Essay On Ocean Garbage

Chelsea Rochman is an ecologist at the University of California that has been trying to answer many unclear questions about ocean garbage and just how badly it’s affecting the ocean and marine life. Rochman believes that a lot of the supposed “threats” that scientists say ocean garbage pose had not been tested at all, and that the scientists had an insufficient amount of information to prove that the debris is doing or going to do exactly what they claim. Rochman and her colleagues studied over a hundred papers on the subject of ocean garbage and it’s effects. Eighty-Three percent of the perceived threats of ocean garbage were, in fact, proven true by scientists, while for most of the remaining 17%, the studies were simply too low-quality and
Rochman and her crew couldn’t find much research on the effects of the “microplastic” that makes up so much of the ocean debris. The harm comes from the larger pieces. The article also addresses how scientists only give the specifics on how the debris effects the animals individually, and not as a species as a whole, or how it could affect the whole ecosystem by causing a species to die off. ““We need to be asking more ecologically relevant questions,” Rochman says. Usually, scientists don’t know how disasters like oil spills or nuclear meltdowns will affect the environment until after they’ve happened, she says. “We don’t ask the right questions early enough.” But if ecologists can understand how the slow-moving disaster of ocean garbage is affecting ecosystems, they might be able to prevent things from getting worse.” Rochman believes we should be asking bigger questions and look at the bigger picture so that we can truly find out how marine debris is, and will affect the ocean and it’s