Nature is a very important part of living. Once, I was at the beach with my friends. It was a nice sunny day. My friends and I had just gotten out of the water and put on our coveralls when my best friend Mila said, “Look, it’s a balloon in the ocean!” I saw a Happy Birthday balloon in the ocean. “Let’s go get it before it goes too far!” I said, taking off my dress from over my bathing suit. We ran into the ocean and got the balloon, then threw it into the trash.
A few days ago I learned that it takes 450 years for a balloon to decompose. I was happy that I had saved the balloon from the ocean, where it might have killed marine wildlife.
Nature helps us in many ways. It was how we sustained ourselves when we were cave people. Nature is a part of life and some people don’t pay much attention to how it’s being treated. In this essay, I will be going over how the earth is being affected by humans including ocean pollution, air pollution, animal extinction, and climate change.
Ocean PollutionEvery day more and more trash is disposed of into the ocean. Every 60 seconds a whole truckload of plastic goes into the ocean. The ocean is holding 5.25 trillion pieces of trash. Of that trash, 15% goes to beaches, 15% floats, and 70% sinks to the depths of the ocean, killing and strangling marine wildlife.
This needs to stop. Can you believe that on some beaches the shores are covered in trash? You are lucky to be at a beach where trash isn’t flooding every nook and cranny. You might think “why aren’t we just preserving the ocean then?” Well, we are, but only less than 8% of the ocean is actually preserved. On the other hand, there are many people, like Oceana, Sea Legacy, and Ocean Conservancy, that are in the ocean right now picking up trash!
Air PollutionWe breathe oxygen every day, right? Well, only 21% of the air is actually oxygen. Everything else is Co2, nitrogen, neon, and hydrogen. If we don’t stop air pollution, then humans will die of polluted air. We need clean air to survive, and only 21% of our air is clean. If we keep pumping carbon dioxide into the air, the air will be full of Co2. However, in places like Las Vegas, you can see a whole dark cloud of Co2 and dirty air on top of it.
People breathe O2 and let out Co2. Trees produce O2 and take in Co2. We are cutting down 2,400 trees per second worldwide! There might be no trees left in the future, which means no clean air. But there are many organizations like Team Trees that plant thousands of trees every year.
Animal ExtinctionHave you heard of a panda farm or a tiger farm? Probably not, but not because they don’t exist! That is a huge issue because these are endangered species, about to go extinct. People think their fur looks nice, or they think it would make a nice mantel, so they kill these species for a coat that they will outgrow in six months. They need a farm that doesn’t kill them, but just preserves them. We keep slaughtering these animals for fun, not thinking about the devastation that we are causing. We need to preserve these creatures! Some scientists are collecting DNA for these endangered creatures so when they are extinct they can try to recreate the creature. But they wouldn’t need to do this if the creature wasn’t going extinct in the first place. We need to save these peace-loving creatures! At least some zoos are trying to preserve and tend to these animals that are going extinct.
Climate ChangeThe climate is changing the world. In some places, it is hotter or cooler than normal. That is all because of climate change. In New York, it normally snows around 12 days per year, but in 2019 it only snowed eight times, and in 2020 it only snowed ten! During the summer, New York normally tops 85 degrees, but one day this year it was almost 100 degrees. In parts of Africa, it is so hot, elephants have to walk miles just for a drink of water. Climate change is also affecting crop growth. There are low supplies worldwide because climate change affects plants. Plants can’t grow properly, so they die, leaving nothing to harvest and send to supermarkets. In hot areas, the water loss is making people that already have little to drink walk miles and miles for just a few buckets of dirty water. Climate change is changing the weather patterns, making it hard to decide if it’s going to rain, snow, or be sunny.
Climate change is mainly because of air pollution, which changes how clouds move so places that need water get a smaller amount. There are scientists that are helping people in Africa by giving them filters, so that when they get the water they can make it clean and drinkable.
ConclusionIn conclusion, nature is very important, but we are not taking good care of it. It’s so important for us to fix the environment. We would be lost without nature, or dead. This topic is important to me, because every day I walk around seeing over-flooded trash cans and people throwing out plastic bags, not caring where it’s going to land, and I think it’s disgusting. This topic is important to the community, because it will open the eyes of people who don’t care if one day trash will flood the streets, or if one day we need to wear oxygen tanks and masks because of polluted air. This topic is important to the world, because if you looked at the earth in outer space, where it would be green, lush, blue, and vibrant, it would be brown or light blue. You should care, because soon when you look at the earth from space it will be dry and dirty from trash. This is serious, not a small issue that can be blown over!