Author's Note: Last school year, in my class, we wrote persuasive essays about environmental issues. I was scavenging through old school work to make more room when I came across my essay. I've been wanting to write an article for the Times for some time now, so I decided (with some help from kittieme) that this should be the first article I put out. Here it is.
All over the world people throw their trash onto the ground or on to the beaches of oceans or lakes thinking that the trash will just get washed away and nothing they are doing will hurt the Earth in any way. But, the trash will not just go away. The trash will also be hurting the coral reefs. Coral reefs are useful to the world in many ways such as protecting shores from sea storms and providing humans with ingredients to make certain medicines. It majorly protects the sea creatures that use it as a huge source. But if coral becomes bleached and can't survive, animals can die, sea shores get harmed, possibly humans can get sick, and it may disrupt the human's regular routines! Never the less, if we stopped polluting, we can fix this supreme horror that some corals have to live with.
When coral reefs start to die, animals dependent on the coral aren't able to supply themselves with resources that are important to survive, and will die. This can affect the whole food chain by harming species like carnivores that are reliant on those animals for food. When coral dies, turf algae (VERY INFECTIOUS) invade the coral. The whole reef gets more likely to become bleached which leads you back to harming animals. If coral dies, the animals that use its protection and special nutrients could die finding other means of the things that keep their species alive. This could mean wiping out other generations of sea creatures. Without the coral, sea creatures can get washed away and harmed from the swift currents from a storm. With the coral, they are being reassured that they are safe from out of control pressures and currents. All of the protection of the coral also goes to waist on land.
Coral reefs can protect seashores from massive storms like cyclones and tsunamis by refraining some of the pressure from the storm before striking land. By doing so, we cut down on substantial risk of floods cause by the ocean and can sometimes help cut down on size and pressure from tsunamis! Tsunamis and cyclones can ruin business for humans and cut down on their economic benefits with tours of reefs and on land jobs. The reefs getting killed and not functioning can lead to human problems that can leave their family in debt and living on the streets which means the possibility of getting sick is much higher.
Coral is also very important for human's health. Some coral can get processed into medicines for many diseases. If a person who is having serious health issues where the key ingredient to the cure involves coral, they won't be able to get saved from the diseases and lots of family members and loved ones could be lost. If there is a alternative for the diseases medicine, great! But it could take years to find. Keep your family safe from diseases!
In the meantime, we are allowed to use little amounts of coral, as long as the world is left with more for other needs. No matter how unimportant people think coral is, it is important and a big help in the world. If humans stop polluting and reduce, reuse, and recycle their trash, animals and sea creatures will be saved from extinction. Also, beautiful shores will be clean and orderly (hopefully) and human lives would be saved. By saving coral, you are saving lots of problems of the world. Do you want a polluted and messy Earth? OF COURSE NOT! Go and help the Earth today!
Thank you for reading my first article in the Times!
-olo78
