Where We Are At

• Ocean acidification
  • On the main basis the burning of fossil fuels is polluting the ocean
  • The ocean ends up absorbing around a quarter of those carbon emissions
    • That causes the pH of the surface water to change and become more acidic
  • If we keep up with the current pace of our emission practices surface waters could end up becoming more than 150% more acidic than they are now
  • The acidic waters leads to declining fish harvesting, which has been estimated to have cost the Pacific Northwest’s oyster company nearly 110 million dollars and 3,200 jobs
• Trash in the ocean
  • The ocean is being filled with plastic that takes up to 1000 years to decompose
  • The plastic in the ocean can get covered with algae causing it to smell and look like food to many animals
    

    • Plastic has been found in around 60% of sea birds and 100% of sea turtle species
  • Around 2.5 billion metric tons of solid waste is produced around the world
    • 275 million metric tons of that waste is plastic
      • Every year around 8 million metric tons of plastic ends up in the ocean
      • That 8 million metric tons each year adds the the 150 million metric tons of plastic already in our oceans
  • Around 80% of the trash debris makes its way to the sea from land-based sources
• Ocean Noise
  • Many species of animals in the ocean rely heavily on communication by sound
  • Human generated noise pollution is altering the underwater acoustic landscape, which harms and even kills many marine species
  • Around 60,000 commercial tanker and container ships are putting noise into the ocean at one time
  • This creates a kind of smog that pollutes the marine species ability to communicate with others
• Offshore Drilling
  • Toxic byproducts are emitted routinely by the oil gas industry’s operations
  • They release high levels of greenhouse gas along with causing thousands of oil spills across the world