Environmental History Of The Oceans And Seas

The author of American Catch, Paul Greenberg starts us on a journey through america's seafood industry from the early days of abundant seafood to the present condition of our fisheries. America has about 94,000 miles of coast and about 3.5 million miles of rivers, but about 91 percent of our seafood is imported. Here in America 39 percent of citizens call themselves coastal folk, but Greenberg argues we have lost touch with the complex ecosystems of the nation’s shorelines. Estuaries and salt marshes are strange crossroads where salt and freshwater currents meet to be home for oysters, shrimp, and crab. They are also home of dozens of varieties of fish. Greenberg complains about our nation’s destructive relationship with its own shoreline and tells Americans they must desire to “build a bridge back from the plate back to the estuary. This requires us to not just to eat local seafood. It requires the establishment of a working relationship with salt marshes, oyster beds, the natural flow of water from river to sea, and the integrity of the ocean floor.”.

It was Mihaljo Mesarovic, the author of “Mankind at the Turning Point”, who once said “The Earth has cancer and the cancer is man”. He was definitely onto something. In fact, humans have had a major negative impact on the world’s marine environment. Throughout recent human history, it has been obvious that the wellbeing of the marine environment has been in jeopardy. Pollution of the ocean, overfishing and the greenhouse gases these are all the aspects that can cause the destroying of the precious environments, such as reefs, sea-grass and coastal habitats. According to the essay and interview “Seafarming at the End of the World”, written by Peter Meehan, he presents the fact that human impact on the ocean is the main reason that causes the awful situation of marine ecosystem and organisms.

Oldcastle Precast of Avon, Conn. prefabricated a precast concrete pool and weir fish ladder, designed for a tributary to Hubbard Brook, Middletown, as part of the Connecticut Department of Transportation’s State Route 410 (Aircraft Road) culvert rehabilitation project.

Humans have always had a relationship with the ocean. Whether the relationship is good or bad, the ocean links humans together and surrounds them. The ocean is an important resource that people learn more and more about every day. Technology has had great impact on the ocean as well as how people perceive the ocean. Both Richard Gillis and Rachel Carson touch upon this age-old relationship between humans and the ocean and how technology aids or hurts this connection.

I chose to conduct research into an area that was primarily based on the ocean and the aquatic species that it contains. My interest in Marine Biology lead me to research the near – extinct Great Barrier Reef and the reasoning behind its mass loss of coral reef systems and aquatic species, allowing me to establish my research question.

Sharks have survived 5 major extinctions, and only recently are the number of sharks is beginning to decline. This suggests that human exploitation is the main reason for the drastic loss of sharks and therefore, the overall effect on marine life, and indirectly the effect on human life via fisheries (fig1 and 2). In just under 50 years, slaughter of sharks has risen by 400% to

Callum Roberts set himself the difficult task of cataloguing evidence that today’s oceans are depleted and struggling against overfishing and human influence, while still remaining optimistic about the future of the world’s oceans in his book The Unnatural History of the Sea. Roberts begins by painting a picture of the oceans as they may have been before human influence had drastically depleted species and changed ecosystems through fishing. From this point, he maps out centuries of development in fishing and shows how drastically changed and depleted the world’s oceans are today because of human exploitation. With the explanation of modern day fishery policy and a strong case against the practice of trawling, Roberts shows how humanity continues to exploit the ocean as if it were an endless resource. In spite of all this, the author, in the end, attempts to develop a positive outlook by explaining what can be done to stop the rapid decimation of fisheries, including reevaluation of fishery regulations and development of marine reserves.

Oceans have affected the environment by hurting animals, people, the environment itself and NOW the plants. Believe it or not, but when garbage affects our plants it also affects our animals, humans, and environment, like a chain reaction. Any plant can be affected by this pollution.

