Connected by the Ocean

Oceans are made up of substantial area of water that covers approximately 71% of Earth's
surface and have been the largest habitat for underwater creatures from the fishes that are served
on our plates every day to the deep sea creatures. Due to its gigantic size, as much as 95 percent
of the world's oceans remain unexplored because of the harsh and extreme pressure, as well as
small amount of oxygen and extreme cold down there.

As water being the most omnipresent element on the Earth, there is no denying that oceans are
the reason why we are connected through the major oceanic divisions, recognized as Pacific
Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean, Southern Ocean and Arctic Ocean. These oceanic
divisions are divided depending on the locations respectively. Oceans have been playing their
important roles in connecting humankinds together since our ancestors started to sail their
journey and discovery.

As the Earth revolves around the Sun every day, humans have successfully discovered and
invented new technologies all around the world, therefore, that was how sail and ships were
invented wherein it shows how human in past were very eager to discover the Earth. However,
this evolvement is slowly developing greediness in humankind. Though people are making
money out of it, we did not realize that our greediness are slowly affecting the mother nature,
especially the oceans.

Aside from global warming, urban sprawl, ozone layer depletion, climate change, acid rain and
many other environmental issues that we’ve heard, the oceans are affected by these issues too.
Climate change has always been the main issues on both land and oceans, as the drastic change
in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over an extended period of time, regardless the
cause.

Through this environmental issue, the oceans are severely affected as many of the underwater
creatures’ habitats are destroyed due to the climate change. One of the epicenter of the climate
change towards the oceans are the mass coral bleaching events due to anomalously warm
temperatures related to climate change. These coral reefs are dying as a result in the starvation,
shrinkage and death of the corals that support the thousands of species that live on coral reefs.
As oceans are now experiencing longer and more severe marine heat waves, more ocean animals
and ecosystems are pushed to their limits. This will affect all the marine lives especially the coral
reefs as they are particularly sensitive to increases in temperature. There are no quick fixes when
it comes to a changing climate, however, the least solution that we can do is to promote reef
resilience as a resilient coral reef is one that can either resist a large-scale stressful event or
recover from it. To make this happen, local threats must be reduced in order to reduce stress and
improve overall reef condition.

Apart from global warming, plastic has been one of the most dangerous threats to marine life as
it is commonly known, plastic isn’t biodegradable, which accentuates the threat of lingering
waste plastic for years and for generations to come. While plastic thrown into landfills
contaminates the soil and groundwater with harmful chemicals and microorganisms, the effects
of marine pollution caused by plastic are immeasurable. Recently, a heartbreaking video of a
turtle with a straw stuck inside its nose went viral and has caught the attention of the media from
all over the world. Just like on land, even in the oceanic areas, the effects of plastic on marine
life has started to be felt.

To fix this, there are many efforts underway to reduce plastic pollution in the seas, including the
cleaning up of beaches, and preventing the entry of plastic into the ocean in the first place. There
many organizations that are fighting to save the oceans. As part of battling plastic pollution,
particularly in the ocean, many countries have restricted or banned several forms of plastic
products. The enumerable sewage treatment efforts across the world and the increasing
awareness about the negative impacts of plastic would possibly help us retain our oceans.

The fact that more and more countries have started to ban the usage of plastic straws, Malaysia is
encouraged to do the same. Many restaurants are slowly encouraging their customers to stop
using plastic straws for their drinks. Besides that, in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the
ministers have started to implement a 20 cents charge for every plastic used in the supermarkets
to lessen the usage of plastic bags because people will be burdened by the charge applied.

In addition to the environmental issues, ocean pollution or marine pollution cause by human
activities have severely affected marine life in the oceans. This pollution is due to the spreading
of harmful substances such as plastic, oil, industrial and agriculture waste and chemical particles
into the ocean. As oceans are the home to wide variety of underwater creatures, it is our
responsibility to play our parts in making these oceans clean so that marine species can thrive in
the oceans for long period of time.

It's hard to clean up mass pollution once it has occurred, so the best plan is to prevent it from
occurring again. The first step is to limit agricultural pesticides and encourage farmers to
maneuver organic farming and eco-friendly pesticide use to their plants. The good thing is, there
are several federal laws and regulations that have been implemented in some countries that help
to prevent the sale and use of substandard pesticides.

Next, the municipal council of every area in the state should implement a proper sewage
treatment and explore an eco-friendly wastewater treatment options, such as recycling sewage
sludge to carbon-phosphorus fertilizers. This treatment is done by managing and disposing
sewage sludge produced during the sewage treatment. Sludge is made up of mostly water with
lesser amounts of solid material are removed from the liquid sewage. There are two stages of
sludge which are primary and secondary sludge. The primary sludge includes settle-able solids
removed during primary treatment in primary clarifiers. Meanwhile, the secondary sludge is
separated in secondary clarifiers which includes treated sewage from secondary treatment
bioreactors. Under the Clean Water Act implemented in most developed countries, the EPA offers
assistance for recycling bio solids and regulates sewage sludge in order to minimize metal
concentration in water.

Last but not least, in cleaning up the mass pollution, a very expensive fine and summon should
be imposed on the industries that refuse to obey the rules. It is one of the ways to cut down on
industry and manufacturing waste and contain landfills so they don’t spill into the oceans.

In conclusion, we are largely responsible for them because our activities have caused a continual
increase in greenhouse gas concentrations. It is a very huge responsibility that we, people from
all over the world should work together in order to fix the sickening oceans and to combat the
worsening climate change for the sake of our future. And that is how, we are connected by the
oceans.