For my literature review, I am focusing on the changing climate, what clean up efforts are being taken to fix the issue going forward and how the steps people take affect their mindset and general mood towards the world around them. People experience different thoughts of pollution and climate change based on the experiences they have related to it and what they do to combat it. Improving the relationship people have to marine life and educating and informing people of the effect garbage has on the environment.
A company called 4Ocean of has taken an interesting approach to saving the environment. They sell bracelets that are made out of recycled plastics that they personally pull out of the ocean. When purchasing a bracelet for twenty dollars and they will pull a pound of plastics out of the ocean. By doing this they have collected more than one hundred and seventy thousand pounds of garbage out of the ocean. With methods like this to combat climate change and pollution, it gives a physical representation of the difference you are making for the ocean and therefore reinforces the idea that you are making a difference. The price, in my opinion, is justified as with the money that you give it is used to make the bracelet but is also used to pay crews of people to search shores of beaches or to go offshore and use scuba diving equipment to retrieve more and more pieces of trash out of the ocean.
When people are able to help the environment and improve the state of our oceans by picking up trash on beaches is proven to improve the mood and happiness of people yet it is one of the least effective ways of making an impact on the environment as is shown in “Can Beach Cleans Do More Than Clean-Up Litter? Comparing Beach Cleans to Other Coastal Activities” by a few various authors. Throughout the article they detail how even though people find great solace in picking up plastics from beaches and that what they are doing is making a big impact on the immediate environment and coastline. After the study it was shown that people who participated in coastline cleanup felt a better sense of environmental awareness and self-improvement. They also became more educated on the effect that climate change and pollution had on their immediate surroundings and beaches. The student who participated in the beach cleanup came out with an all around more positive experience.
In the scholarly article “The role of public participation GIS (PPGIS) and fishermen’s perceptions of risk in marine debris mitigation in the Bay of Fundy, Canada” the articles focuses on how the damage and pollution of the surrounding area affects the fisherman’s abilities to fish and provide for themselves. It goes over the documentation of any debris found by fisherman and as to how different types of debris would alter their livelihood. The ever growing amount of trash in the ocean has drastically affected the fisherman’s careers, it rids the ocean of the valuable fish they need to survive.
One of biggest effects that pollution has had on our ocean is the creation of “Garbage Island” which is millions of pieces of garbage that stretches from Hawaii to Japan. The pieces of garbage float below the surface and are therefore unable to be seen from space or by satellite imagery. This huge build is because of decades and decades of garbage being dumped and got caught together due to a lack of heavy winds, storms and strong currents in the area. It was only discovered in the late 1990s by an oceanographer and has been thoroughly studied for years since. Because of the build up of millions of tonnes of trash which has become bigger than the continental United States of America it has led to the death of hundreds of thousands of marine animals and millions of birds.
It has been proven that people visiting aquariums improves the public perspective of marine sustainability. They are places of learning and can teach kids and adults alike of the effect people have on the environment to what can be done to save our fragile oceans. Having the option to learn about these things improves people’s “intention and attitudes” towards saving marine life. Given what people are able to learn at Aquariums it drastically affects the way they will treat marine life and sustainability in the future and are more likely to make an effort into saving the plants and animals of the ocean.
The only way people will be able to improve the state of our environment is to truly educate the damage we’ve done to the ocean and teach of ways we can help fix what we’ve done to the oceans. If people are given the opportunity to learn and become invested in something they are much more likely to support saving and even making a difference themselves. People also need to feel some sort of personal benefit from it otherwise a lot of the time people won’t think it is worth their time or will not believe it’ll matter directly to them. If it isn’t something they see or experience they would not do a thing, therefore informing them of the difference they can make and how it will improve their lives is the way to save the oceans and decrease the amount of pollutants.
References
- (n.d.). In 4Ocean. Retrieved from https://4ocean.com/
- Wyles, K. J., Pahl, S., Holland, M., & Thompson, R. C. (n.d.). Can Beach Cleans Do More Than Clean-Up Litter? Comparing Beach Cleans to Other Coastal Activities. In Environment and Behavior (Vol. 49, pp. 509-535). N.p.: US: Sage Publications. Retrieved from Capilano Library.
- Barnett, A. J., Wiber, M. G., Rooney, M. P., & Curtis Maillet, D. G. (n.d.). The role of public participation GIS (PPGIS) and fishermen’s perceptions of risk in marine debris mitigation in the Bay of Fundy, Canada. N.p.: Elsevier Ltd. Retrieved from Capilano Library.
- Marks, K., & Howden, D. (2008, February 5). The world’s rubbish dump: a garbage tip that stretches from Hawaii to Japan. The Independent. Retrieved from Google Scholar
- Wyles, K. J., Pahl, S., White, M., Morris, S., Cracknell, D., & Thompson, R. C. (2013). Towards a Marine Mindset: Visiting an Aquarium Can Improve Attitudes and Intentions Regarding Marine Sustainability. In Visitor Studies (Vol.
- 16, pp. 95-110). Retrieved from Google Scholar.