Destruction of The Ocean   

 

                                                                                                   

Pett, Joel, “Joel Pett’s Editorial Cartoons”, Bob Staake, 08-17-2012, http://www.theeditorialcartoons.com/store/add.php?iid=86509.

This cartoon perfectly relates to my topic, for it covers all the main categories of the destruction of the ocean and how humans are contributing to towards the destruction. When you look at the cartoon, you’ll notice the sign in the middle of the sharks stating, “Human Week!” which is in reference to Shark Week, a week where humans would show a collection of scary shark videos, movies, and facts, but just the other way around. But in the sign, it shows bullet points of pollution, overfishing, warming, coral reefs, and population. These are all major factors in the ocean, and they all have a negative impact on the ocean. With the huge population increase of humans over the years, it only increases the impact of the other factors. With the global warming, caused by the release of greenhouse gases (GHGs), the oceans average temperature is increasing, which causes powerful storms that have impacts of many kinds on coral reefs and other sea life. This paired with that fact that the ocean is the biggest absorber of solar radiation on Earth, makes for a dramatic increase in ocean temperature. Overfishing is yet another major factor, with many species of fish being fished almost to extinction including, many species of sharks and whales, as well as bluefin tuna, monkfish, and Atlantic halibut. This overfishing of the ocean has many impacts on the ecosystem causing certain species to overpopulate and others to dwindle, making flourishing species become a part of the endangered species list. Probably the biggest factor in the ocean’s destruction is pollution. Every year, nearly one million seabirds and 100,000 sea mammals are killed because of pollution, that doesn’t take into account the uncountable number of fish that are killed. The pollution is so bad that because of the oceans current it will flow all over the ocean and effect millions of species, pollution will even collect together and form islands of garbage.