“Imagine a man-made ‘garbage patch’ that is twice the size of Texas, composed of man-made debris, 90% of which is plastic...”(Marine Trash Islands). According to UC Geography, the patch of garbage is as large as twice the size of the U.S. That is an extensive amount of trash in the ocean. The ocean covers seventy-one percent of the world, providing a home to 300,000 known species and about one million unknown species of plants in conjunction with animals. Coral reefs house those species that are at rapid extinction including the species that depend on them. The cause that is making the environment in the ocean drastically fail is human actions. Humans are producing climate change from greenhouse gasses and 593,043,485 pounds of plastic pollution floating on the ocean’s surface. Humans may think this doesn’t affect them and that they are safe, however, they are wrong.

 Coral reefs are home to massive colonies of organisms called coral polyps. Coral Polyps are tiny, soft-bodied organisms related to sea anemones along with jellyfish. Coral Polyps are crucial to forming reefs. The slight rise in the temperature in the climate each year is harming marine life living in these reefs from the greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. An environmental science professor, Lijing Cheng represents the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Cheng argues, “Ocean warming keeps breaking records…the ocean is heating up and this could lead to serious consequences”(Cheng). Researchers show that humans are ultimately the main cause of global warming by the greenhouse gases getting trapped in the atmosphere. Greenhouse gases come from human activities and have increased over the years. When they build up in the atmosphere, it causes the heat to rise causing climate change. The United States Environmental Protection Agency informs, “many of the major greenhouse gasses stay in the atmosphere for tens to hundreds of years after being released, their warming effects on the climate persist over a long time and can therefore affect both present and future generations”(USEPA). This is detrimental to the environment from the gases humans create staying in the air making the earth warm up. Carbon dioxide from humans accounts for most of the gas and the ocean absorbs carbon dioxide from the air leading the coral to become acidified. The consequence Cheng refers to is coral dying. Coral reefs are one of the most sensitive habitats on the earth making them extremely vulnerable to climate change. The “United Nations Environmental Program” acknowledges, “When coral is impacted by these environmental stresses, they expel the microscopic symbiotic algae zooxanthellae from their tissues”(UNEP).  Zooxanthellae are tiny photosynthetic algae that live in the coral for protection. They supply the coral with food as amino acids and glucose used to do photosynthesis. Photosynthetic algae are their main food source, corals turn white and lose their color when they leave. The scientific term used for this event is ‘coral bleaching’. To retrieve their natural color, corals are only able to re-absorb zooxanthellae when the environmental stressors are minimized, meaning having no changing environment. The other animals that live in coral reefs are affected severely too. Due to the acidification, organisms that have shells are at risk. These include organisms such as lobsters, shrimp, clams, and snails. The acid in the ocean dissolves the minerals on the shell and they have to spend extra energy rebuilding. Many predators rely on these types of shellfish for their diet and if they start to decrease the food chain that relies on them will crash. The author Nick Bradford of the article “Marine Species on the Move”, talks about whales migrating to the Arctic to feed on salmon and krill. Bradford claims, “When these patterns are disrupted due to a changing climate, they can also change predator-prey relationships and increase mass strandings, starvation, and poor reproductive success”(Bradford). This horrific event can throw off the food chain and the ecosystem of animals. 

For instance, the ecosystem of the fish, Atlantic cod, had to migrate elsewhere to their food source due to pollution. This leads them to reproduce less. This could happen to other organisms in the future that cannot easily migrate to a new food source as a result of their geographic layout. Sarah Kaplan from The Washingtons Post announces, “Ocean animals face a mass extinction from climate change”(Kaplan). Sarah Kaplan informs readers that if the temperatures continue to rise, almost a third of marine life could go extinct within 300 years. Kaplan informs, “A separate U.N. panel has found that about 1 million additional species are at risk of extinction as a result of overexploitation, habitat destruction, pollution and other human disruption of the natural world”(Kaplan). The results of this would be tragic for many lives. If humans continue to mess up delicate ecosystems, the balance of life will be thrown off track affecting millions of lives. 

Besides temperature affecting marine life, trash pollution is another huge factor produced by humans' actions affecting the environment. “Only around 1% of all plastic pollution in the oceans is on the surface. The other 99% stays below the surface”. This information is deeply shocking and disturbing, however understandable. Plastic is all around the world from bottles to furniture, food packaging, cleaners, and Ziploc bags. As stated before, five hundred ninety-three million forty-three thousand four hundred eighty-five pounds of plastic pollution is floating on the ocean’s surface. Picture all the plastic a person used that day going into that pill making it grow. Plastic is the worst thing humans have ever created, due to its chemical composition it takes decades to decompose partly. As a whole, 839,961,218,924 pounds of plastic waste are produced each year. That's only plastic, not including rubber and metal pollution. Some ocean life mistakes plastic for food and digests it into their system which harms them. Pollution can come from the land which carries toxic elements with it. According to NOAA’s study, “Eighty percent of pollution to the marine environment comes from land… nonpoint pollution includes many small sources like septic tanks, cars, trucks...millions of motor vehicle engines drop small amounts of oil onto parking lots and streets… which makes its way into the ocean”(NOAA, “ What is the Biggest Source of Pollution in the Ocean”).  Plastic has a huge effect on marine life. Every year, 1 million seabirds die from plastic pollution found in their stomachs. Another animal that suffers from plastic pollution is the sea turtle. Being that jellyfish are part of turtles' diets, a plastic bag floating looks similar to a jellyfish to them. The turtles mistakenly eat the plastic bags leading them to choke and die. Studies show that almost 50% of sea turtles have consumed plastic at some point. Even big animals such as whales have been shown to have died from plastic consumption. In 2050, it is believed that fish in the ocean will be outnumbered by pieces of plastic. The article Oceans Plastic Pollution announces,  “Fish in the North Pacific ingest 12,000 to 24,000 tons of plastic each year, which can cause intestinal injury and death and transfers plastic up the food chain to bigger fish, marine mammals, and human seafood eaters”(Biological Diversity). This is hugely threatening to marine life as animals are constantly getting killed by plastic. It spins into a cycle where the bigger animals will perish as well due to the plastic inside the prey they eat. This can circle back to humans since we eat fish that are eating plastic leading into the next point.

