By The push and pull of tides, the ocean and our climate and environment, these are all cyclical brings with a force of their own. When one goes out of balance. So does the other. Every human individual is ultimately made up of roughly 75 percent water. Our oceans make up 71 of the entire planet earth. When we take care of the ocean, we are taking care of home. We respect and conserve it, only to be nurtured and protected by it. That is balance.
The United Nations has been marking World Oceans Day since 1992. The world – and the 71 percent water that occupies it, has been heating up due to human actions such as burning of fossil fuels and factory emissions.
More and more every year we hear of mass coral bleaching events (mass coral death), melting ice and similar dire consequences as a result of these human actions. To fix this means fixing how we consume and what we consume.
That straw you drink from or that plastic bag you used may not be directly causing global warming, but it sure is filling up the earth with nowhere to go. More than 75 percent of all plastic that has ever been produced is now waste. This ends up clogging the gut and bodies of sea creatures and their habitat. Our lives are literally costing the lives of the ocean that holds 80 percent of all life on earth.
This World Oceans Day, we in the industry of Travel and Tourism should especially be contemplating and wondering on a deeper level the consequences of our actions. Did we do enough to educate the next generation? Have we done enough in our lives to invest in a life that doesn’t cause more harm to our oceans and environment? Will we be happy at how much we have done if we look back several decades from now?
Plastic pollution kills wildlife, damages natural ecosystems, and contributes to climate change.