Now, we don’t want to sound melodramatic, go over the top, be called drama-kings or panic just for the sake of panicking but… ummm... OUR OCEANS ARE DYING, PEOPLE!
The facts are there. That’s right, the facts, Not the fake news, but cold-hard, hard-to-swallow, swallow-you-must facts, and we’re going to regale you with some of them right now:
- Climate change is warming the ocean waters, which has lead to a disruption in migration patterns whilst simultaneously increasing acidification (how’s that for sh*tty double whammy).
- Overfishing has irreversibly altered more marine ecosystems than our brains can fathom, while somewhere between 65-90% of our most awe-inspiring ocean predators have been caught in illegal fishing operations and turned into sandwich fillers, predators like swordfish and tuna.
- Super-intelligent and white-coat-wearing researchers have now predicted we’ll watch 90% of our glorious coral reefs get be wiped out by 2050, taking with them the essential nursery grounds and coastal protections spots they provide our marine wildlife.
- And, to place a nice big plastic cherry on top of it all, over 8 million tons of plastic now enters our oceans every single year, each piece seeping super-harmful chemicals into our own food chain. Plastic bags, water bottles, McDonald’s straws, microbeads from toothpastes, unnecessary packaging to keep your avocados together - we’re literally poisoning our own food.
Unlike The Notebook, Doctor Zhivago and The Great Gatsby, it’s not pretty reading. Actually, coming to think of it, it’s more like some sort of sick and twisted M. Night Shyamalan film - one you can’t turn off.
But just because an ocean-pocalypse seems inevitable, we believe it’s totally possible to prevent further harm from hitting our oceans. Like so many other environmentalists, we believe there’s every reason to stay ocean positive, to keep fighting the good fight and to keep pulling more than our weight to protect our future.
The problem is, people still think it’s enough to just ‘like’ the odd oceanholic articles they scroll past on Facebook, double-tap images of straw-impaled turtles on Instagram and nod enthusiastically when the topic of “Oh, sh*t, the oceans are looking pretty rough at the moment.”
But that’s not enough.
It’s not enough to diagonally roll-up your copy of Shortlist Magazine, turn it into a makeshift-megaphone and then shout about the unfolding catastrophe from your skyscraper office or down the platform of your nearest tube station. All you’ll get from doing that is a sore voice, and that will result in the plastic packaging of another Strepsils box finding its way to the Plastic Island off the Pacific coast of Hawaii.
No. What the oceans really needs from you, us, Dave down the pub, Julie next door, Karen in accounts, Dennis Quaid, John Boyega and the rest of the world is the immortal words of The King himself: a little less conversation and a little more action, please.
Now we know it probably feels totally overwhelming because the ocean is massive and the problems it faces is mahoosive, but there are still plenty of things we can all do on an individual level that will make a positive impact.
So, without further ado, here are 11 Things You Can Do To Save The Ocean (All Of ‘Em):
The ocean is responsible for more than half of our oxygen supply. Literally, every other breath we take comes from the ocean, and here we are trying to turn off its life support machine. Well, that needs to stop. Collectively, we need to do more. So much more. But that starts with each of us. It starts with us doing that cliched thing of being the change we want to see and dragging those around us along for the ride. It means getting involved with the movement so that it can gain so much traction it leaves the best kind of tyre marks in the history books. We’re not sure about you but, to us, it feels like the world is at an almighty crossroads and it needs our help. So instead of doing nothing and running the risk of a Station Eleven-type endemic erupting - one that sees factions of survivors roaming a desolate planet and talking about life before the ocean fallout - let’s be the generation that saves our oceans and start giving the planet everything it needs to recover.
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