The World Is Blue By Sylvia Earle Summary

The ocean is one of our most precious natural resources. Every living thing depends on our ocean. The ocean hold 97% of the earth water, as they produce oxygen and absorb carbon. The ocean is a source of food and a natural living habitat for all sea creatures. Over the years as we move closer, the surface of our oceans is beginning to stew up with millions to tons of marine debris, as it has a huge impact on our ecosystem. The oceans are becoming vital for our life and breath and as we are abusing and polluting it without giving thought of the consequences.

The ocean is the largest ecosystem on the planet and plays a vital role in the worlds environment. It covers 70% of the Earth’s surface, contains 95% of the water on the planet and is an essential part of the natural cycles that make our planet habitable. The ocean is not only dynamic and sensitive, but it is also severely affected by our lifestyle choices. It regulates global temperatures, is the world’s biggest carbon sink (absorbing more carbon dioxide than it releases), provides a home for trillions of plants and animals that make up various levels of the food chain, and so much more. Because of its immense appearance, it is frequently misinterpreted to be a stable and resilient environment immune to human activity. Unfortunately, this is not the case. The Ocean is a resource for us to use and benefit from, however, it needs to be protected. It

The ocean is one of the biggest components of the world’s ecosystem. Today, countless amounts of people are completely unaware of how much of an impact the ocean has on our world. If we continue to destroy our oceans our world can be thrown into dystopia. The ocean is responsible for the food on our tables, and weather patterns. We also might be able to have other world crises be solved if we clean up our oceans, like global warming. The ocean produces half of the oxygen we consume, also one-third of carbon dioxide emissions produced by humans is consumed by the ocean. The quote “While many of us enjoy the spectacular recreational activities that oceans offer, for some people oceans are a lifeline for survival”, ( The Nature Conservancy 5).

The oceans need to be protected because it is where life began and if not taken care of, life as we know it will end. The well-being of the ocean is constantly being threatened and needs to stop. When dangerous substances go into the ocean, ecosystems suffer and become endangered along with the lives of people and marine life. The importance of protecting and preserving the quality and biodiversity of the world 's coasts must be recognized because they are truly irreplaceable. If humans are not educated , and become careless about what is thrown on the ground or sprayed on lawns, disastrous effects follow when it comes to the condition of the ocean’s ecosystems, which can endanger life itself, leading to a problem only we can correct. There is historical evidence of ocean pollution, although the problem still shadows us today.

Oceans cover approximately 75% of Earth 's surface and are vital to this planet and the people who inhabit it. Oceans provide food, natural resources, and recreation for nearly everyone in this world. Unfortunately Oceans have been receiving mass amount of pollutants including oil spills, toxic waste dumping, and industrial dumping. These pollutants will have negative impacts on the wildlife in the ocean, as we are seeing already with the Coral Reefs, and soon enough it will begin to affect our lives as well.

As you are aware, there are millions of people all over the world that do not care about our planet. They live day-to-day with the ignorance about the world, assuming, the earth is indestructible, despite the warning signs of global warming. The Ocean covers 71 percent of Earth. Keeping it clean is a responsibility that all humanity must participate in. Keeping the ocean pollution to a minimum is essential to our living status and we should be more educated on the issue. Having pollution in the water severely affects the way we live.

Everything in this world we use comes from the ocean in some way. The air we breathe, the water we drink, even the products we use day to day, would not be possible without the ocean. That's why the issue of ocean pollution is so important and needs to be addressed as soon as possible. We depend on the ocean for so much in our life, without it we would surely become extinct. People seem to think that since the ocean is so large and vast, we can dump as much waste as we'd like into it and it will never have an effect on us. However, since we've been polluting the ocean as far back as Roman times, the evidence of ocean pollution becoming a major problem is all too clear.

Annotated Bibliography At the beginning of this project, I decided I wanted to study the natural phenomenon of the ocean. I knew that the ocean contains an abundance of unexplainable things, but I did not know what exactly I wanted to study in depth. As my studying went on, I decided to focus on the ocean’s compelling traits that affect humans and the land we call home. Do the increasing population and human’s daily habits interfere with the ocean?

My passion for the ocean emerged at an early age. From my first encounter, the beauty and mystery of the ocean has captivated me. I was able to observe dolphins, sharks, crabs, and corals, and was staggered by the abundance of vibrant life that presides within the ocean. At this time, I didn’t realize that the ocean was facing many problems. When I was younger I didn’t pay much attention to the papers, but one day a photo caught my eye - sea creatures, slick with oil, dejectedly moving through the polluted ocean.

Humans, in many ways, ruin the oceans. Pollution, oil spills, and many more terrible mistakes turn the ocean into a ‘sewer’. But, as many ways there are to destroy the ocean, there are many ways to renew it. There is still hope for our oceans and the creatures that live in them.

They say only a few will ever speak loud enough to be heard over the other seven billion voices on the planet. Today someone is shouting. Screaming off of the pages of “The World is Blue” is Sylvia Earle, National Geographic Society’s Explorer in Residence, and vast contributor to the effort to preserve the planet’s oceans. Earle’s book is not an inconvenient truth, fueled by politics and funding, but rather, by Earle’s heart for the ocean, and

Humans are working to conserve the ocean by cleaning up oil spills, releasing trapped animals, and cleaning up trash along the shore of the ocean, and even near tributaries which lead into the Ocean. Humans try to conserve the Ocean, although the problems we are working on are caused by us. For example, the BP oil spill occurred in April, and we are still trying to fix the leak, and we still are trying to clean the shores, but we caused these problems ourselves, and it wasn't the Ocean. Our trash washes up on shores and we clean it up in order for the animals to live safely and not get trapped. There are also many more problems which we try to constantly solve.

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.

In some way or another, we all rely on the oceans to survive. They affect weather patterns, global temperatures, provide us with oxygen, all while removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. More importantly, they provide us with the food that sustains life. We have always relied on oceans for food. Fishing is not a new invention but in recent history, humans have exploited this source of food. We have had a chronic problem of over fishing, over harvesting the once bountiful supply of fish. According to a National Geographic report, “A study of catch data published in 2006 in the journal Science grimly predicted that if fishing rates continue apace, all the world’s fisheries will have collapsed by the year 2048 (Pristine Seas, National