informative speech on the ocean

All About the Ocean

The ocean covers 70 percent of Earth's surface.

Biology, Earth Science, Oceanography, Geography, Physical Geography

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This article is also available in Spanish .

The ocean covers 70 percent of Earth 's surface. It contains about 1.35 billion cubic kilometers (324 million cubic miles) of water, which is about 97 percent of all the water on Earth. The ocean makes all life on Earth possible, and makes the planet appear blue when viewed from space. Earth is the only planet in our solar system that is definitely known to contain liquid water. Although the ocean is one continuous body of water, oceanographers have divided it into five principal areas: the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Arctic, and Southern Oceans. The Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans merge into icy waters around Antarctica. Climate The ocean plays a vital role in climate and weather . The sun’s heat causes water to evaporate , adding moisture to the air. The oceans provide most of this evaporated water. The water vapor condenses to form clouds, which release their moisture as rain or other kinds of precipitation . All life on Earth depends on this process, called the water cycle . The atmosphere receives much of its heat from the ocean. As the sun warms the water, the ocean transfers heat to the atmosphere. In turn, the atmosphere distributes the heat around the globe. Because water absorbs and loses heat more slowly than land masses, the ocean helps balance global temperatures by absorbing heat in the summer and releasing it in the winter. Without the ocean to help regulate global temperatures, Earth’s climate would be bitterly cold. Ocean Formation After Earth began to form about 4.6 billion years ago, it gradually separated into layers of lighter and heavier rock. The lighter rock rose and formed Earth’s crust . The heavier rock sank and formed Earth’s core and mantle . The ocean’s water came from rocks inside the newly forming Earth. As the molten rocks cooled, they released water vapor and other gases. Eventually, the water vapor condensed and covered the crust with a primitive ocean. Today, hot gases from the Earth’s interior continue to produce new water at the bottom of the ocean. Ocean Floor Scientists began mapping the ocean floor in the 1920s. They used instruments called echo sounders , which measure water depths using sound waves . Echo sounders use sonar technology. Sonar is an acronym for SOund Navigation And Ranging. The sonar showed that the ocean floor has dramatic physical features, including huge mountains, deep canyons , steep cliffs , and wide plains . The ocean’s crust is a thin layer of volcanic rock called basalt . The ocean floor is divided into several different areas. The first is the continental shelf , the nearly flat, underwater extension of a continent. Continental shelves vary in width. They are usually wide along low-lying land, and narrow along mountainous coasts. A shelf is covered in sediment from the nearby continent. Some of the sediment is deposited by rivers and trapped by features such as natural dams. Most sediment comes from the last glacial period , or Ice Age, when the oceans receded and exposed the continental shelf. This sediment is called relict sediment . At the outer edge of the continental shelf, the land drops off sharply in what is called the continental slope . The slope descends almost to the bottom of the ocean. Then it tapers off into a gentler slope known as the continental rise. The continental rise descends to the deep ocean floor, which is called the abyssal plain . Abyssal plains are broad, flat areas that lie at depths of about 4,000 to 6,000 meters (13,123 to 19,680 feet). Abyssal plains cover 30 percent of the ocean floor and are the flattest feature on Earth. They are covered by fine-grained sediment like clay and silt. Pelagic sediments, the remains of small ocean organisms, also drift down from upper layers of the ocean. Scattered across abyssal plains are abyssal hills and underwater volcanic peaks called seamounts. Rising from the abyssal plains in each major ocean is a huge chain of mostly undersea mountains. Called the mid-ocean ridge , the chain circles Earth, stretching more than 64,000 kilometers (40,000 miles). Much of the mid-ocean ridge is split by a deep central rift, or crack. Mid-ocean ridges mark the boundaries between tectonic plates . Molten rock from Earth’s interior wells up from the rift, building new seafloor in a process called seafloor spreading . A major portion of the ridge runs down the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and is known as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. It was not directly seen or explored until 1973. Some areas of the ocean floor have deep, narrow depressions called ocean trenches . They are the deepest parts of the ocean. The deepest spot of all is the Challenger Deep , which lies in the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean near the island of Guam. Its true depth is not known, but the most accurate measurements put the Challenger Deep at 11,000 meters (36,198 feet) below the ocean’s surface—that’s more than 2,000 meters (6,000 feet) taller than Mount Everest, Earth’s highest point. The pressure in the Challenger Deep is about eight tons per square inch.

Ocean Life Zones From the shoreline to the deepest seafloor, the ocean teems with life. The hundreds of thousands of marine species range from microscopic algae to the largest creature to have ever lived on Earth, the blue whale. The ocean has five major life zones, each with organisms uniquely adapted to their specific marine ecosystem . The epipelagic zone (1) is the sunlit upper layer of the ocean. It reaches from the surface to about 200 meters (660 feet) deep. The epipelagic zone is also known as the photic or euphotic zone, and can exist in lakes as well as the ocean. The sunlight in the epipelagic zone allows photosynthesis to occur. Photosynthesis is the process by which some organisms convert sunlight and carbon dioxide into energy and oxygen . In the ocean, photosynthesis takes place in plants and algae. Plants such as seagrass are similar to land plants—they have roots, stems, and leaves. Algae is a type of aquatic organism that can photosynthesize sunlight. Large algae such as kelp are called seaweed . Phytoplankton also live in the epipelagic zone. Phytoplankton are microscopic organisms that include plants, algae, and bacteria. They are only visible when billions of them form algal blooms , and appear as green or blue splotches in the ocean. Phytoplankton are a basis of the ocean food web . Through photosynthesis, phytoplankton are responsible for almost half the oxygen released into Earth’s atmosphere. Animals such as krill (a type of shrimp), fish, and microscopic organisms called zooplankton all eat phytoplankton. In turn, these animals are eaten by whales, bigger fish, ocean birds, and human beings. The next zone down, stretching to about 1,000 meters (3,300 feet) deep, is the mesopelagic zone (2). This zone is also known as the twilight zone because the light there is very dim. The lack of sunlight means there are no plants in the mesopelagic zone, but large fish and whales dive there to hunt prey . Fish in this zone are small and luminous . One of the most common is the lanternfish, which has organs along its side that produce light. Sometimes, animals from the mesopelagic zone (such as sperm whales ( Physeter macrocephalus ) and squid) dive into the bathypelagic zone (3), which reaches to about 4,000 meters (13,100 feet) deep. The bathypelagic zone is also known as the midnight zone because no light reaches it. Animals that live in the bathypelagic zone are small, but they often have huge mouths, sharp teeth, and expandable stomachs that let them eat any food that comes along. Most of this food comes from the remains of plants and animals drifting down from upper pelagic zones. Many bathypelagic animals do not have eyes because they are unneeded in the dark. Because the pressure is so great and it is so difficult to find nutrients , fish in the bathypelagic zone move slowly and have strong gills to extract oxygen from the water. The water at the bottom of the ocean, the abyssopelagic zone (4), is very salty and cold (2 degrees Celsius, or 35 degrees Fahrenheit). At depths up to 6,000 meters (19,700 feet), the pressure is very strong—11,000 pounds per square inch. This makes it impossible for most animals to live. Animals in this zone have bizarre adaptations to cope with their ecosystem. Many fish have jaws that look unhinged. The jaws allow them to drag their open mouth along the seafloor to find food, such as mussels, shrimp, and microscopic organisms. Many of the animals in this zone, including squid and fish, are bioluminescent. Bioluminescent organisms produce light through chemical reactions in their bodies. A type of angler fish, for example, has a glowing growth extending in front of its huge, toothy mouth. When smaller fish are attracted to the light, the angler fish simply snaps its jaws to eat its prey. The deepest ocean zone, found in trenches and canyons, is called the hadalpelagic zone (5). Few organisms live here. They include tiny isopods , a type of crustacean related to crabs and shrimp. Invertebrates such as sponges and sea cucumbers thrive in the abyssopelagic and hadalpelagic zones. Like many sea stars and jellyfish, these animals are almost entirely dependent on falling parts of dead or decaying plants and animals, called marine detritus . Not all bottom dwellers, however, depend on marine detritus. In 1977, oceanographers discovered a community of creatures on the ocean floor that feed on bacteria around openings called hydrothermal vents. These vents discharge superheated water enriched with minerals from Earth’s interior. The minerals nourish unique bacteria, which in turn nourish creatures such as crabs, clams, and tube worms. Ocean Currents Currents are streams of water running through a larger body of water. Oceans, rivers, and streams have currents. The ocean’s salinity and temperature and the coast’s geographic features determine an ocean current’s behavior. Earth’s rotation and wind also influence ocean currents. Currents flowing near the surface transport heat from the tropics to the poles and move cooler water back toward the Equator . This keeps the ocean from becoming extremely hot or cold. Deep, cold currents transport oxygen to organisms throughout the ocean. They also carry rich supplies of nutrients that all living things need. The nutrients come from plankton and the remains of other organisms that drift down and decay on the ocean floor. Along some coasts, winds and currents produce a phenomenon called upwelling . As winds push surface water away from shore, deep currents of cold water rise to take its place. This upwelling of deep water brings up nutrients that nourish new growth of plankton, providing food for fish. Ocean food chains constantly recycle food and energy this way.

