Marine Pollution

– Affecting Tomorrow’s World Essay, Research Paper

Marine Pollution:

Affecting Tomorrow’s World

Marine pollution, can be defined as:

“The introduction of man, directly or indirectly, of substance or energy into the marine environment, resulting in such effects as harm to living resources, hazards to human health, hindrance to marine activities including fishing, impairment of quality for use of sea water and reduction of amenities (Johnston, 1976).”

The ocean has been calculated to be about 2.5 billion years old, nearly half the age of the earth. It covers 71% of the earth’s surface. Together, the ocean and the atmosphere form a single system, which affects nearly every aspect of life on the planet. Because they are so interrelated, any substance we humans put into the air almost always ends up in the sea, in one form or another. And, what goes into the ocean often winds up in our food thorough ocean evaporation and rainfall. Thus, as we affect the oceans and seas, they in turn may have an affect in some way or another on all life, especially human beings, on the planet.

The ocean serves as the basic foundation of the entire Earth’s food chain. “Plankton (phytoplankton) is the collective term used to describe the microscopic plants and marine animals (zooplankton) that exist in huge quantities in the sea and which form the basis of the earth’s complex food chain (Gorman, 1993).”

The phytoplankton are responsible, whether it be directly or indirectly for providing food for most of the earth’s organisms, including human beings. These organisms as little as they may seem, through Phytoplankton activity are also responsible for generating 70% of the Earth’s oxygen.

Therefore, the ocean is actually a much more integral part to everyday life for human beings. It does not only serve as a means for recreation or obtaining food, but rather it is the home of one of the most essential necessities for species survival on our planet. For this reason, marine pollution awareness has increased dramatically in the past couple of decades. And great strides have been taken to ensure the cleanup and survival of our planet’s oceans.

The actual term, “marine pollution,” was not a widely used term until 1967, when the tanker the Torrey Canyon spilled more than 36 million gallons of oil 20 miles off the coast of Cornwall, England. After this catastrophe, an official definition of what exactly marine pollution meant, was formed by the United Nations Joint Group of Experts on the Scientific Aspects of Marine Pollution (GESAMP). The term has been used ever since. Until that time, pollution was actually a pretty unknown term. Pollution actually began with the rise of agricultural civilizations. As communities began to form, “animal and human waste that had once been returned to the land was now being concentrated in the nearest bodies of water, either as runoff or sewage (Johnston, 1976).” Thus, the problem of marine pollution began.

After the establishment of its definition, scientists began to differentiate between marine contamination and marine pollution. Contamination, defined as, “the presence of elevated concentrations of substances in the water, sediments or organisms.” Contamination was only seen as a warning sign of possible pollution (Gorman 1993).”

All marine pollution, must originated from one of two places, the land or the sea. And although the term is marine pollution, it has been found that in actuality most marine pollution is actually generated from the air and from land. Airborne pollutants suffer from physical, chemical and biological changes before entering the seawater causing them to be much worse. Once these pollutants have entered the oceans, when compounded with the organic and inorganic matter already in the seawater, they have even more of a negative effect on the sea and its inhabitants. “The most important aspects of the contamination of the marine environment are the hazards to man caused by consuming contaminated fishery products and the damage inflicted on marine organisms and ecosystems (Pearson, 1975).”

Marine pollutants can generally be divided into three broad categories: (1) Natural (man is not involved);

(2) Generated (exploited by man, but not created by him) and (3) Synthetic (created by man).

Natural pollution in the oceans has been occurring basically from the beginning of the planet earth. There are always natural disasters occurring, such as volcanic eruptions, which contribute to pollution by producing high levels of toxic metal salts and floods, which leads to erosion of land. As long as there have been animals to contribute their waste products, or plants to fall into the water and decay, or meteorites to crash from the sky with strange metals and minerals that dissolve in the sea. Even something as normal as the natural process of rain can erode land and bring sediment and dissolved salts to the ocean contributing to its pollution.

These natural processes, which contribute to pollution, cannot be prevented. However, when other types of pollution are added to the natural pollutants of the earth, it creates for a bad situation in regard to the state of our oceans.

Generated pollution is strictly a problem due to the exploitation of our planet’s resources by human beings. Whether it be through mining, farming, water us