Essay about Ocean and Dead Zones

Submitted By bmckee94
Words: 584
Pages: 3
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Brandon McKee
PLS 120
Albert Kim
5/8/2014
Death of Our Oceans

The Article I have chosen is on a newer and controversial topic. Many scientists believe that we are “Killing” the oceans and eventually it will be our downfall. This article not only talks about the damage we are doing to our planet but also about the damage we could be doing to our economy as a whole. The argument comes from an extensive amount of research into what we call dead zones in our ocean. Dead zones have been known to be caused by extreme events in our climates such as a hurricane or a Tsunami’s. This article is suggesting that humans have been more involved in increasing the number of dead zones worldwide. It is suggested that by the amount of fertilizer we use it is increasing these dead zone at a frightening rate. These dead zones are formed from our fertilizers seeping into rivers and streams and then flowing into our oceans. Once in the ocean the fertilizer becomes more nutrients for the phytoplankton which they use to grow and multiply. This leads to more bacteria being created and in turn CO2 to be produce and push out all the oxygen. This causes most if not all marine organism too leave that area, thus making a dead zone.

This article uses mostly quantitative evidence to prove the argument. It gives you numbers to think about and shows you major increases. An example of this is the figures of dead zones the article gives us. Showing the increase from 49 dead zones in 1960 to over 405 today is a big figure and an effect way to show just how much we are affecting the ocean. They use this same quantitative strategy when describing the impact to the economy, showing the 500 million dollar loss in the fishing industry just from one dead zone. These numbers come from extensive studies done by seasoned scientists and agencies such as the Earth Sciences Data and Information Center.

The results and conclusions of the author in this article are very well supported with facts backed by several different organizations and studies. However this does not mean there are not viable arguments out there. Although not scientists many farmers explain that they have reduced the amount fertilizer by thirty all the way up fifty percent. The argument being, it doesn’t make sense for the problem to be getting worse if they are reducing there fertilizer use. Farmers seem to think
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