Some ocean currents are enormous and extremely powerful. One of the most powerful is the Gulf Stream , a warm surface current that originates in the tropical Caribbean Sea and flows northeast along the eastern coast of the United States. The Gulf Stream measures up to 80 kilometers (50 miles) wide and is more than a kilometer (3,281 feet) deep. Like other ocean currents, the Gulf Stream plays a major role in climate. As the current travels north, it transfers moisture from its warm tropical waters to the air above. Westerly, or prevailing, winds carry the warm, moist air to the British Isles and to Scandinavia , causing them to have milder winters than they otherwise would experience at their northern latitudes . Northern parts of Norway are near the Arctic Circle but remain ice-free for most of the year because of the Gulf Stream. The weather pattern known as El Niño includes a change to the Humboldt Current (also called the Peru Current) off the western coast of South America. In El Niño conditions, a current of warm surface water travels east along the Equator and prevents the normal upwelling of the cold, nutrient-rich Humboldt Current. El Niño, which can devastate the fisheries of Peru and Ecuador, occurs every two to seven years, usually in December. The paths of ocean currents are partially determined by Earth’s rotation. This is known as the Coriolis effect . It causes large systems, such as winds and ocean currents that would normally move in a straight line, to veer to the right in the northern hemisphere and to the left in the southern hemisphere . People and the Ocean For thousands of years, people have depended on the ocean as a source of food and as a route for trade and exploration . Today, people continue to travel on the ocean and rely on the resources it contains. Nations continue to negotiate how to determine the extent of their territory beyond the coast. The United Nations’ Law of the Sea treaty established exclusive economic zones (EEZs), extending 200 nautical miles (230 miles) beyond a nation’s coastline. Even though some countries have not signed or ratified the treaty (including the U.S.), it is regarded as standard. Russia has proposed extending its EEZ beyond 200 nautical miles because two mid-ocean ridges, the Lomonosov and Medeleev Ridges, are extensions of the continental shelf belonging to Russia. This territory includes the North Pole. Russian explorers in a submersible vehicle planted a metal Russian flag on the disputed territory in 2007. Through the centuries, people have sailed the ocean on trade routes . Today, ships still carry most of the world’s freight , particularly bulky goods such as machinery, grain, and oil . Ocean ports are areas of commerce and culture. Water and land transportation meet there, and so do people of different professions: businesspeople who import and export goods and services; dockworkers who load and unload cargo ; and ships’ crews. Ports also have a high concentration of migrants and immigrants with a wide variety of ethnicities, nationalities, languages, and religions. Important ports in the U.S. are New York/ New Jersey and New Orleans. The busiest ports around the world include the Port of Shanghai in China and the Port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Ocean ports are also important for a nation’s armed forces. Some ports are used exclusively for military purposes, although most share space with commercial businesses. “The sun never sets on the British Empire” is a phrase used to explain the scope of the empire of Great Britain , mostly in the 19th century. Although based on the small European island nation of Great Britain, British military sea power extended its empire from Africa to the Americas, Asia, and Australia. Scientists and other experts hope the ocean will be used more widely as a source of renewable energy . Some countries have already harnessed the energy of ocean waves, temperature, currents, or tides to power turbines and generate electricity. One source of renewable energy are generators that are powered by tidal streams or ocean currents. They convert the movement of currents into energy. Ocean current generators have not been developed on a large scale, but are working in some places in Ireland and Norway. Some conservationists criticize the impact the large constructions have on the marine environment. Another source of renewable energy is ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC). It uses the difference in temperature between the warm, surface water and cold, deep water to run an engine. OTEC facilities exist in places with significant differences in ocean depth: Japan, India and the U.S. state of Hawai'i, for instance. An emerging source of renewable energy is salinity gradient power , also known as osmotic power. It is an energy source that uses the power of freshwater entering into saltwater. This technology is still being developed, but it has potential in delta areas where fresh river water is constantly interacting with the ocean. Fishing Fishers catch more than 90 million tons of seafood each year, including more than 100 species of fish and shellfish . Millions of people, from professional fishers to business owners like restaurant owners and boat builders, depend on fisheries for their livelihood . Fishing can be classified in two ways. In subsistence fishing, fishers use their catch to help meet the nutritional needs of their families or communities. In commercial fishing , fishers sell their catch for money, goods or services. Popular subsistence and commercial fish are tuna, cod, and shrimp. Ocean fishing is also a popular recreational sport. Sport fishing can be competitive or noncompetitive. In sport fishing tournaments, individuals or teams compete for prizes based on the size of a particular species caught in a specific time period. Both competitive and noncompetitive sport fishers need licenses to fish, and may or may not keep the caught fish. Increasingly, sport fishers practice catch-and-release fishing, where a fish is caught, measured, weighed, and often recorded on film before being released back to the ocean. Popular game fish (fish caught for sport) are tuna and marlin. Whaling is a type of fishing that involves the harvesting of whales and dolphins. It has declined in popularity since the 19th century but is still a way of life for many cultures, such as those in Scandinavia, Japan, Canada, and the Caribbean. The ocean offers a wealth of fishing and whaling resources, but these resources are threatened. People have harvested so much fish and marine life for food and other products that some species have disappeared. During the 1800s and early 1900s, whalers killed thousands of whales for whale oil (wax made from boiled blubber ) and ivory (whales’ teeth). Some species, including the blue whale ( Balaenoptera musculus ) and the right whale, were hunted nearly to extinction . Many species are still endangered today. In the 1960s and 1970s, catches of important food fish, such as herring in the North Sea and anchovies in the Pacific, began to drop off dramatically. Governments took notice of overfishing —harvesting more fish than the ecosystem can replenish . Fishers were forced to go farther out to sea to find fish, putting them at risk. (Deep-sea fishing is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world.) Now, they use advanced equipment, such as electronic fish finders and large gill nets or trawling nets, to catch more fish. This means there are far fewer fish to reproduce and replenish the supply. In 1992, the collapse, or disappearance, of cod in Canada’s Newfoundland Grand Banks put 40,000 fishers out of work. A ban was placed on cod fishing, and to this day, neither the cod nor the fisheries have recovered. To catch the dwindling numbers of fish, most fishers use trawl nets. They drag the nets along the seabed and across acres of ocean. These nets accidentally catch many small, young fish and mammals. Animals caught in fishing nets meant for other species are called bycatch . The fishing industry and fisheries management agencies argue about how to address the problem of bycatch and overfishing. Those involved in the fishing industry do not want to lose their jobs, while conservationists want to maintain healthy levels of fish in the ocean. A number of consumers are choosing to purchase sustainable seafood . Sustainable seafood is harvested from sources (either wild or farmed) that do not deplete the natural ecosystem. Mining and Drilling Many minerals come from the ocean. Sea salt is a mineral that has been used as a flavoring and preservative since ancient times. Sea salt has many additional minerals, such as calcium, that ordinary table salt lacks. Hydrothermal vents often form seafloor massive sulfide (SMS) deposits , which contain precious metals. These SMS deposits sit on the ocean floor, sometimes in the deep ocean and sometimes closer to the surface. New techniques are being developed to mine the seafloor for valuable minerals such as copper, lead, nickel, gold, and silver. Mining companies employ thousands of people and provide goods and services for millions more. Critics of undersea mining maintain that it disrupts the local ecology . Organisms—corals, shrimp, mussels—that live on the seabed have their habitat disturbed, upsetting the food chain. In addition, destruction of habitat threatens the viability of species that have a narrow niche . Maui’s dolphin ( Cephalorhynchus hectori maui ), for instance, is a critically endangered species native to the waters of New Zealand’s North Island. The numbers of Maui’s dolphin are already reduced because of bycatch. Seabed mining threatens its habitat, putting it at further risk of extinction. Oil is one of the most valuable resources taken from the ocean today. Offshore oil rigs pump petroleum from wells drilled into the continental shelf. About one-quarter of all oil and natural gas supplies now comes from offshore oil deposits around the world. Offshore drilling requires complex engineering . An oil platform can be constructed directly onto the ocean floor, or it can “float” above an anchor. Depending on how far out on the continental shelf an oil platform is located, workers may have to be flown in. Underwater, or subsea, facilities are complicated groups of drilling equipment connected to each other and a single oil rig. Subsea production often requires remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROVs). Some countries invest in offshore drilling for profit and to prevent reliance on oil from other regions. The Gulf of Mexico near the U.S. states of Texas and Louisiana is heavily drilled. Several European countries, including the United Kingdom, Denmark, and the Netherlands, drill in the North Sea. Offshore drilling is a complicated and expensive program, however. There are a limited number of companies that have the knowledge and resources to work with local governments to set up offshore oil rigs. Most of these companies are based in Europe and North America, although they do business all over the world. Some governments have banned offshore oil drilling. They cite safety and environmental concerns. There have been several accidents where the platform itself has exploded, at the cost of many lives. Offshore drilling also poses threats to the ocean ecosystem. Spills and leaks from oil rigs and oil tankers that transport the material seriously harm marine mammals and birds. Oil coats feathers, impairing birds’ ability to maintain their body temperature and remain buoyant in the water. The fur of otters and seals are also coated, and oil entering the digestive tract of animals may damage their organs. Offshore oil rigs also release metal cuttings, minute amounts of oil, and drilling fluid into the ocean every day. Drilling fluid is the liquid used with machinery to drill holes deep in the planet. This liquid can contain pollutants such as toxic chemicals and heavy metals . Pollution Most oil pollution does not come from oil spills, however. It comes from the runoff of pollutants into streams and rivers that flow into the ocean. Most runoff comes from individual consumers. Cars, buses, motorcycles, and even lawn mowers spill oil and grease on roads, streets, and highways. (Runoff is what makes busy roads shiny and sometimes slippery.) Storm drains or creeks wash the runoff into local waterways, which eventually flow into the ocean. The largest U.S. oil spill in the ocean took place in Alaska in 1989, by the tanker Exxon Valdez . The Exxon Valdez spilled at least 10 million gallons of oil into Prince William Sound. In comparison, American and Canadian consumers spill about 16 million gallons of oil runoff into the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans every year. For centuries, people have used the ocean as a dumping ground for sewage and other wastes. In the 21st century, the wastes include not only oil, but also chemical runoff from factories and agriculture . These chemicals include nitrates and phosphates , which are often used as fertilizers . These chemicals encourage algae blooms. An algae bloom is an increase in algae and bacteria that threatens plants and other marine life. Algae blooms limit the amount of oxygen in a marine environment, leading to what are known as dead zones , where little life exists beneath the ocean’s surface. Algae blooms can spread across hundreds or even thousands of miles. Another source of pollution is plastics . Most ocean debris, or garbage, is plastic thrown out by consumers. Plastics such as water bottles, bags, six-pack rings, and packing material put marine life at risk. Sea animals are harmed by the plastic either by getting tangled in it or by eating it. An example of marine pollution consisting mainly of plastics is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch . The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a floating dump in the North Pacific. It’s about twice the size of Texas and probably contains about 100 million tons of debris. Most of this debris comes from the western coast of North America (the U.S. and Canada) and the eastern coast of Asia (Japan, China, Russia, North Korea, and South Korea). Because of ocean currents and weather patterns, the patch is a relatively stable formation and contains new and disintegrating debris. The smaller pieces of plastic debris are eaten by jellyfish or other organisms, and are then consumed by larger predators in the food web. These plastic chemicals may then enter a human’s diet through fish or shellfish. Another source of pollution is carbon dioxide. The ocean absorbs most carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide, which is necessary for life, is known as a greenhouse gas and traps radiation in Earth’s atmosphere. Carbon dioxide forms many acids, called carbonic acids , in the ocean. Ocean ecosystems have adapted to the presence of certain levels of carbonic acids, but the increase in carbon dioxide has led to an increase in ocean acids. This ocean acidification erodes the shells of animals such as clams, crabs, and corals. Global Warming Global warming contributes to rising ocean temperatures and sea levels . Warmer oceans radically alter the ecosystem. Global warming causes cold-water habitats to shrink, meaning there is less room for animals such as penguins, seals, or whales. Plankton, the base of the ocean food chain, thrives in cold water. Warming water means there will be less plankton available for marine life to eat. Melting glaciers and ice sheets contribute to sea level rise . Rising sea levels threaten coastal ecosystems and property. River deltas and estuaries are put at risk for flooding. Coasts are more likely to suffer erosion . Seawater more often contaminates sources of fresh water. All these consequences—flooding, erosion, water contamination—put low-lying island nations, such as the Maldives in the Indian Ocean, at high risk for disaster. To find ways to protect the ocean from pollution and the effects of climate change, scientists from all over the world are cooperating in studies of ocean waters and marine life. They are also working together to control pollution and limit global warming. Many countries are working to reach agreements on how to manage and harvest ocean resources. Although the ocean is vast, it is more easily polluted and damaged than people once thought. It requires care and protection as well as expert management. Only then can it continue to provide the many resources that living things—including people—need.

