Saving the ocean, what does that have to do with us?
The ocean feeds the food we eat
The way the food chain works is easy to understand: the small living things in the ocean (phytoplankton, zooplankton, small fish, etc.) are eaten by the bigger ones (shellfish, fish, mammals, etc.)
Each link in this chain ingests microplastic, which is everywhere in the ocean, and which marine animals cannot tell apart from their food.
We end up eating the fish and shellfish, so we eat the plastic with which we have polluted the ocean.
The ocean makes the air we breathe
The ocean absorbs just under 30% of the CO2 that we produce and provides us with 50% and 70% of the oxygen that we breathe (according to geographical areas and sources) (16). It’s as simple as that.
With the acidification of the oceans, which is mainly due to global warming, the phytoplankton that produces our oxygen is clearly under threat.
The ocean is a major economic player
The ocean supplies jobs and food to several thousand people on the planet and 70% of the value that it creates depends on it being healthy, whether for food or tourism (43).
Beyond the ethical aspects of protecting the ocean, there is an obvious economic reason to protect it and help it thrive. Otherwise the billions of people who depend on it will have to find another way to make a living.
