Hope Gayler-Alver 

Nathan Connoly 

7/10/2018 

It’s Up to Us Now 

Ocean pollution has always been a well-known problem in our society. 

People dump trash into the ocean because it's convenient or they just think it 

doesn’t matter if they see the ocean as a trash can. “Sometimes the trash goes 

directly into the ocean, like when beachgoers don’t pick up after themselves. Or 

sometimes, marine debris is indirectly generated in a city hundreds of miles from 

the ocean.”(4Ocean Team) We’re poisoning everything around us and yet we don't 

even know it. Since we live and eat around the ocean, doesn’t that mean it’s 

affecting us too?  

What people don’t know about pollution is how universal those effects are to 

humans and the earth we live in. With just one piece of trash by one person, 

pollution may seem small but it piles up over time. It’s been causing global warming 

and affecting the health of many sea creatures, which we need in daily life. This 

pollution affects seafood industries, our own health, the lives of sea creatures, and 

the food that comes back to us to be eaten. This dilemma is only going to grow. 

Pollution in the oceans is affecting us in many negative ways and we need to 

address this as a global disaster. 

 First of all, the effects pollution has on marine life. When trash gets dumped 

into the sea it can affect a sea creatures diet. “From the smallest fish to the largest 

whale, almost any animal can become a victim of entanglement from ghost nets, 

ropes, fishing line, six-pack rings, and more. Ingestion of trash is also a detriment to 

the animal's health which can often time result in death.”(4Ocean Team) Animals 

see the floating trash as food and when they come close to it they can either get 

tangled in it or choke on it because it was small enough to swallow. 

Pollution of toxic chemicals can also affect the behavior of sea creatures. It 

affects how they form when they’re born. “The presence of persistent toxic 

chemicals on the beaches, in the water, and in the food web may result in a variety 

of impacts on wildlife, including impaired reproduction, decreased resistance to 

disease, anemia, eventual development of cancerous tissue growth (particularly in 

fish), neurological damage, and birth defects in offspring. The extent to which such 

effects occur in the years after an oil spill is largely unknown.”(Davis) These 

chemicals being dumped into marine environments can potentially wipe out an 

entire species. Even the water changing and warming from the heat trapped behind 

the chemicals, the water temperature is changing their behavior too. “In the case of 

fish, when the temperature rises too high, the body is not able to take in as much 

oxygen as it needs and the fish experience difficulty swimming and escaping 

predators, says Watson.”(Salleh) Pollution causes water temperatures to rise, which 

then changes the natural ability to escape predators which will make species go 

extinct even faster with the addition of humans hunting them all. 
 If species can’t reproduce in the end because the pollution has damaged 

them so much, we may end up with an empty ocean. “It is estimated that fish 

contributes to at least 50 percent of total animal protein intake in some small island 

developing states, as well as in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Equatorial Guinea, French 

Guiana, the Gambia, Ghana, Indonesia and Sierra Leone.”(GreenFacts) Imagine if 

pollution did wipe out every life form in the ocean. There would be chaos and 

states that rely on fish as their main source of food would be devastated and 

hundreds of thousands would die. This is still a hypothetical but a likely 

hypothetical none the less. 

In a larger view, this type of pollution doesn’t just cause harm to species as 

individuals. It stretches out from species to species since animals need each other 

to survive. “Plastic trash acts as a "sponge" and can absorb toxic chemicals 

surrounding it that have run off from the adjacent land or have found its way to the 

ocean via sewage lines. So, when a fish eats plastic debris and a human being later 

eats that fish, the toxins are then passed off to them.”(4Ocean Team) Once you 

poison one species you poison them all. There’s a huge scale of how many 

creatures get affected by this. The bigger creatures eat the smaller ones and this 

continues on all the way back to the biggest creature. “These ocean areas, often 

called "dead zones" because they are so inhospitable to most forms of life, occur 

when high concentrations of nitrogen build up in marine waters. Several types of 

pollution--including excess chemical fertilizers, human waste, airborne industrial 

waste, and traffic fumes--can cause nitrogen concentrations to reach damaging 

levels.[...] Dead zones range up to 70,000 square kilometers in size, an area larger 

than Latvia.”(Chafe) This pollution is wiping out entire species living in the area and 

in turn wiping out the species around them who needed them to survive. 

Think of an empty ocean. No sea creatures in it at all. That really is a 

plausible possibility if we can’t reverse the damage we’ve caused to our ocean. “The 

ripple effects on marine ecosystems could be disastrous, according to the Monaco 

Declaration, a statement representing the views of 155 marine scientists from 26 

countries.[...] "By mid-century, ocean acidification may render most regions 

chemically inhospitable to coral reefs," the declaration states. The IPCC predicts 

acidification could cause a 0.4 decrease in ocean-surface pH by 2100.”(Block) Once 

on species goes extinct, the other species that depended on them will follow. Then 

the ones who depended on them will follow and so on. “The researchers believe 

these dependent species should now be included in current extinction estimates. 