The Most Coast . . . Canada has 202,080 kilometers (125,567 miles) of coastline. Short But Sweet . . . Monaco has four kilometers (2.5 miles) of coastline.

No, the Toilet Doesn't Flush Backward in Australia The Coriolis effect, which can be seen in large-scale phenomena like trade winds and ocean currents, cannot be duplicated in small basins like sinks.

Extraterrestrial Oceans Mars probably had oceans billions of years ago, but ice and dry seabeds are all that remain today. Europa, one of Jupiter's moons, is probably covered by an ocean of water more than 96 kilometers (60 miles) deep, but it is trapped beneath a layer of ice, which the warmer water below frequently cracks. One of Saturn's moons, Enceladus, has cryovolcanism, or ice volcanoes. Instead of erupting with lava, ice volcanoes erupt with water, ammonia, or methane. Ice volcanoes may indicate oceanic activity.

International Oil Spill The largest oil spill in history, the Gulf War oil spill, released at least 40 million gallons of oil into the Persian Gulf. Valves at the Sea Island oil terminal in Kuwait were opened on purpose after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1991. The oil was intended to stop a landing by U.S. Marines, but the oil drifted south to the shores of Saudi Arabia. A study of the Gulf War oil spill (conducted by the United Nations, several countries in the Middle East and the United States) found that most of the spilled oil evaporated and caused little damage to the environment.

Ocean Seas The floors of the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea are more like the ocean than other seas they do not rest on a continent, but directly on the ocean's basalt crust.

Early Ocean Explorers Polynesian people navigated a region of the Pacific Ocean now known as the Polynesian Triangle by 700 C.E. The corners of the Polynesian Triangle are islands: the American state of Hawai'i, the country of New Zealand, and the Chilean territory of Easter Island (also known as Rapa Nui). The distance between Easter Island and New Zealand, the longest length of the Polynesian Triangle, is one-quarter of Earth's circumference, more than 10,000 kilometers (6,200 miles). Polynesians successfully traveled these distances in canoes. It would be hundreds of years before another culture explored the ocean to this extent.

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March 5, 2024

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World Ocean Day Speech Topics (Deep Dive): Be a Voice for the Oceans

World Ocean Day, celebrated every year on June 8th, is a special occasion established by the United Nations to honor, help protect, and conserve our planet's oceans. These vast bodies of water are critical to life on Earth, providing most of the oxygen we breathe, regulating our climate, and hosting an extraordinary array of marine biodiversity. Yet, they are under threat from overfishing, pollution, and climate change. World Ocean Day provides an opportunity to raise awareness of these challenges and inspire action to protect our blue planet. For students and educators alike, World Ocean Day speech topics offer a way to engage with these issues and contribute to the global conversation.

