We are all part of nature and must live in harmony, do no harm and try to do some good
Coral reefs are an important breeding ground for 25% of all the fish that live in the worlds Oceans they are aso critical as a protective barrier to help prevent erosion of land. Water and waste water pollution, and chemicals such as oxybenzone in sunscreen are incredibly toxic to coral and are resonsible for more than 50% of coral destruction around the world Climate change is important, but minor in comparison
The second largest coral reef in the world is rapidly being destroyed.
I wonder when they will make the connection between chemical and particle pollution to disease and bleaching. Sargassum caused by eutrophication from Brasil and South Africa also have a major impact with regards to causing arsenic and heavy metal pollution..
All of the answers are there, and solutions are ready, but it is still blamed on climate change, for which carbon mitigation on its own is not a solution.
The lowest concentration of oxybenzone that has been shown to damage corals is 62 parts per trillion (ppt). https://lnkd.in/ewSh8V4x
This is equivalent to a drop of water in six and a half Olympic-sized swimming pools. At this concentration, oxybenzone can cause coral bleaching, genetic damage, and death to coral and probably most marine organisms. Every time you use a sunscreen containing Oxybenzone, you are probably killing all marine life is a water volume equivalent to 10,000 cubic meters, or everything in an area 100m x 100m.
The world produces 14,000 tonnes a year of Oxybenzone for sunscreens and other products. If we assume this all enters the world’s oceans, and given that it is lipid soluble, floats on the surface and doesn’t dissolve in the water but becomes concentrated on particles of microplastic and partially combusted carbon, and assuming it is dispersed throughout the top 1m of water depth, 14,000 tonnes give a concentration of 40ppt. We know that the chemical is lethal at 62ppt and is probably toxic down to 10ppt or lower to all zooplankton and phytoplankton.
Plankton are the lungs of the planet and our life support, 50% has been lost since 1970 and the remainder is being destroyed at a rate of 1% to 2% year on year.
The question is…. why are we not stopping the use of this chemical and the other 15,000 lipophilic toxic chemicals that are also being discharged into our ocean?
We could survive climate change; humanity will not survive the destruction of the oceans.
The GOES Report
https://lnkd.in/ev6_2cXN
The Oceans can save the world, but we must save them through the elimination of pollution and the protection of marine life.
It’s great that TIME magazine is flagging the issues, and of course whale poo is really important, but 80% of the world has no effluent treatment, and the shit from 6 billion people and all the toxic chemicals, herbicides, and pesticides are killing marine life in the world’s oceans.
No amount of whale poo is going to save the panet; pollution is killing the whales; and dinoflagellate phytoplankton fed by the pollution is producing domoic acid, which is causing the whales brain damage; and it’s not only whales; it’s all marine mammals and birds and even humans.
The Oceans are responsible for up to 80% of our oxygen and carbon sequestration. Terrestrial systems take 60 years to double in biomass, but if we stop killing marine life with toxic chemicals, the doubling time is just 3 days because most of the biomass in the oceans is bacteria and plankton under 1mm in size.
Actions and solutions: www.goesfoundation.com
Bioclimatic climate change… https://lnkd.in/ev6_2cXN
https://time.com/6307205/enric-sala-ocean-conservation/
Organic sunscreens containing chemicals such as oxybenzone are horribly toxic to corals and marine life in general. They should not be permitted, especially in environmentally sensitive locations. There is not a problem with switching to safer mineral sunscreens based on zinc oxide, they are better, lower cost, and less toxic to you and marine life.