They add that coextinction (the loss of one species resulting from the loss of 

another) is a largely unexamined and potentially substantial contributor to the 

current global extinction crisis.”(Owen) ​ ​200 plants and animals are already extinct 

from coextinction. One species dies then the other follows, and so on. 

What the human population might not realize, is that in this food chain we 

are on the top. We do eat other animals that have eaten other animals. Through 

this, we are gravely affected too. Since we eat fish from the sea, what happens 

when they’re all gone? “As the largest traded food commodity in the world, seafood 

provides sustenance to billions of people worldwide. Approximately three billion 

people in the world rely on both wild-caught and farmed seafood as their primary 

source of protein.”(Nicklen) Looking at these numbers, there would be billions of 

people who would be starving or dying if all these species of fish died from the 

pollution that’s choking the oxygen out of the water. We really aren’t killing only the 

fish, dolphins, whales, sharks, and other graceful wonders of the sea, we’re killing 

ourselves too. 

Poisoning the water brings up huge problems of health when people go 

swimming. If you are trying to go swimming around the shore, it won’t seem as 

appealing once you see the amount of trash scattered in the sea. “Most swimmers 

are exposed to waterborne pathogens when they swallow the water. People can get 

some infections simply from getting polluted water on their skin or in their eyes. In 

rare cases, swimmers can develop illnesses or infections if an open wound is 

exposed to polluted water.”(LEARN) This goes to show that if people go swimming 

in polluted water it can be very harmful to us. In the most toxic places, it could be a 

risk to someone’s life. This means that reversing the effects done to the ocean 

should be a bigger priority to us than it is right now. Just to give a feel for more of 

the effects of polluted water, “The most common illness associated with swimming 

in water polluted by sewage is gastroenteritis. It occurs in a variety of forms that 

can have one or more of the following symptoms: nausea, vomiting, stomachache, 

diarrhea, headache or fever.[...] In highly polluted water, swimmers may 

occasionally be exposed to more serious diseases.”(LEARN) If the water ended 

posing such a risk, then both children and adults shouldn’t swim in it. In the end, no 
one would ever bother going to the beach for a nice time or a swim. The shore 

would just be a wasteland with black, oily waters and coast after coast lined with 

waste. 

The pollution done to the water doesn’t seem to come up as a problem that 

needs to be dealt with right now. If everyone recycles, then he or she have done his 

or her part. This isn’t true. “Believe it or not, most plastics can only be recycled once 

or twice before they are downcycled, which means they are recycled into something 

of a lesser value.”(Sinai) After this, the downcycled material generally can’t be 

recycled anymore. We need a more permanent solution. Over time the things that 

can’t be recycled get pushed across oceans into a big heap where no one will ever 

find it. When transferring materials things fall overboard and collect over time. This 

same thing has happened with oil spills, chemical spills, human waste spills, etc., 

making the ocean even more inhospitable. In October 2016 a man had an open 

wound infected after swimming in the bay. “Funk was flown to the University of 

Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where doctors hoped amputating his leg would 

stop the infection–but it didn’t. He was put on life support and later died. Maryland 

health officials won’t comment on the specific case, but say they deal with at least 

30 to 50 reports of vibrio each year–some fatal.”(Ritter) This pollution is killing 

everything in the ocean. This is the proof of how deadly it is. This problem can’t 

wait. Small efforts are made around the globe but it’s not enough. Everyone needs 

to pitch in and play their part. Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, 

nothings going to get better. It’s not. (Dr. Suess) 

 Even further than this, pollution stretches out to all fishing industries. “On an 

annual basis, the country's ports handle $700 billion in goods, the cruise industry 

and its passengers spend $11 billion, the value of the fishing industry exceeds $28 

billion, recreational saltwater fishing is valued at about $20 billion, and the offshore 

oil and gas industry has annual production of $25 billion to $40 billion. Coastal 

tourism adds further to the monetary value of the oceans and provides direct 

support for 1.5 million jobs.”(Hall) This would put those 1.5 million people out of a 

job and we would lose that $788 billion from industries. After a time, no one’s going 

to want to go on a cruise where he or she can’t smell the fresh sea air and have a 

beautiful view. All they’ll see is mucky, rotten smelling, water. 

After all the pollution hits industries, it hits people’s families too. If the 

industries can’t fish, that means people have no job and they lose their money. If 

1.5 million people are looking for a job all at once it’ll be chaos. In addition, while 

the industries try to maintain their business, people all over the world will be 

ingesting these fish and get sick themselves. So many people in need of a job won’t 

be able to get one and their families might lose their lifestyle. Families could starve 

because they have no money and because the coastal towns that rely on fish with 

be shattered because of the loss of fish around the shore. 