Informative World Ocean Day Speech Topics

• The history and significance of World Ocean Day
• The role of oceans in climate regulation
• The importance of coral reefs and their threats
• The impact of plastic pollution in the oceans
• The challenge of overfishing and sustainable solutions
• The biodiversity of the deep sea
• Marine conservation success stories
• The Great Ocean Garbage Patches: What are they and why do they matter?
• The role of the oceans in human history and culture
• The science of tides and currents
• Ocean acidification: causes and consequences
• The role of mangroves and seagrasses in marine ecosystems
• The impact of shipping on marine environments
• The fascinating world of marine mammals
• Aquaculture: Pros, cons, and sustainability
• The significance of the Polar Regions
• The threats facing sea turtles and efforts to save them
• The world's largest marine protected areas: What are they and why do they matter?
• How the oceans affect weather patterns
• Ocean exploration: Past, present, and future

Persuasive World Ocean Day Speech Topics

• Why we should stop single-use plastics
• The need for more marine protected areas
• The case for sustainable fishing practices
• Why we must act now to mitigate climate change for the sake of our oceans
• The importance of ocean literacy in schools
• Why we should invest in renewable ocean energy
• The case for banning harmful fishing practices like bottom trawling
• Why we should support the restoration of coral reefs
• The importance of individual action for ocean conservation
• The need for stricter laws against ocean pollution
• The economic benefits of healthy oceans
• Why we should be more concerned about the melting Arctic
• The need for increased investment in oceanographic research
• The case for shark conservation
• Why beach clean-ups matter
• The benefits of sustainable tourism for marine environments
• The importance of reducing our carbon footprint for the oceans
• The case for protecting marine biodiversity
• Why we need to rethink our seafood choices
• The benefits of ocean-based climate solutions

Impromptu World Ocean Day Speech Topics

• Your favorite ocean creature and why it fascinates you
• Your personal connection with the ocean
• The first time you saw the ocean and how it made you feel
• A recent ocean-related news story that caught your attention
• The importance of the ocean to your local community
• The most amazing ocean fact you know
• The role of the ocean in your favorite book or movie
• A dream you have about exploring the ocean
• How the ocean inspires you
• The most beautiful ocean scene you have ever witnessed
• Your favorite ocean-based activity or sport
• How you can make a difference in protecting the ocean
• Your thoughts on a recent ocean documentary you watched
• The most surprising thing you've learned about the ocean
• A story about a memorable ocean-related experience you had
• Your favorite ocean myth or legend
• The most significant change you've noticed in your local marine environment
• How the ocean inspires your favorite music or art
• A reflection on the future of our oceans
• Your favorite ocean-themed book or movie and what it taught you about the ocean

Fun World Ocean Day Speech Topics

• Fun ocean facts that will blow your mind
• The Octonauts and their role in marine conservation
• The magic of Fraggle Rock and its message about protecting our oceans
• The most colorful marine creatures and where to find them
• The world's most beautiful beaches and what they can teach us about nature
• How to throw a World Ocean Day party
• The role of comic books and cartoons in teaching kids about the ocean
• Marine-themed arts and crafts: The best DIY projects for World Ocean Day
• The best ocean-themed games and activities for kids
• The joy of reading: The best children's books about the ocean​.

To give you a sense of how to structure a speech on one of these topics, let's take "The Role of Oceans in Climate Regulation" from our list of informative World Ocean Day speech topics.

"The Role of Oceans in Climate Regulation"

• Introduction : Start with a hook to grab your audience's attention. For instance, you might begin with a surprising fact about how much carbon dioxide the ocean absorbs every year.
• Background : Provide some context about the role of the oceans in our planet's climate system. This might include information about the water cycle, ocean currents, and the heat capacity of water.
• Main Points : Discuss the ways in which the ocean influences climate. This could include its role in absorbing heat and carbon dioxide, its effect on weather patterns, and the impact of ocean currents on climate.
• Implications : Talk about what happens when this system is disrupted, such as through ocean warming or acidification.
• Conclusion : Summarize your main points and end with a call to action. This could be a call to reduce carbon emissions, support marine conservation efforts, or simply to learn more about our oceans.

Whether your speech is informative, persuasive, impromptu, or just for fun, the secret is to keep your topic engaging and relevant for your audience. With a wide array of World Ocean Day speech topics to choose from, the possibilities are endless. So go ahead, dive in, and let your voice echo the call of our oceans!

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Un headquarters, 08 june 2020, remarks on world oceans day, antónio guterres.

Welcome to this virtual World Oceans Day Global Celebration, on the theme of “Innovation for a Sustainable Ocean”. 

We rely on the seas and oceans for food, livelihoods, transport and trade. 

And, as the lungs of our planet and its largest carbon sink, the oceans play a vital role in regulating the global climate.

Today, sea levels are rising due to climate change, threatening lives and livelihoods in low-lying nations and coastal cities and communities around the world.

In these coastal areas, higher sea levels increase vulnerability to storm surges, while saltwater intrusion degrades arable land and groundwater.

The oceans are also becoming more acidic, putting marine biodiversity and essential food chains in jeopardy.

And plastic pollution is everywhere.

For too long we have failed in our responsibility to protect our marine environment.  

In 2015, the First World Ocean Assessment found serious and widespread degradation.

I fear that the Second World Ocean Assessment due later this year will reflect even more disturbing data. 

We need urgent action on a global scale to protect the world’s seas and oceans from the many pressures they face.

We have a responsibility to correct our relationship with the oceans. 

Today we highlight “Innovation for a Sustainable Ocean,” and the crucial role that new ideas will play in creating a more sustainable world. 

We will highlight solutions and projects that address the themes of the next United Nations Ocean Conference.

Better understanding of the oceans is essential for conserving fish stocks and discovering new products and medicines.

The upcoming United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development will provide much-needed impetus and a common framework for action.

As we work to build back better from the COVID-19 pandemic, let us all come together, to promote ocean science and the innovations that will save the lifeblood of our planet.

I wish you a productive World Oceans Day Global Celebration.

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World Ocean Summit speech by Ambassador Peter Thomson, UNSG’s Special Envoy for the Ocean

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Greetings to one and all. Though we may be far apart I celebrate the fact that we are in each other’s virtual company and are able to share our ideas over the next half an hour. We are connected. I’ve been invited to speak to you for about ten minutes, after which I understand Martin will moderate a twenty-minute Q & A session. I greatly look forward to our interchange of ideas.

Before I launch into my prepared remarks, I repeat the phrase “we are connected.” Personally, I think this is the most fundamental lesson of the COVID-19 pandemic. We are all connected. No man is an island, connected as we are to our genetic inheritances, our place in societies and economies, through our families, our communities and our nations. But most importantly we are connected to Nature, not on an equal footing, not as in a relationship with a business partner, not connected in such a manner that disconnection is a sustainable option. We are connected within Nature’s nurturing embrace, such that if we choose to poison Nature through pollution and extermination of biodiversity, we are in fact poisoning ourselves.

Two tiny entities have rammed home the message of connectivity. Over the last year, a minute zoonotic coronavirus has travelled around the world, passed from human to human, killing over two and a half million people so far, and sickening well over one hundred million. It has backed human society and economies into cowering corners from which we are only now beginning cautious steps of emergence. Post-pandemic, it is still unclear how much this minute coronavirus will have changed the world.

We are intimately connected to a second tiny critter that most people have never heard of. This little creature is named prochlorococcus and it’s the smallest, and probably the most abundant, photosynthetic organism on the planet. You guessed it, prochlorococcus lives in the Ocean, where the majority of life on Planet Earth resides. What’s amazing about prochlorococcus is that this tiny being produces up to 20% of the oxygen in our entire biosphere. I say again, we are all connected.

I would like to put my words at this year’s World Ocean Summit within the context of the times in which we are living. In his State of the Planet address delivered at Colombia University in New York last December, the UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, said humanity is waging a suicidal war upon Nature. He reported that one million species are at risk of extinction and that ecosystems are disappearing before our eyes. A year earlier at the Climate COP in Madrid, he had warned that three major reports of the IPCC confirm we are knowingly destroying the life-support systems of our planet.

I sum up our predicament in the shape of coral. The IPCC special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, states with high confidence that 99% of coral reefs will be lost when we go through the dreaded level of 2 degrees Celsius. Coral reefs are home for up to 30% of marine life, they are the bunkers of marine biodiversity, and it’s an understatement to say their loss will have major consequences for the health of the Ocean. At this point, remember we cannot have a healthy planet without a healthy Ocean.

Our predicament is that we are not heading to a destination of 2 degrees; on the current path of carbon dioxide emissions, we are heading to a temperature increase of 3 to 5 degrees Celsius by the end of the twenty-first century. That is a direct quote from the head of the World Meteorological Organisation; and that, my friends, is a world on fire.

And so, this is the context of our times, the years in which we all became aware of the boiling seas of jeopardy into which we are casting our children and theirs if we continue with this war against Nature. This is the time of choice; the time when we decide whether we’re actually willing to change our ways. Before it is too late, and that hour is near, surely we must make peace with Nature.

Let me turn to what we are doing to correct our ways, how we are dragging ourselves to the peace table, and hopefully committing to return humanity’s place on this planet to one lived in respect for, and in balance within, Mother Nature’s eternal embrace.

In the shape of the Paris Climate Agreement and the UN’s 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda we have drawn up the blueprint for a secure and equitable future. The great challenge is faithful implementation of the blueprint’s provisions and it’s no secret that we have been lagging. In his address to the UNFCCC COP in Madrid in 2019, UN Secretary-General Guterres said the only solution was rapid, ambitious, transformative action by all governments, business and civil society working towards a common goal.

The transformative action to which all of us are called is that of moving to a net zero economy by 2050. Science has established that this is the destination we must reach, one in which we emit no more carbon dioxide than we remove from the atmosphere. Get to a net zero economy by 2050 and we will keep global warming well below that fateful level of 2 degrees Celsius.

