50 minutes to save the world

It’s so scary what’s happening to our oceans and how fast we’ve ruined it. Out of sight out of mind ? Ignorance is bliss ?  Whelp... that lead us here, and it's up to you and me to change this !

Amir Zakeri  jun 14 2019

The four biggest contributors to the death of our reefs and oceans : 

1        The use of oil, fossil fuels and coal all contributing to increasing our planet’s temperatures which catastrophic consequences for our environment. The earth has already warmed 1 deg Celsius  since the 19 th century. If the earth warmth 0.278 degree more it mean the difference between a world with coral reefs or a world without. Instead we must look to clean and renewable energy, solar wind and electric vehicles. Use more ride – sharing as much as possible. Start walking more or riding bikes. Anything we can do to reduce our dependence on the stuff that’s killing our planet. 

2       Virtually all rural areas near the coastlines’ runoff water is polluted by pesticides, Runoff goes directly to our oceans in turn killing our marine life and coral reefs. It’s been found that these chemicals affect all life history stages of corals so we must stop this as soon as possible. Please stop spraying your lawns and vegetation with these harmful chemicals, use natural herbicides instead or … don’t spray at all. 

3     14000 tons of sunscreen is deposited into our oceans and reefs every year. That’s 28 million pounds. Oxybenzone and octinoxate are the most popular chemicals found in non-reef safe sunscreens and they are the most potent killers of our coral reefs. Read and look at the label carefully before you buy or use sunscreen. Make sure it says reef–safe, 

4       381 million tons of plastic was produced in 2017 and yet only 9 % of all the world plastic has ever been recycled. One million marine animals are killed annually by plastic due to entanglement and ingestion. 70 % of all fish have ingested plastic and we ingest fish . We’re slowly poisoning ourselves and our future.

The good news is you and I can be part of the solution. Challenge yourself and others to minimize plastic use and you ‘ll be surprised at how many alternatives already exist. For example, when shopping bring your own reusable bags. Don’t use plastic bags for fruit and vegetables or plastic bottles for drinking, Drink from reusable canisters. Encourage your local stores to stop using so much plastic and tell your local restaurants to switch to biodegradable material…