Our Oceans in Hot Water

Globe on Fire, by Kristina Heuken Goossen.

    When we think of Earth we think of land, and of the place we live on. But ironically, we do not think as much of the oceans, which makes up 71% of our globe. You would think we would take more care of our oceans because of this, but it is quite the opposite. We are constantly destroying our oceans with accidents like oil spills, offshore dumping/littering, and with the harmful potential of deep-sea mining, we need to stop all this before it is too late!

    Deep-sea mining is when we send machines deep down to the seafloor to mine for minerals. The ocean floor is estimated to be covered with billions of tons worth of valuable metals, being quite irresistible to mining companies. But deep-sea mining, much like mining on land, can be quite destructive for the environment. As large mining machines are sent into the ocean and start mining the ocean floor, they have great potential to destroy underwater habitats, eroding life in the nearby area. The machines “...stir up fine sediments on the seafloor consisting of silt, clay and the remains of microorganisms, creating plumes of suspended particles... smothering animals or harming filter-feeding species that depend on clear, clean water to feed, such as krill and whale sharks,” as stated by the Issues Brief organization in an article detailing the issue. This will render the entire area uninhabitable. It is also unknown how long it takes before those dust storms will settle, as this is all underwater. Toxic metals and oil can be exposed and pollute the ocean if an accident occurs, having similar effects to that of an oil spill but deep underwater instead. Like on land, the loud sounds of machinery and the sheer size of them disrupt local populations as well. 

3D model representation of deep sea-mining, made by National Geographic.

Underwater animals will now have to move around these new obstacles, changing migration paths, and as the noise disrupts natural sounds used in echolocation and the sounds of mating calls, further ruining the environment. Though in practice these are only potential dangers, there are enough of them that it is quite a large concern for us to fully understand the risks and negative effects of deep-sea mining. Deep-sea mining is comparable to cutting the rain forest down, as we are scraping away the environment for resources, and ruining local populations of animals. If deep-sea mining goes unhindered the damage would be massive, we would start destroying our oceans from the bottom up. We are already destroying our oceans from the top down with ocean dumps, so we need to stop this!

    Though not nearly as bad as a few decades ago, we dump a large amount of human waste and trash into the ocean every year as a means of disposal. Now we have the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and they oversee that no toxic materials are dumped into the oceans. But what they do not oversee is the dumping of large quantities of plastics, which harm and kill many animals every year. Plastics are not biodegradable, meaning they are not broken down by the ocean’s waves and depths. Instead, that plastic kills “more than 100,000 sea turtles and birds a year from ingestion and entanglement,” as stated in an article from Teach the Earth by Gianna Andrews. Not only that, but some plastics like Styrofoam break into smaller parts, and the toxic components in it sink lower in the ocean. That pollution spreads throughout the sea, harming a multitude of plants and animals.

Pile of trash in the ocean, photo taken from Serc.carleton.edu.

Plastics also absorb other toxins from outside sources, so in reality, they are poisoning our oceans though the EPA still does not regulate plastic. Not only does this affect sea life, either, as these chemicals are contained in the fish and mammals that are eaten by people, and those people suffer from those poisons as well. It is also easy to say that all the other dredged material dumped into the ocean is harmful as well, though not nearly to the degree plastic does. All of this covers the legal grounds of dumping, but there are plenty of illegal ones that have materials like toxic chemicals and radioactive materials poured into the ocean due to their difficulty to legally dispose of. Though proper statistics of illegal dumping are harder to track they do occur regularly all around the world, and have much worse consequences than plastic. Between harmful legal and illegal dumping of trash and deep-sea mining, there is something even worse than the two combined: oil spills.

    Over 137 on-land oil spills occurred in 2018, spilling millions of gallons of oil into our oceans. Although so many spills happened, many go unheard of as they are not considered “big enough” to put onto the news. Oil is quite harmful for sea-life, mainly for the animals that live above the seas as most oil floats. The oil rots the water insulation off of their fur coats and the water protection off of the bird's feathers, which leads to hypothermia and commonly death in these poor creatures. If the oil sinks deeper into the ocean it also affects the fish and underwater life as well, causing a variety of harmful effects that lead to a painful and premature death. Ingestion of the oil is also quite lethal, and many creatures die when cleaning themselves after an oil spill. The BP Deepwater Horizon catastrophe in 2010, for example, “killed 11 people and spewed an estimated 205 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico,” stated the Resource Watch organization in an article by Emily Cassidy. This event killed an estimated 1 million coastal and offshore seabirds, 5,000 marine mammals, 1,000 sea turtles, and an unrecorded amount of fish.

Seagull covered in oil, photo taken by National Geographic.

These totals are not even the whole of it, as 50,000 people involved in the spill cleanup were exposed to chemicals that severely damaged their lung tissue, and they suffered life long effects from it. These spills in the long term affect the animal and human populations along with the wellness of the surrounding areas. If we do not do something to stop this more careless spills will occur, and slowly rot our oceans from the shores outwards. All of this is because we’re simply not careful, as oil tankers simply crash and dump their contents into the ocean. Keep in mind also that these are only the statistics from America, but this happens everywhere around the world as well, with possibly even worse regulatory standards on the transport of oil.

    With all these harmful activities plaguing our oceans it is quite surprising that we do not take more action regarding it. Simply stopping deep-sea mining would prevent its harmful effects, or at the very least giving harsh regulations as to minimize the potential damage. Disposing of our waste is a trickier problem, though dedicating more landfills would be more expensive it would solve all the negative effects that come with pouring waste into the ocean. Stricter regulations on oil spills and the transportation of oil would be the most helpful to prevent oil spills, though the perfect solution would be switching to reusable energy to not even need oil anymore. Oil spills, ocean dumping, and deep-sea mining are all issues that need to be addressed at the very least, as our oceans are in hot water!

   A blogger post by Erik Woodland.

Citations:

"! WORLD ON FIRE ! - Kristina Heuken-Goossen - 444 ...." 20 May. 2019, https://444prophecynews.com/world-on-fire-kristina-heuken-goossen/. Accessed 7 Oct. 2019.

 "Deep Sea Mining: An Invisible Land Grab – National ...." 21 Jul. 2016, https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2016/07/21/deep-sea-mining-an-invisible-land-grab/. Accessed 7 Oct. 2019.

 "Plastics in the Ocean Affecting Human Health - SERC." 3 Aug. 2018, https://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/health/case_studies/plastics.html. Accessed 7 Oct. 2019.

 "Gulf Oil Spill Pictures: Birds, Fish, Crabs Coated." 9 Jun. 2010, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/6/100608-gulf-oil-spill-environment-birds-animals-pictures/. Accessed 7 Oct. 2019.

 "There Were 137 Oil Spills in the US in 2018. See Where They ...." 7 Feb. 2019,    https://blog.resourcewatch.org/2019/02/07/there-were-137-oil-spills-in-the-us-in-2018-see-where-they-happened/. Accessed 7 Oct. 2019.

 "A Deadly Toll - Center for Biological Diversity." https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/public_lands/energy/dirty_energy_development/oil_and_gas/gulf_oil_spill/a_deadly_toll.html. Accessed 7 Oct. 2019.

 "Deep-sea mining | IUCN." https://www.iucn.org/resources/issues-briefs/deep-sea-mining. Accessed 7 Oct. 2019.