How does all this relate to the Ocean and the implementation of SDG14? Well, you’ve already heard my mantra that there can’t be a healthy planet without a healthy Ocean, to which I should add the Ocean’s health is currently in decline. As I’m sure you are all aware, the chief cause of that decline is the burgeoning levels of anthropogenic greenhouse gases we’re pumping into the atmosphere, which are then absorbed into the Ocean causing acidification, deoxygenation and warming. Therefore, getting to a net zero economy is absolutely fundamental to ending the cycle of decline in which the Ocean’s health has been caught.

Secondly, at the heart of SDG14 is the Sustainable Blue Economy. In this regard I urge you to read the many reports published by the High-Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy, reports prepared by over 250 experts from around the world, guided by fourteen serving heads of government. From sustainable aquaculture to the greening of shipping, from marine genetic resources to offshore energy production, developing the Sustainable Blue Economy will mitigate climate change, create massive employment in blue-green industries, and provide us with the medicines and healthy nutrition we need for a secure future.

You may ask how should elevate the Sustainable Blue Economy to a level at which it ushers us to a prosperous net zero world? The answer is that it needs massive intensification of science, planning and finance. 90% of the Ocean is unknown to science, so we are going to set that deficit right through the UN Decade of Ocean Science that got underway at the beginning of this year. On the basis of good science, we are expecting over the next decade to see Sustainable Ocean Plans put in place in every Exclusive Economic Zone on the planet – the fourteen heads of government on the High-Level Panel have agreed to have their countries Sustainable Ocean Plans done by 2025. And on the basis of these science-based plans, we are confident finance will start flowing at the scale necessary to enable global transition to a truly Sustainable Blue Economy.

I’ve been talking for close to ten minutes and I still haven’t dug down into how we’re doing on the targets of SDG14. I trust that your questions will allow me to do so, but let me say at this juncture that compared with apathetic waters through which we were sailing before SDG14’s entry into force back in 2015, Ocean Action is now flourishing around the world. Progress is tangible in Ocean literacy and awareness of Ocean issues, marine protected area coverage is growing steadily, as is scientific knowledge of the Ocean. Countries are increasingly implementing international agreements to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, the prime instrument being FAO’s Port State Measures Agreement to which close to one hundred countries have now put their signature.

But truth be told, how can we claim anything near success when a third of assessed global fish-stocks are being overfished; when we have dumped around 150 million metric ton of accumulating plastic waste, microplastics and discarded fishing gear into the Ocean; and while the rates of Ocean acidification, deoxygenation and warming are continuing to head in the wrong direction? We cannot. So, do we hang our heads in shame and turn away in apathy or despair?

Of course not! We are a sentient species that cares more than anything about the well-being of its offspring and of theirs. Therefore, we have much work to do and we will not be satisfied until their well-being has been secured, until we have reached a net zero carbon economy and restored our relationship with the Ocean, and Nature as a whole, to one of respect and balance.

I thank you for your attention and look forward to discussing these ideas and others with you now.

We can save our ocean in three steps - if we act now

Our relationship with the ocean is at a tipping point - but if governments act now, there is still time to save them Image:  REUTERS/Jorge Silva

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This article is adapted from a keynote speech to G7 Ocean and Environment Ministers in Halifax, Canada, on 20 September 2018.

Fighting for the ocean is one of the greatest and defining challenges of our age.

Our relationship with the ocean is at a crossroads. Humanity has a clear choice: business as usual, with continuing ocean decline that will harm every area of human development and wellbeing; or deep-seated change in our behaviour, priorities and investments in order to balance ocean protection with our socio-economic goals.

It really is a case of sink or swim.

There are three main reasons why we are at a turning point - and there are three highly-achievable steps that can set us on a course for securing a healthy, productive ocean that supports wealthy, sustainable economies.

The time is right for change, first of all, because human exploitation of the ocean is causing immense, and in some cases irreversible, damage. A third of fish stocks are unsustainably harvested, we are choking our seas with plastic and agricultural run-off, and our carbon emissions are causing unprecedented warming and acidification. The situation is critical.

Secondly, thanks to incredible progress in science and technology, we now know what damage we are doing, and, increasingly, understand the extent to which we rely on the ocean – not only for food, transport and recreation, but as the world’s greatest carbon sink, sheltering us from the impacts of climate change by absorbing 30% of our carbon and 90% of the heat we produce.

Ignorance, or the claim of more pressing priorities, have ceased to be an excuse.

Thirdly, there has been an explosion of interest in the ocean, by governments, by business and among the general public. Just five years ago, when the recommendations of the Global Ocean Commission were launched, one of its goals was to have a Sustainable Development Goal for the ocean. Now it seems impossible this was ever in question. We have a UN Envoy for the Ocean, UN Ocean conferences, and top billing at major gatherings like the G7.

We also have the Friends of Ocean Action brought together by the World Economic Forum, the Special Envoy for the Ocean and the Deputy Prime Minister of Sweden to fast track solutions in support of SDG14; and then the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy, which brings together 12 heads of government who are committed to developing, catalysing and supporting solutions for Oocean health and wealth in policy, governance, technology and finance.

And it is the G7 and these other bodies that can make the difference - who can help turn this trifecta of opportunity into a new age of ocean action.

The ocean is open for business as never before – but we need leaders and governments to take bold decisions that lead to ocean health and wealth.

We must seize the chance to build a sustainable blue economy and develop innovative blue solutions to the world’s great challenges: climate change, food security, renewable energy and regional security.

So, how do we get there?

There are three immediate and achievable steps that will set us on the right course. First, advancing and applying marine science and sharing it with less-developed states; second, putting an end to illegal fishing; and third, extending protection to vulnerable, pivotal ocean areas.

The ocean is a highly complex ecosystem, built on countless interactions and dependencies. It is imperative that interventions to restore and maximize the value of the ocean be based on the best available science – and that it is made available to decision-makers everywhere.

Luckily, we are living in an era of discovery in marine science. New technologies and methods are allowing scientists to explore previously unreachable places. New studies are revealing more about the links between the ocean and our climate, and about how dependent we are on ocean resources and services for our very survival.

But, studying the ocean is an expensive and exclusive business, and much of it – especially the more remote and deeper zones - remains under-investigated. Only about 5% of the ocean has been thoroughly studied, and there are still vast unknowns and uncertainties about emerging challenges like acidification, melting polar ice and the impact of microplastics.

There are also fundamental gaps in our socio-economic knowledge that can hinder effective decision-making. In particular, there is a chronic lack of information about the role of women in the fisheries sector, where their work is often unrecognized, marginalized and invisible – even though an estimated 50% of fisheries workers around the world are women. We need to gather gender-disaggregated data to support policy-making that protects this vital work force.

The G7 can work together to put some serious wind in the sails of this age of ocean discovery. This is the next great frontier in human enlightenment, and one that must be pursued in the spirit of collaboration: we must coordinate, not duplicate.

Let’s increase commitments to marine research, lead multi-national initiatives, and create centres for ocean science and innovation attracting the best experts from around the world.

The G7 can make a global difference by incentivizing, expanding and enhancing the availability of marine science and data for practical decision-making and sharing its benefits. Public and private investments in research that helps solve ocean challenges will generate returns well into the future – but it does require investment now.

The fight against illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing – the second area where the G7 can play a decisive role – is a prime example of where a combination of science, technology and international cooperation hold the key to success.

It is well known that illegal fishing is a global threat to food security and small-scale fisheries, and that it robs 26 million tonnes of fish from our seas and $23.5 billion from our economies.

Most illegal operators care as little for the marine environment as they do for the people who work for them. Reports of human rights abuses and links to organized crime are rife. We must mobilise the combined force of the world’s governments and multilateral institutions to quash this scourge.

We have the tools to make illegal fishing history. In 2016, the FAO Port State Measures Agreement entered into force as a binding international treaty aimed at denying illegal fishers access to ports and markets. Advances in science and technology allow real-time tracking and monitoring of vessels. More and more seafood retailers are on board. Now we need the combined political will to get the job done – and the world’s wealthiest and most influential states can lead the way.

The Port State Measures Agreement needs to be scrupulously implemented and ratified by all states. We should also lead by example by enforcing strong national seafood traceability standards, and create partnerships with developing countries to accelerate the transfer of vessel monitoring technologies to regions where the IUU fishing risk is highest.

This is a cross-border problem that needs open source solutions.

IUU fishing has no place in our ocean, in our ports or on our plates.

Third, and perhaps most urgently, we need to protect the most vulnerable and precious areas of our ocean, to allow biodiversity to replenish and build resilience.

