Climate Change Threatens Marine Life Axia College of UOP: SCI 275 CLIMATE CHANGE THREATENS MARINE LIFE Climate change has become a major issue over the past few years. Global warming has the potential to devastate the human population immensely. However, one key aspect of this issue that has not been addressed is how climate change will affect marine life. As the water temperature rises marine life becomes more endangered. The ocean dwellers are virtually helpless, and they will ultimately have to suffer the consequences that have been created mainly by humans.
To add to this these methods need vast amounts of energy for extraction, causing the high extraction cost and with this also pollute greatly as the oil is extracted and so raise CO2 and other GHG emissions before the fuel is even burnt. Some of the environmental cost in these areas would be evident. The Canadian Tar Sands, Arctic and the marine ecosystems in the Gulf of Mexico are rich in biodiversity and pristine areas of wildlife and any spills of oil in these areas could be disastrous. The Arctic tundra is very sensitive to human interference and the Canadian Tar Sands is home to thousands of species of animals and is one of the largest bird migration centres in the world, millions of birds use this areas every year and groundwater depletion is another major problem as groundwater needs to be pumped out during mining operations otherwise flooding will occur. Reducing ground water levels will have consequences on the wider ecosystem and it will affect wetlands.
Besides global warming there is another problem with this beautiful structure and that is the result of several local natural and human factors such as over fishing. Silt from deforested lands and pollution from crowded coastlines choke them, and overuse and destroy coral reefs. There are many other factors which if they are not stopped it will destroy all coral reefs. Corals are animals, not plants; sunlight is the key to their survival. They need it to power the millions of microscopic algae, called zooxanthellae, that live in their tissues.
Since we have the attention of everyone, now is the best time to take action against global warming. Due to the increasing temperatures every year our public health and our agriculture/food supply is at high risk for new and worse diseases due to global warming; we need to change our climate control policies to protect ourselves. Gases are being trapped inside of earth’s atmosphere like a soda can, and are gradually increasing Earth’s temperatures that ice will start melting and there will be flooding due to rising sea levels; plants and animals will start becoming endangered (as cited in Cooper, 2001). We have already seen coastal flooding in parts of Central America and Bermuda’s forests are now endangered due to flooding (as cited in Clemmitt, 2006). Global warming has been an issue since factories were introduced to this world; gases and toxins are being highly exposed into our atmosphere causing a tremendous reaction to the balance of nature.
The large population centres near coasts has led to silting of reefs, pollution by nutrients that lead to algal growth that smothers the coral, and overfishing that has led to increase in number of predators that eat corals. Warming of the ocean causes corals to sicken and die. Even a rise of one degree in the average water
TMA 01, QUESTION1. Some of the most serious environmental issues today are climate change, air issue, waste and land pollution, over population and water issue. 1. Climate Change, is undeniable a global environmental concern that is triggering a rise in the amount of major natural disasters like floods and hurricanes; which causes destruction in societies and the regions which they effect. Global warming will only cause an increase in these issues along with additional problems that could eventually end this civilization, if we don’t work hard on improving our efforts on managing all the different types of pollution and waste that contributes to this major concern.
While plants do benefit from elevated levels of phosphorous and nitrogen in the soil, so too do the pests that eat the crops, leading to population booms of bugs like crop-decimating aphids (National Academy of Sciences 688). The result is an increase in the amount of pesticides that farmers must use; pesticides that eventually seep into ground water and sometimes into potable supplies. Infiltrating ground water right along side the pesticides are the excess fertilizers which, once in rivers, streams, and lakes, cause rapid growth of algae. The immense amount of algae blocks off sunlight in these bodies of water and chokes off other plant life, which in turn kills off the fish that normally thrive on plants. In other cases, the algae blooms from eutrophication turn out to be incredibly toxic species (National Academy of Sciences 696).
It would interfere with millions of migratory birds that feed on its tundra plains. It would kill plants and animals that are native to the Beaufort Sea area and the environment would take two decades to recover. If there were a major oil spill, it would decades for the ecosystem to recover, since so many organisms would be contaminated and eventually die. Remember the 1989 catastrophe when the Exxon Valdez spilled 35 million gallons into Prince William Sound? The
There are five main things that affect the ocean and harm it, Whaling, overfishing, factory fishing, global warming, and pollution. Every year the Japanese government kills mink whales. They kill at least eight hundred fifty of these whales. Factory fishing is also a major harm to the ocean. Factories create equipment that destroys species in the ocean.
With an average of 6.3 million kilograms of trash being pumped into our oceans every year, it won't be very long until they reach breaking point. One of the most common pollutants in our oceans is plastic. In the United States, it has been estimated that two million plastic beverage bottles are used every five minutes and that marine litter now contributes sixty to eighty percent of plastic. Estimates for plastic shopping bags range from five hundred to a thousand years to breakdown. This is potentially devastating in that plastic is often mistaken for food by marine animals,