Poison.

Our current methods of growing, transporting, and packaging food is contributing to massive amounts of death throughout the global land and sea. As we nourish ourselves, we must not poison the rest of the life around us. For example, take the Great Pacific Garbage patch (and the other 6 in the other oceans as well). This is a cluster of mostly plastic garbage packaging and single-use products that sits and swirls together due to the ocean’s large currents converging. It is larger than the state of Texas. There are many marine animals that are affected negatively by this Garbage Patch. For example, many sea birds such as the albatross feed on the plastic particles of trash not knowing that it is human garbage and thinking that it is what it is supposed to be eating (things such as little sea animals and plants). It also feeds plastic scraps and bottle caps to its young for the same reason. Many baby albatrosses will not be able to live into adulthood because they have been eating plastic their whole lives instead of getting the nourishment it needs due to the parent only being able to find trash instead of life to feed them. There have been many efforts by humans to try to clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch as more and more public concern grows, but alas it still remains. Hopefully we will eliminate this evil circumstance soon. However, we cannot just eliminate it. We must reduce the amount of trash we as a species produce and discontinue our use of plastic altogether; it is a substance that must have no place in the future if we are going to be able to bring this planet back to a healthy and sustainable reality. There are many ways to achieve this in both large and small ways. Large ways include demanding that our governments implement things like plastic bans, demanding businesses stop using plastic, demanding that oil extracting ceases (as it is the crude substance with which plastic is made), etc. In small ways one could reduce the amount of plastic they personally buy and use by shopping differently (buying more whole foods instead of packages, not eating marine life because they are largely captured using plastic nets that fishermen discard in the oceans, etc). We must take action now. This is a crisis.

In addition to the problem of the poison of plastic, we are poisoning the oceans and lands with chemical pesticides and herbicides and fertilizers as well. Only about 1 percent of human beings are farmers nowadays, down from 18 percent in 1910. Over the past century, our farms have become fewer, larger, and more deadly with increased use of mechanization and chemical-intensive practices. No longer is it the case in which most people eat produce that is locally grown by themselves or many members of their communities. No more picturesque family farms growing all sorts of vegetables and fruits. Instead, the overwhelming majority of food is grown in a monoculture setting (in which one single crop is grown over expansive fields stretching acres and acres) and managed by a handful of farmers that are struggling to keep food on the table for their families because they are in so much debt to the seed companies, the chemical companies, and the machinery companies that are forced to either buy from or exit the business. The reality of the farmer around the world, in rich and poor countries alike, is quite heartbreaking to me because it used to be an occupation with so much personal heart and community put into it and now it is an occupation of fear, hardship unimaginable to a farmer 100 years ago, and oftentimes hopelessness and so many feel trapped in an inescapable cycle of oppressive human interactions. By using the chemicals, we are not only sucking the life out of the farming occupation but also quite literally sucking the life out of our world’s soil which we greatly depend upon. Instead of planting plants or just allowing plants to grow in places naturally that replenish the soil with the correct amount of nitrogens and phosphorus and other nutrients needs to be fertile, we just douse the land with human-made versions of these nutrients. In doing so, we do not allow the soil to do this on its own and therefore it loses its natural ability to sustain life and becomes dependent upon us continuing to douse it with the chemicals. Not only is this destroying land, it is destroying the surrounding oceans as well because of course everything is connected. We spray far too much chemicals, and therefore many run off into local waterways and empty out into the oceans when it rains. This causes an uneven and unstable collecting of nutrients in the ocean which causes environmentally damaging occurrences such as oppressive algae blooms that prevent sunlight from reaching the oceans floors and sustaining marine plant life which in turn sustains marine animal life because they float the top of the water. Therefore this is another way in which we kill marine ecosystems with are poisonous practices.

While there is some protection of natural areas on land to prevent us from performing harmful activities to beautiful and important areas, there are significantly even less protections for these places that are underwater. One person who has been working tirelessly to protect the ocean and inspire others to join the movement as well is Dr. Sylvia Earle. She is a true living legend and one of the most important oceanographers in all of history. For example, using her organization and film Mission Blue she educates so many people about why and how we are dependent upon our oceans for life ourselves and explores the intricate connections between wildlife in the ocean and land. She is working to get more and more of the ocean protected with her network of Hope Spots (a campaign that I have been donating monthly to for over a year and which I highly encourage you to donate to as well!). Hope Spots can be any place in the ocean that is particularly special in some way for a local community’s culture and history, for being a wildlife hotspot, for being the home of an endangered species, etc. I love her and the mission of her organization and I truly hope that more of these protections will have a lasting positive impact on the ocean’s health. We must simultaneously protect special places in the ocean, but also realize that everywhere in the ocean and on land in special in a myriad of ways, ways that we might not even fully comprehend yet, and therefore we need change our ways and live harmoniously with the life we share this blue and green planet with. How often do you think about your connection to the ocean? Word count: 1147.