For decades, scientists have been calling for marine protected areas to cover at least 20% of the ocean. The world met them halfway with the Aichi Biodiversity Target to achieve 10% protection by 2020. But, just two years from the deadline, still only 7% of the ocean is protected.

There is still time to meet the Aichi target by 2020 and to give an unequivocal sign that the world is serious about protecting our oceans.

The G7 states command vast areas of the ocean in their Exclusive Economic Zones and have huge influence in regional bodies, including in the Antarctic and Arctic.

Beyond nations’ territorial waters, the high seas languish in a totally unprotected, lawless state, exposing our greatest natural heritage to unchecked exploitation. But, here too, we have an immense opportunity for change.

States have just begun formal negotiations of a new High Seas Treaty, which is intended to include agreements on how to protect and share the bounty of the sea bed and create mechanisms for establishing marine protected areas on the high seas.

Creatures and substances found in the deep sea are being investigated for treating cancer, cystic fibrosis and Alzheimer's Disease, and could even provide a solution to the global crisis of antibiotic resistance.

The new treaty is essential if we are to explore these still mysterious resources and ensure the benefits are equitably shared among the global community.

The G7 nations should champion a strong High Seas Treaty, and proactively push for it to be agreed by its 2020 deadline. A chance to protect half the planet is not to be squandered.

The next two years promise to be a turning point for ocean recovery – if we raise our ambitions and make the right choices. With these three steps forward – scientific advancement and solidarity, eliminating IUU fishing and expanding ocean protection – the G7 can use its combined power as a force for positive change on a planetary scale that will be felt at a very human level.

Many of us working in the ocean world can already feel the winds filling the sails of change, and eagerly await mobilization of more concrete actions, policies and partnerships for a healthy, and wealthy ocean.

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Introductory essay

Written by the educators who created The Deep Ocean, a brief look at the key facts, tough questions and big ideas in their field. Begin this TED Study with a fascinating read that gives context and clarity to the material.

How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is quite clearly Ocean. Arthur C. Clarke

Planet Ocean

In the late 1960s, the Apollo Mission captured images of Earth from space for the very first time. These iconic photos gave people around the world a fresh perspective on our home planet — more specifically, its vast and dazzling expanses of blue. It's perhaps unsurprising that science has subsequently established the key roles that the ocean and its marine organisms play in maintaining a planetary environment suitable for life.

While the Apollo astronauts were sending back pictures of our blue planet, a scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California was searching for ways to detect life on other planets such as Mars. James Lovelock's investigations led him to conclude that the only way to explain the atmospheric composition of Earth was that life was manipulating it on a daily basis. In various publications, including his seminal 1979 book Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth , Lovelock launched the Gaia hypothesis, which describes how the physical and living components of the natural environment, including humankind, interact to maintain conditions on Earth. During the same period, marine scientists including Lawrence Pomeroy, Farooq Azam and Hugh Ducklow were establishing a firm link between the major biogeochemical cycles in the oceans and marine food webs, particularly their microbial components. In the late 1980s and 1990s, large-scale research programs like the Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (JGOFS) explored ocean biogeochemistry and established the oceans' pivotal role in the Earth's carbon cycle.

Research efforts like these underscored the oceans' critical importance in regulating all the major nutrient cycles on Earth. It's now widely recognized that the ocean regulates the temperature of Earth, controls its weather, provides us with oxygen, food and building materials, and even recycles our waste.

The advent of deep-sea science

It seems remarkable that until fairly recently many scientists believed that life was absent in the deep sea. Dredging in the Aegean Sea in the 1840s, marine biologist Edward Forbes found that the abundance of animals declined precipitously with depth. By extrapolation he concluded that the ocean would be azoic (devoid of animal life) below 300 fathoms (~550m depth). Despite evidence to the contrary, scientists supported the azoic hypothesis, reasoning that conditions were so hostile in the deep ocean that life simply could not survive. Extreme pressure, the absence of light and the lack of food were viewed as forming an impenetrable barrier to the survival of deep-sea marine species.

But others were already proving this hypothesis wrong. As Edward Forbes published his results from the Aegean, Captain James Clark Ross and the famous naturalist John Dalton Hooker were exploring the Antarctic in the Royal Navy vessels HMS Terror and HMS Erebus . During this expedition, Ross and Hooker retrieved organisms from sounding leads at depths of up to 1.8km, including urchin spines and other fragments of various marine invertebrates, a number of bryozoans and corals. Ross remarked, "I have no doubt that from however great a depth we may be enabled to bring up the mud and stones of the bed of the ocean we shall find them teeming with animal life." This contention was supported by work of Norwegian marine biologists Michael Sars and George Ossian Sars who dredged hundreds of species from depths of 200 to 300 fathoms off the Norwegian coast.

Further evidence came from natural scientists William Carpenter and Charles Wyville-Thomson, who mounted expeditions in 1868 and 1869 on the vessels HMS Lightening and HMS Porcupine to sample the deep ocean off the British Isles, Spain and the Mediterranean. The findings of these expeditions, which Wyville-Thomson published in his 1873 book The Depths of the Sea , confirmed the existence of animal life to depths of 650 fathoms — including all the marine invertebrate groups — and suggested that oceanic circulation exists in the deep sea.

This convinced the Royal Society of London and the Royal Navy to organize the circumnavigating voyage of HMS Challenger in the 1870s. In part, the expedition's purpose was to survey potential routes for submarine telegraph cables, and so the links between scientific exploration and human use of the deep sea were established in the very early days of oceanography. The Challenger expedition was a watershed for deep-ocean science, establishing the basic patterns of distribution of deep-sea animals, and that their main food source was the rain of organic material from surface waters.

In the 1950s, the Danish Expedition Foundation's Galathea voyage established that life occurred at depths of more than 10km in the Philippines Trench. In 1960 marine explorers Auguste Picard and Don Walsh reached the bottom of the Challenger Deep in the Marianas Trench, at a depth estimated to be 10,916 meters--the deepest part of the ocean — where they observed flatfish from the porthole of their pressure sphere. This feat was not repeated until 2012 when James Cameron visited the bottom of the Challenger Deep in the submersible Deepsea Challenger .

Hype or hyper-diversity in the deep sea?

While working at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in the late 1960s, scientists Howard Sanders and Robert Hessler developed new types of deep-sea trawls called epibenthic sleds that featured extra- fine mesh in the nets. When the new trawls were tested, they recovered an astonishing diversity of species from the deep sea. It became apparent that the species richness of deep-sea communities actually increased with greater depth to a peak somewhere on the continental slope between 2,000 and 4,000 meters depth. Beyond these depths, diversity appeared to decrease (but not everywhere), or the pattern was unclear.

How to explain this amazing diversity in the deep sea? Initially, scientists credited the species richness to the stability of environmental conditions in the deep ocean, which would support extreme specialization of the animals and thus allow many species to coexist. This is known as the stability-time hypothesis. Some scientists considered that small-scale variations of the sediments of the deep ocean, including reworking of seabed by animals, was important in maintaining microhabitats for many species. In the late 1970s other scientists suggested that conditions in shallow waters allow competitive exclusion, where relatively few species dominate the ecosystem, whereas in deeper waters environmental factors associated with depth and a reduced food supply promote biological communities with more diversity.

Fred Grassle and Nancy Maciolek added substantially to our knowledge of deep-sea biodiversity when they published a study of the continental slope of the eastern coast of the USA in the early 1990s. Grassle and Maciolek based their study on quantitative samples of deep-sea sediments taken with box cores. These contraptions retrieve a neat cube-shaped chunk of the seabed and bring it to the surface enclosed in a steel box. Scientists then sieve the mud and count and identify the tiny animals living in the sediment.

In a heroic effort, Grassle and Maciolek analyzed 233 box cores, an equivalent of 21 square meters of the seabed, identifying 90,677 specimens and 798 species. They estimated that they found approximately 100 species per 100 km along the seabed they sampled. Extrapolations of this figure suggested that there may be 1 - 10 million macrofaunal species in the deep sea.

What's more, some scientists argued that Grassle and Maciolek's estimates represented only a small part of the species diversity in the ocean depths. Dr John Lambshead of London's Natural History Museum pointed out that Grassle and Maciolek had not examined the smallest animals in sediments — the meiofauna — made up of tiny nematode worms, copepods and other animals. These are at least an order of magnitude more diverse than the macrofauna, suggesting that as many as 100 million species may inhabit the deep ocean.