The effect of man-made pollution on humans is equally threatening. In a 2016 Blogspot, “How Ocean Pollution Affects Humans,” author Andrew Dilevics reports,  “If humans are exposed to these toxic chemicals for long periods, this can result in dangerous health problems, which includes hormonal, reproductive issues, and damage to our nervous system and kidneys”( Dilevics, “How Ocean Pollution Affects Humans”).  Humans are increasing their chances of dying sooner by corrupting the oceans and dumping tons of trash into them together with toxic chemicals. As humans do this, they harm themselves as well and gain dangerous health problems in the long run. The ocean is an important role and source of life. Humans rely on coral reefs for a food source, and on top of it all, there are new medicines made from coral. Reefs give homes to fish, supporting the fish industry. “According to the United Nations, around one billion people globally depend on coral reefs for their food and livelihoods”. If coral reefs started to decrease, millions of people around the world would lose their main source of food in addition to their income. These changes are already starting to unfold. In the 1980s, a heat wave in the Pacific eliminated a small, silvery fish called the Galapagos damsel from the waters of Central and South America. Another heated area from the temperature rising is along the coast of Uruguay. Mass disappearances of shellfish shifts in fisherman's catch. Japanese salmon fisheries have plummeted as sea ice retreats and warmer, nutrient-depleted waters invade the region as well. A lot of third-world countries can not afford cow meat. Therefore they rely on fish as their main source of food and income. Humans rely upon fish making up roughly 25% of their protein intake globally. Another huge problem is the microplastic found in fish and humans. Since huge amounts of plastic are dumped into the ocean each year, it never breaks down completely. It becomes micro, thus the name. People were already known to consume the tiny particles via food and water as well as breathing them in, and they have been found in the blood of humans. In the article, “Microplastics found in human blood for the first time”, they inform scientists that they analyzed blood samples from 22 anonymous donors, all healthy adults, and found plastic particles in 17”(The Guardian). Research reveals that plastic particles can travel around the body and may lodge in organs causing harm to human cells. The effects on animals are equally detrimental. Faye Haslam claims, “Any wildlife in or around rivers is exposed to the threats of microplastic pollution. We know that they can be ingested by organisms as small as zooplankton. If ingested, microplastics can block the gastrointestinal tracts of organisms, or trick them into thinking they don’t need to eat, leading to starvation”(Haslam). This could wipe out animals that are important in the ecosystem. If animals disappear from the ecosystem, this could throw off the balance leading to habitats failing and more organisms dying. The website “National Ocean Service”, exclaims, “coral reef plants and animals are important sources of new medicines being developed to treat cancer, arthritis, human bacterial infections, Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease, viruses…”(NOAA). A lot of people have died from cancer at a young age and other people have experienced the loss of loved ones due to other diseases. New medicine from this incredible organism would be beneficial to human society and if humans continue to treat themselves first, the ecosystems that assist them will die. Marine biology has been applied to areas of health and human disease. Coral benefits humans through medicine and pharmaceuticals. Dating back to when Hippocrates and Plato were alive, they used snail mucus for helping burn and other wounds. In today's world, scientists have found a cure for marine biology and coral. Another type of snail makes up the compound Dolastatin 10, from an Indian Ocean sea hare and has the potential to be used for the treatment of leukemia, tumors, and liver and breast cancer. Peter Moeller, from NC State University, discovered a sea sponge that naturally fights off bacteria that could be used to fight infectious diseases with antibacterial resistance. Since coral does not move, it is vulnerable. Therefore coral has developed chemical fighting strategies used to ward off predators. Humans have used many of these chemicals for medicine. Humans still have not explored all parts of the oceans. There could be even more cures in organisms that could make the future of mankind healthier. If humans do not take the steps to lower pollution, many of these beneficial ecosystems will perish together with the health advantages.

In conclusion, without humans playing a part in helping save the environment the ocean, the rising temperature will cause the coral and all its benefits to disappear. Preventing climate change could prevent millions of deaths including humans and animals. The over amount of trash flooding the ocean will cause toxic chemicals to affect human health due to the microplastic from animals. Animals will injust more plastic as it contaminates the ocean daily causing them to die. Lastly, large populations that rely on fishing as their source of food will be hugely affected by this emerging poverty and starvation. If humans don’t play their part, they could lose the medical benefits and become poisoned from all the pollution in the ocean. That is why it is extremely important that the earth as a whole team up to fight against pollution.

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Written By: Aastha Ahuja | Edited By: Sonia Bhaskar |. “Human Beings Are the Biggest Threat to Our Planet, Says Environmentalist Vimlendu Jha on Climate Change.” NDTV, 13 Aug. 2021, swachhindia.ndtv.com/human-beings-are-the-biggest-threat-to-our-planet-says-environmentalist-vimlendu-jha-on-climate-change-61676/. 

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