Exercise 4.1 (p 144-145)

I am writing a research paper and must make known to the audience my topic of choice, answering any questions they might have. This exercise is beneficial because it helps me narrow my writing and make it more concise to maintain the readers interest. This exercise really displayed what I need to focus on more in my topic, what areas need more research, and what areas I have enough research on.

My topic for my research essay is on Ocean Pollution, how it has progressed throughout the years, the affects it has had on us and vice-versa, and what could we do or what is being done to solve this problem. Ocean pollution is big problem in today's society especially because it has an effect on us everyday without us even realizing it. This is a world-wide issue and no body of water is better than another with the rate that we are destroying it today. We forget about the affects that ocean pollution has on us today such as contaminating or killing of sea animals. This not only alters or affects the life water cycle, but prevents us from eating. Ah! You may say this is not a problem because we have other animals to munch on, but some of those other animals that we eat, live off of eating sea animals. Also, we can't forget the vegetarians! They need some kind of protein and some vegetarians eat sea animals as a source of protein. Maybe, you might be one of those that don't eat any kind of animals at all, and primarily are about saving them! This once goes out to the zoologist who care about the sea animals. Well, because of societies pollution on the ocean, our sea animals such as dolphins and other big fish are swallowing containers and plastic bags and glass bottles and are dying from choking or just from its harm. This affects how other sea animals eat because no other sea animals are unable to eat because we are killing their food cycle. For those of you who have no interest in animals, but care about God's creation, why are we destroying what He made to be good and beautiful. As stewards of God's creation we should do all we can to display His glory through our actions. Making a difference and caring for God's creation, like he cares for us (also His creation), can really have a positive impact on the environment so other's can see His glory through His beautiful creation. Lastly for those who do not care about God's creation, or animals, or vegetarians, or just a clean environment, but love going to the beach, just know that the beaches are also being affected. A lot of debris and waste and trash that we dump into the ocean always finds it was back to shore and pollutes the beaches that we take our families and friends to. I don't know about you, but I know I personally do not want to sit in a pile of what is 96% waste, 3% sand, and 1% animals that have been killed off by our pollution.
In doing much research on ocean pollution, the primary cause is us and our laziness to not just go the a regular garbage and throw out our trash and the harmful chemicals we dump into the ocean thinking its a way to ride them. It surprised me to see that so much of this happening and this also affects our having clean water. We do not stop to think about others around the world whose only water source are rivers and lakes and oceans because they do not have clean water like us. Not putting only all the blame on us, but we need to think of how blessed we are to even have rivers and lakes that we could look at and here we are polluting and destroying them.

We need to step up and start taking care of ocean pollution. There are many things being done now by oceanographers, marine technicians, and engineers to fix this problem such as building machines that could test the pollution level, machines that can detect what is dirty, and equipment for the marine biologist to go in and remove as much debris as they can. Also, different types of water veterinarians and zoologist are doing all they can to help these animals.
I am confident that something needs to be done about this, but I do not feel as if we are doing as much as we really should to stop or change this. We need to come together and look at the affects from every aspect and create more ways in which we could rid our beach waste, such as putting more local garbage cans on the beaches or boardwalks and even sidewalks, team up with different organizations that are trying to prevent this, or become leaders and make our own organizations. I am choosing to major in marine biology to solve this problem as much as I can and save the ocean or God's beautiful creation!