Then there are businesses who work with the vacation spots, the snorkeling, 

buggy rides on the beach, etc. All of these businesses will be gone as well. Any 

resort based on the ocean won’t be appealing anymore and they will lose all of their 

tourists. Any type of activity based on the beauty of being underwater or the view 
of the sun glistening off the waves, and the smell of fresh sea air, will be gone. 

“Some of the fish are commercially important, and sponge species produce 

chemicals with anti-cancer and other medicinal uses.”(Database, Big Fish, Big 

Contamination) So the resources the fish were able to supply us will be gone too. 

The effects don’t even stop here. 

Our planet is being put at risk. By putting pollution in our oceans, a major 

source of our weather, we’re endangering our own existence. Everything on our 

planet has a balance. Light and day, fire and water, oxygen and nitrogen, they all 

balance. The pollution is tipping the scale. “Scientists believe that global warming 

will only exacerbate the problem, via rising seawater temperatures and increased 

flooding. After the severe Mississippi River flood of 1993, the U.S. National Ocean 

Service reported that the oxygen-starved area in the Gulf of Mexico more than 

doubled in size to 18,000 square kilometers.”(Chafe) The rising temperature in the 

water will melt the ice caps in the north and south pole and the water levels will rise 

and submerge land masses. This could potentially wipe out the entire human race. 

Not only that but its already happening. Global warming is already happening and 

the pollution in the ocean is only going to grow, and global warming, only going to 

get worse. 

We are destroying the atmosphere with the number of chemicals we put into 

it and it’s being torn apart. It’s the only thing keeping us from the deadly gasses 

outside of it.  
 “Tinkering with the atmosphere, we change the ocean's chemistry radically 

enough to threaten life on earth as we know it. Carrying everything from 

nuclear waste to running shoes across the world ocean, shipping fleets spew 

as much greenhouse gases into the atmosphere as the entire profligate 

United States. Protecting strawberry farmers and their pesticide methyl 

bromide, we guarantee that the ozone hole will persist at least until 2065, 

threatening the larval life of the sea. Fishing harder, faster, and more 

ruthlessly than ever before, we drive large predatory fish toward global 

extinction, even though fish is the primary source of protein for one in six 

people on earth. Filling, dredging, and polluting the coastal nurseries of the 

sea, we decimate coral reefs and kelp forests, while fostering dead 

zones.”(Whitty) 

If the pollution continues, the fish will die and the people on the coast will starve. 

Then, in addition to this, the water temperature will rise, ice caps will melt, the 

water levels will rise, and even more people will be put at risk. Pollution is offsetting 

the balance of nature. Too much of anything leads to a ripple effect of bad things. 

“The notion of human-caused change dates back more than a century, to the 

Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius, who fingered the greenhouse effect as a player 

in the comings and goings of ice ages. Arrhenius calculated that infalling solar 

radiation that normally would reflect back into space would be absorbed by carbon 

dioxide and water vapor, increasing the temperature of the planet.”(Database, 

Pollution and Human Rights in a Louisiana Town) Is it a possibility that to make up 
for a dynamic shift in temperature might lead our earth to make a drastic change to 

cold? If this ends up being the case, then no one will want to be around for that 

when it comes. Maybe no one will. 

Since pollution in the oceans provides so many risks and what if’s, it needs to 

be addressed. Pollution leads to changes in animals behaviors. It leads to the 

oceans being full of chemicals so populations of fish die. The oxygen is ripped out 

in certain areas and is inhospitable. In these cases, it’s dangerous even for humans 

to swim in them. When one species dies the species around it who depended on it 

also die, and those who needed them, die, and so on. Our industries and those who 

relied on fish for food would collapse. The heat trapped from the chemicals in the 

air and water would melt the ice in cold regions and the water levels would rise, 

threatening or killing those on the coast. The effects are a threat to our world. 

This paper is mainly to inform, but it is very important that its addressed as a 

planet and not just by one nation. If we don’t work together the problem might 

never go away. What this is saying is that in time of need everyone seems to come 

together to protect their survival. In this case, it’s a major threat to our very 

existence. That means that we should all come together to fix it. No one looks at 

pollution as a huge problem though. And that’s a problem. Our earth is slowly being 

killed because of everything we do to it. We need to reverse it now or we are going 

to go down with the ship. 

 
 Works Cited

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2018, www.epa.gov/beaches/learn-human-health-beach.

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www.worldwildlife.org/industries/sustainable-seafood.

Owen, James. “Extinctions Could Have Domino Effect, Study Says.” ​National

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