It is important to understand past anthropological study of marine affairs in order to contextualize the progression and evolution of the dominant modes of thinking. Anthropological study of fisheries and fisherman has changed over the past half-century. From the late 1970s until the turn of the century, the focus of writing and observation was mostly centered on overfishing and exploitation of marine resources, limited to the visible effects of human interaction with the ocean (Moore 2012: 673). These studies produced conversations about changing existing legislation to restore or a least prevent further damage to ecosystems and fish populations. Efforts were largely limited to discussion of best practices and management techniques centered

Historically, misconceptions about coastal and other aquatic adaptations are persistent in archaeology due to: (1) long-standing ideas that aquatic resources are marginal foods, (2) unclear definitions of what constitutes aquatic versus terrestrial resources, (3) changing sea levels, erosion, and the destruction of coastal archaeological sites, (4) differential preservation, recovery, and reporting of aquatic remains, and (5) holdovers from the “Man the Hunter” paradigm, which tend to overemphasize terrestrial hunting activities (Erlandson 2001). Consequently, coastal and other aquatic adaptations are poorly documented worldwide; the economic output of aquatic environments, and the nature of societies inhabiting them, continues to be debated

Exploitation of seemingly unlimited natural resources and overfishing of our seas has been a common theme throughout human history and across cultures, and as global populations grow, these problems only compound. The basic nature of World History is to break down borders and remove nationalistic biases in the hope of finding an objective viewpoint, and humans exploiting environmental resources for short term gain is as cross-cultural a characteristic as they come.

In relation to my Unit Study work, my group and I are focusing on marine biology, which is an important aspect of the article. Currently, we are studying the inhabitants of the ocean, and their specific habitats. Because the guiding question for this work pertains to the relationship of society and nature and its development over time, this article will be an excellent basis to begin this research. Additionally, this article provided me with a much needed understanding of the importance of coral reefs to marine animals, which I will be able to convey in the

Today, about 70% of the earth is covered with water, and that is because of the evolution of the ocean system. Before that happened however, our solar system was created. One of the persisting theories when it comes to the creation of our solar system is the Big Bang Theory. This theory basically states that “12 to 14 billion years ago, the portion of the universe we can see today was only a few millimeters across. It has since expanded from this hot dense state into the vast and much cooler cosmos we currently inhabit” (“Universe”). From that ‘big bang’, we progressed to supercontinents, the most recent being Pangea 300 million years ago, and lastly, to the seven continents we see today, thanks to the Wilson cycle.

Since the beginning of the human race, people have flocked to the ocean. The largest civilizations were built in fertile, coastal areas. Oceanographer and professor at Stanford University, Mark Denny, opened up his book, How the Ocean Works: An Introduction to Oceanography, with the statement, “Throughout history, men and women have been drawn to the sea” (Denny 1). Here in Hawaii, this is especially notable. Hawaii was discovered by islanders who were adventuring across the sea, using it to feed them and working with the currents on their journey. Now, hundreds of years later, visiting the white sandy beaches and crystal blue waters of Hawaii is on nearly the whole world’s bucket list, but it might not be around for much longer. This would be devastating to the planet, as environmental expert Jennifer Weeks says oceans supply most of the Earth’s food and oxygen (Weeks). Not only does the sea provide the most basic necessities for survival, but it has also provided “...Anticancer and antiviral drugs based on substances produced by coral reef species...” (Weeks). Despite all the research that has been done, and is currently underway right this moment, we still know less about the ocean than we do about space! Elisabeth Mann Borgese, an expert in environmentalism, has written, “Our ignorance of the ocean is profound, and although we have learned much during the last hundred years, our knowledge of ocean processes and life in the oceans will remain forever incomplete” (Borgese 23). As Borgese said, it is impossible to learn all there is to know about the sea, but knowing what to do to fix the state of the world’s oceans is vital and attainable information.

It was Mihaljo Mesarovic, the author of “Mankind at the Turning Point”, who once said “The Earth has cancer and the cancer is man”. He was definitely onto something. In fact, humans have had a major negative impact on the world’s marine environment. Throughout recent human history, it has been obvious that the wellbeing of the marine environment has been in jeopardy. Pollution of the ocean, overfishing and the greenhouse gases these are all the aspects that can cause the destroying of the precious environments, such as reefs, sea-grass and coastal habitats. According to the essay and interview “Seafarming at the End of the World”, written by Peter Meehan, he presents the fact that human impact on the ocean is the main reason that causes the awful situation of marine ecosystem and organisms.