, and get involved. We share this one planet called Earth with thousands of other organisms. Look at the dinosaurs, or the Romans of Rome, or the Vikings of Scandinavia. They at some point, dominated the world and eventually diminished and faded out. The Fall of Rome ring any bells? All that’s left of them are relics, and human artifacts. We need to study their flaws and mistakes and we need to learn from them. For help us God, if not, we to will follow the same path and we will become history.