However, given that the latest approximation of the Earth's biodiversity is 10 million species in total, Lambshead's number appears to be an overestimate. Scientists have since realized that there are major problems with estimating the species richness of large areas of the deep sea based on local samples. Today we understand that species diversity in the deep ocean is high, but we still don't know how many species live in the sediments of the continental slope and abyssal plains. We also don't understand the patterns of their horizontal distribution or the reasons for the parabolic pattern of species diversity as it relates to depth. Evidence suggests, however, that the functioning of deep-sea ecosystems depends on a high diversity of animals — although exactly why remains open to conjecture.

The creation of deep-sea environments: "Drifters" and "Fixists"

In 1912, German scientist Alfred Wegener put forward his theory of continental drift to address many questions that engaged the geologists and biologists of his time. For example, why do the continents appear to fit together as though they had once been joined? Why are many of the large mountain ranges coastal? And, perhaps most intriguing, why do the rocks and fossil biotas (combined plant and animal life) on disconnected land masses appear to be so similar?

Wegener's theory provoked a major scientific controversy that raged for more than 50 years between "drifters" and "fixists." Critics of Wegener's — the "fixists" — pointed out that Wegener's proposed mechanism for drift was flawed.

In the search for an alternate mechanism to explain continental drift, British geologist Arthur Holmes suggested that radioactive elements in the Earth were generating heat and causing convection currents that made the Earth's mantle fluid. Holmes argued that the mantle would then rise up under the continents and split them apart, generating ocean basins and carrying the landmasses along on the horizontally-moving currents.

Following World War II, scientific expeditions employing deep-sea cameras, continuously recording echo-sounders, deep-seismic profilers and magnetometers lent support to the arguments of Holmes and his fellow "drifters." Scientists realized that the deep sea hosted a vast network of mid-ocean ridges located roughly in the center of the ocean basins. These ridges were characterized by fresh pillow lavas, sparse sediment cover, intense seismic activity and anomalously high heat flow. Scientists found geologically-synchronous magnetic reversals in the rocks of the ocean crust moving away from either side of the mid-ocean ridges. Added to this was the fact that nowhere could scientists find sediments older than the Cretaceous in age. Together, these findings suggested that new oceanic crust was being formed along the mid-ocean ridges, while old oceanic plates are forced underneath continental plates and destroyed along the ocean trenches. By the late 1960s, the bitter scientific debate between the "fixists" and the "drifters" was finally settled.

Life without the sun

During the next decade, scientists investigating volcanic activity at mid-ocean ridges became interested in the associated phenomenon of hot springs in the deep sea. Anomalously high temperature readings over mid-ocean ridge axes led scientists to mount an expedition in 1977 to the 2.5 km-deep Galápagos Rift. From the submersible Alvin, the scientists observed plumes of warm water rising from within the pillow lavas on the seabed. Living amongst the pillows were dense communities of large vesicoyid clams, mussels, limpets and giant vestimentiferan tube worms (Siboglinidae). An abundance of bacteria around the Galápagos Rift site immediately suggested that these communities might be based on bacterial chemosynthesis, or chemolithotrophy, using chemical energy obtained by oxidizing hydrogen sulphide to drive carbon fixation. Subsequent investigation confirmed that the giant tube worms, clams and mussels actually hosted symbiotic sulphur-oxidizing bacteria in their tissues.

The discovery caused huge excitement in the scientific community. Here was life thriving in the deep sea, where primary production — the basis of the food web — was independent from the sun's energy. Furthermore, as scientists discovered additional vent communities and surveyed elsewhere in the mid-ocean ridge system, they found that environmental conditions were extreme, with high temperatures, acidic waters, hypoxia (lack of oxygen) and the presence of toxic chemicals the norm.

The implications of this were enormous and went well beyond the study of the ocean itself. First, it meant that life could exist elsewhere in our solar system in environments previously thought too extreme. Second, it widened the potential area for habitable planets around suns elsewhere in the universe. For example, the discovery in 2000 of the Lost City alkaline hydrothermal vents presented an environment that some scientists suggest is analogous to the conditions in which life evolved on Earth.

Subsequently, chemosynthesis has been discovered in many places in the ocean, including deep-sea hydrocarbon seeps, in large falls of organic matter such as whale carcasses, and from shallow-water sediments associated with, for example, seagrass beds.

Drawing down the oceans' natural capital

Over the past two decades, we've developed a much deeper understanding of the relationship between humankind and the natural world, including the Earth's oceans. In 1997 Robert Costanza and his colleagues published a paper in Nature that estimated the economic value of the goods and services provided by global ecosystems. Costanza and his colleagues argued that the living resources of Earth could be viewed as a form of natural capital with a value averaging $33 trillion per annum, upon which the entire human economy depended. These goods and services were later grouped into supporting (e.g. primary production), provisioning (e.g. food), regulating (climate regulation) and cultural (e.g. education) services.

While this knowledge may have been intuitive for many people, Costanza's recasting of the environment in economic terms forced policymakers, industry leaders and others to recognize the importance of long-term environmental sustainability. With the support of international agencies such as the World Bank, many countries are now implementing natural capital accounting procedures through legislation. The purpose of this is to help monitor and regulate the use and degradation of the environment and to ensure that the critical ecosystem goods and services underpinning economic activity and human well-being are not undermined.

Although it seems like a modern preoccupation, sustainability is actually a centuries-old challenge, particularly as it relates to marine environments. For example, there is evidence that aboriginal fisheries in ancient times may have overexploited marine species. Certainly by medieval times in Europe, a thriving market for fish, coupled with other developments like changing agricultural practices, forced species such as salmon and sturgeon into decline.

The Industrial Revolution led to an increase in hunting fish, seals and whales, thanks to the development of steam- and then oil-powered fishing vessels that employed increasingly sophisticated means of catching animals. Pelagic whaling began in the early 20th century; the development of explosive harpoons, the ability to process whales at sea, and the strong demand for margarine made from whale oil all contributed to dramatic rises in catches. Despite the initiation of the International Whaling Commission in 1946, a serial depletion of whale populations took place from the largest, most valuable species (e.g. blue whale) through to the smallest species (minke whale). The failure to regulate catches of whales led to the establishment of a near-moratorium on whaling in 1986.

Over the same post-war period, fishing fleets underwent a major expansion and deployed increasingly powerful fishing vessels. Improved technologies for navigating, finding fish and catching them led to increasing pressure on fish stocks and the marine ecosystems in which they lived. In 1998, after analyzing catch statistics from the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), Daniel Pauly and his colleagues from the University of British Columbia identified a global shift in fish catches from long-lived, high trophic level predators to short-lived, low trophic level invertebrates and plankton-eating fish. This was the first evidence that fishing was having a global impact on marine ecosystems, causing major changes in the structure of ocean food webs. Aside from the economic impacts of "fishing down the food web," evidence was accumulating that it also affected the vulnerability and/or resilience of marine ecosystems to shocks such as invasions by alien species and climate-change effects such as mass coral bleaching.

Further evidence came in 2003 from a study by Ransom Myers and Boris Worm. Myers and Worm documented a significant decline over time in the stocks of certain large, predatory fish after analyzing information from research trawl surveys and the catches of the Japanese long-line fleet. Other studies over the same time period suggested that sharks, seabirds and turtles were suffering large-scale declines as they became by-catch in many industrial fisheries. Scientists also asserted that some fishing technologies, such as bottom trawling, were extremely damaging to seabed communities — deep-sea ecosystems in particular — by documenting the devastation of cold-water coral communities.

These studies sparked a bitter war of words between marine ecologists, fishing industry executives and fisheries biologists. While it has now been demonstrated that fish stocks can recover if levels of exploitation by fisheries are reduced through management measures, it's clear that in many parts of the world's oceans this is not happening. Overall, global yields from marine capture fisheries are in a downward trajectory. By-catch of some marine predators, such as albatrosses, still poses a threat of extinction. Habitat destruction resulting from fishing is continuing.

In addition to overfishing, other human activities are damaging marine ecosystems. During the 1960s and 1970s, several major accidents with oil tankers and oil installations resulted in serious oil spills. While oil pollution is still a significant problem, as illustrated by the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, other less-visible sources of pollution are causing large-scale degradation of the ocean.

Persistent organic pollutants and heavy metals such as mercury are being recognized as major health issues for marine animals (especially high trophic level predators, such as killer whales and tuna) and also for humans. The oceans are becoming the dumping ground for a wide range of chemicals from our personal care products and pharmaceuticals, as well as those that leach out of all manner of plastics that are floating in our seas. Agrochemicals are pouring into the oceans through rivers; in some cases these artificially fertilize coastal waters, generating blooms of algae which are broken down by bacteria, thus stripping the water of oxygen and creating dead zones.

