Pollution

By: Flora W.

 

Do you want to die?  Probably not.  Do you want Earth to die? No.  Well Earth has many problems, but pollution is one of the biggest.  Everyone knows about pollution, but not everyone knows about what it can actually do.  The polluted seas cause dead zones and garbage patches while the polluted air causes climate change.  You may think that you will already be long gone before the world ends, but you’re wrong.  Pollution is one of the main causes of global warming, and of climate change, the biggest causes of world extinction.  What that means is, Pollution = climate change = global warming = the world ending = everyone dies.

            Air pollution is one of the biggest causes of climate change and global warming.  The burning of fossil fuels and wood, the black fumes the factories make, is destroying the air we breathe.  The gases the vehicles and factories make doesn’t only contain carbon dioxide but also dangerous and toxic chemicals that can cause many problems.  One of the problems is health related, but there are many more.  When the chemicals rise higher into the air, they will end up getting absorbed into the clouds.  When too many chemicals end up in the air, acid rain will appear.  Also, when the air gets too dense with chemicals, you get to see the air pollution, which is called the smog effect.  A PHD student did research on the air pollution timeline; in the beginning there was a terrible smog every couple of decades, but since 2015 there will be terrible smog at least once a year.  Did you know that in 1892 1,000 people in London died because of smog?  In 1966 during November, New York City had a terrible smog, causing the deaths of 168 people and health issues for about 10% of the city's population, and that smog had only lasted for three days.  In 2013 there was a smog in China so bad that it caused 2.5 billion people to lose five years of their life expectancy.

            Water pollution is another problem.  Every living thing needs clean water to be able to survive.  So when the factories and garbage start polluting up the sea, chaos begins.  Dead zones appear more and more often with their rate increasing.  Dead zones are when people dump too much farming nutrients into the ocean.  The nutrients can cause an insane amount of algae growth, but when the algae die and decompose, the oxygen in the waters surrounding it are devoured.  This causes all the marine life in the area to suffocate and die, causing dead zones.  In 2017 there was a deadzone discovered to be nearly the size of New Jersey.  Scientists have confirmed 415 dead zones worldwide.

Garbage patches also start forming in the ocean.  The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is already bigger than twice the size of Texas and is estimated to have about 1.8 trillion pieces of trash; that’s only one garbage patch.  Scientists have already said that in 2050 there will be more plastic in the ocean than there will be fish.  That’s not even the worst of it.  70% of the trash ends up sinking to the bottom of the ocean, so that means all the trash you can see is only 30% of the trash in the ocean. 

Also there are also many more oil spills in the ocean than you think.  The ones that you hear about are usually only accidents in the water, like oil tanks accidentally falling into the ocean, big hurricanes, terrorists, or other bigger and more dramatic spills, but that’s only approximately 12% of the oil spills in the ocean.  There are many more smaller oil spills, still dangerous and deadly but not as dramatic.  Some people get carless and make mistakes, and other times the equipment isn’t good enough and end up breaking or malfunctioning. Oil causes the ocean more problems than you think.  In the ocean, there is also something called noise pollution.  

In the ocean, low frequency sounds can travel farther and clearer though the water than they could on land.  Because of this the whales and marine life can communicate through longer distances of space, but because the low frequency sounds can travel so far, and the fact that marinelife uses them to talk, it means that they can hear the seismic testing the humans do too.  People use seismic testing to find oil on the ocean floor by transmitting low frequency sounds, the same ones that marine life uses.  Imagine hearing the sounds of bombs blowing up near your home; you’d be terrified, and your ear drums would also be damaged.  To marine life, the bombs are the seismic waves.  Everything in the ocean would be understandably terrified; because of this the animals start repopulating less, pushing their species closer to extinction.  After all, how would you feel if you could constantly hear bombs going off near you? 

            All this pollution isn’t just harmful for humans, but for plants and animals too.  Because of the dead zones, oil spills, garbage patches, and other things polluting the ocean, marine life is dying.  Seafood is consumed by many people and animals and is what many people depend on to make a living.  For it to die away would cause a humongous loss for not only humans but animals too.  The air pollution makes the health of plants and animals deteriorate, causing them to die quicker than they normally would.  All animals and humans need plants to live.  The trees do give off oxygen after all.  For them to die away, the air would become much more dense with carbon dioxide, making it harder to breathe.

            Knowing about all this pollution, you’re probably wondering about your health, right?  If you think that pollution affects your health, you’re correct.  Pollution causes an array of effects, diseases, and other health problems.  The least that can happen is irritated eyes, nose, and/or throat, but the pollution can also cause cancer, asthma, and emphysema.  Other effects include headache, nausea and allergies.  Health problems include asthma, emphysema, lung infections, and some other throat and lung problems.  Diseases include (mostly lung) cancer, heart disease, chronic respiratory disease, and many others.

            Luckily, everything isn’t completely ruined.  Yes, pollution is destroying this world and everything on it, but luckily the world hasn’t ended yet, so we still have a chance.  After all, everyone and everything deserves a second chance.  The only person who can destroy this world is humanity, but the only person who can save the world is also humanity.  We caused this world its problems, so we can get rid of them too.  All we need to do is try.