Greening the Blue – World Oceans Day

Oceans are the lungs of our planet and a major source of food and medicines. Yet over the past few decades humans have managed to contribute to 80% of the Oceans’ pollution, adding 8 million tonnes of plastic PER YEAR!

World Oceans Day is celebrated to spread awareness about the importance of saving our oceans, in-turn saving ourselves. Dive in with us into the depths of the ocean to learn about some of its secrets and why we should protect them:-

1. About 94% of life on earth is aquatic. In comparison, us humans are a minority and a lot hangs on saving and restoring aquatic life.
2. Even with advanced technology humans have explored only 5% of the ocean world. Imagine the thousands of sea creatures, animals, soil types, ruins etc that lie in the unexplored parts, waiting to be discovered!
3. The oceans are our mega-museums with ancient civilizations buried, fossils of millions of land and sea animals and plants. It becomes more and more important to save these water bodies from pollution to keep these relics safe.
4. Over 1 million seabirds, 3,00,000 dolphins and porpoises are killed by ocean pollution every year. Along with these creatures, sharks too are facing a drastic decline in number as they get caught in plastic fishing nets, suffocate and die.
5. In the Pacific island lies and island of garbage twice the size of Texas! It is known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, though there is nothing quite great about it.
6. Other sources that pollute and endanger life in the oceans are oil spills, chemical dumps and radioactive waste disposal from nuclear reactors.
7. The Great Barrier Reef, the largest coral reef in the world, visible from the Moon has lost half of it’s coral in the past two years due to global warming. What used to be a an ecosystem supporting hundreds of lifeforms, is now barren and plain white in colour.
8. Small animals such as fish are the first to absorb chemicals and pollutants in the waters. These fish end up being consumed by us humans, implying that the pollutants and toxins get transferred to us.

With so much life resting in the hands of our oceans it is important to take drastic measures to save them. You can make your contribution by reducing the use of plastic and recycling waste.

Spread the message on social media using the #worldoceandaywithbyjus #savetheoceanswithbyjus

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