Our release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, particularly carbon dioxide (CO2), is leading to a profound disturbance in ocean temperatures and ocean chemistry. Since the late 1970s, mass coral bleaching from ocean warming has killed large areas of tropical coral reefs. Marine animals are changing their distribution and the timing of their lifecycles, sometimes with catastrophic effects across the wider ecosystem. Such effects are often propagated from lower levels of food webs up through to predators such as fish and seabirds: witness recent declines in spectacled sea duck populations in the Arctic and the decline of cod populations in the North Sea. The oceans are becoming more acidic, which affects the growth rates of animals with calcium carbonate shells or skeletons and has other negative impacts on animal physiology. Many of these different stresses on marine species interact in a form of "negative synergy", inducing more severe effects than if they had presented in isolation. At the ecosystem level these stresses reduce the resilience of marine ecosystems to "shocks" arising from large-scale effects, such as anomalous warming events associated with climate change.

Ocean future

The TEDTalks in The Deep Ocean illuminate many current topics in marine science and oceanic exploration. These include the call for better conservation management in the face of unprecedented threats to marine ecosystems, the discovery and application of as-yet-untapped natural resources from the ocean depths, and the quest for improved technologies to support both of these endeavors. As Sylvia Earle eloquently reminds us in her 2009 TEDTalk, the oceans are critically important to maintaining the planet in a condition that is habitable, and better cooperative, international management of marine ecosystems is essential. However, as other TED speakers like Robert Ballard and Craig Venter argue, the oceans should also interest us because they contain vast untapped resources: unexploited mineral resources as well as genes, proteins and other biomolecules of marine life, which may furnish the medicines and industrial materials of the future.

Smart management of these natural resources requires knowledge, as do our efforts to ensure the oceans' ongoing species richness and their critical function in maintaining the Earth system. In their TEDTalks, explorers and scientists Edith Widder, Mike deGruy and Craig Venter share some of the amazing physical and biological features of ocean habitats and describe how new technologies allow more careful study and exploitation of deep-sea environments.

Despite these advances, there are still enormous gaps in our knowledge. In a TEDTalk he gave in 2008, Robert Ballard noted that many parts of the ocean remain entirely unexplored and he advocated for increased resources for organizations like NOAA. As many of the TED speakers in The Deep Ocean argue, marine science is more important than ever because the oceans are under serious threat from a range of human impacts including global-scale climate change.

However, these speakers also offer a message of hope, underscoring that there is still time to alter the current trajectory of degradation. Scientists including TED speaker John Delaney present a vision for the future where ecosystem-based management, coupled with the advent of new technologies that allow us to monitor ocean health in real time, provide us with tools to heal marine ecosystems. This may allow us to restore their capacity to provide goods and services for humankind over the long term. Measures such as marine-protected areas can maintain the oceans' important biogeochemical functions, but will also conserve the remarkable and beautiful marine ecosystems that have culturally enriched the human experience for millennia.

We'll begin our journey into The Deep Ocean with legendary explorer and oceanographer Sylvia Earle, who shares disturbing data about the decline of marine ecosystems and proposes one method to protect what she calls "the blue heart of the planet."

Sylvia Earle

My wish: protect our oceans, relevant talks.

Mike deGruy

Hooked by an octopus.

David Gallo

Underwater astonishments.

Edith Widder

Glowing life in an underwater world.

Robert Ballard

The astonishing hidden world of the deep ocean.

Craig Venter

On the verge of creating synthetic life.

John Delaney

Wiring an interactive ocean.

My Speech Class

Public Speaking Tips & Speech Topics

104 Environmental Speech Topics [Persuasive, Informative]

Jim Peterson has over 20 years experience on speech writing. He wrote over 300 free speech topic ideas and how-to guides for any kind of public speaking and speech writing assignments at My Speech Class.

Environmental speech topics and essay writing on angles of view regarding different aspects of our ecology for public speaking. Hope these helpful ideas will sparkle your fantasy!

In this article:

Informative

Environmental.

• The danger of ocean oil spills.
• Recycling should be mandatory.
• Why oil needs to be conserved.
• Why we should use reusable bags.
• Why palm oil should be banned.
• Ban mining in environmentally sensitive areas.
• Disposable diapers are hazardous to the environment.
• The environment is more important than genetics in determining how a person will turn out.
• The danger of oil drilling in Alaska.
• Fishing regulations are necessary to preserve the environment.
• Endangered species need protection.
• We need to invest more in alternative fuels.
• Endangered oceans deserve protection.
• We should strive for a paperless society.
• Conserve our global resources.
• Rain forests need to be protected.
• The principal threats of land degradation in Asia / Africa / South America (choose one continent for your thesis focus).
• Ocean acidification (a decline in the pH degree of ocean waters) endangers marine organisms.
• The main causes of massive coral bleaching (the whitening of corals).
• The advantages of an intercropping system for sustainable plant production.
• Environmentalists are misusing the term sustainable development.
• Why we should be concerned about ozone depletion in Earth’s stratosphere.
• Bottom trawling (dragging huge nets along the sea floor) is killing for the benthic ecological organisms.
• The benefits of microbes to humans.
• Make you own Carbon Footprint and realize how polluting you are.
• Why the carbon tax should be the next stage in our capitalist world.
• How to manage E-waste streams in modern India.
• Emissions trading or exchangeable emission permits work contra-productive in the urgency to blow back global warming.
• Debt-for-nature swaps are natural friendly policies.
• Renewable energy technologies like wind energy, hydroelectricity, biomass and solar power should be stimulated by the government.
• How to apply green ecological sustainable computing (or green IT) at your home PC or Mac.
• The BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is the worst man-made mishap in American history. Environmental persuasive speech topics can also be found after that big crash at sea – e.g. in Nigeria.
• We should handle with care the dangers and risks of exhausting our fossil fuel resources on earth, and protect the innocent sea life.
• Global warming demands more joined global action than Kopenhagen did.
• Encourage livestock owners to adopt sustainable grazing systems.
• Environmental damage of energy consumption force us to use energy alternatives.
• Mankind is responsible for the large loss of biodiversity in nature.
• Avoid using plastic bags.
• Buy natural and organic produced, and fair trade products.
• Our ever-expanding consumerism has killed the earth.
• Sacrifice a little bit of the economic growth for the good of the environment.
• Give tax cuts to companies to develop solar, wind and forms of hydrogen energy.
• There should be a green tax on aviation fuel.
• Why stores need to stop supplying plastic bags
• Are green jobs really green and environmentally friendly?
• TV news program weather forecasts are not accurate at all.
• The only effective litter prevention method is to force recycling.
• Recycling helps with green house effects.
• Only energy efficient household appliances should be sold.
• Nuclear power is a good alternative energy source.
• Keep your thermostat at 68 F in Winter and 72 F in Summer.
• Hunting sports harm the biodiversity.
• Hundreds of thousands of species will go extinct by 2060.
• Buying durable goods will save the world.
• We are wasting the opportunity to waste less.
• Water pollution will be the world’s biggest problem in the next years.
• Natural disasters stimulate economic growth.
• We are killing the rainforest, our planet’s lungs.
• The change of our climate pattern is not natural.
• The effects of global warming are not overestimated by scientists and green activists.
• Restrict every household to 50 gallon can on trash and yard waste a week.
• Rural development is the main cause of wildfires and extensive damage in the past years.
• Energy alternatives are the only solution to the environmental damage.
• Paying higher energy prices is a sacrifice we have to make for cleaner fuels.
• Construction plans must include an environment-section.
• Promote earthfriendly cars by tax benefits.

Why can’t the discussion about nuclear energy just be about the sole bare facts instead of political bias all the time?

6 additional persuasive environmental speech topics

Persuasive environmental speech topics to increase the quality of your persuasive communication skills, detailed layouts on Natural Resources, Radio Active Waste Management, and Intensive Farming  are even applicable on essay writing goals.

Can We Write Your Speech?

Get your audience blown away with help from a professional speechwriter. Free proofreading and copy-editing included.

Examine the opportunities I offer, and assemble you own speaking text based on the sample series of reasons below.

That logic reasoning process in the end will result in a nice and substantial blueprint, and a sample argumentation scheme for a debate on good persuasive environmental speech topics.

Excessive Use of Natural Resources Leads to Depletion In The End.

Radioactive materials are – without exception I would state – firm persuasive environmental speech topics and essay discourse themes for students. E.g.:

Radio Active Waste Management.

Intensive farming has many pros and cons. In the next example I deal with the cons. Note that each of them could be used as single persuasive environmental speech topics for a debate or essay:

The Disadvantages of Intensive Farming.

You also could take the opposite side and defend the pro-intensive farming arguments by attacking and replacing them for reasons in favor of the supporters of intensive farming. That will provoke immediate discussion among your listeners. Furthermore I would like to share alternative options for persuasive environmental speech topics:

• Endangered species;
• Marine debris and microplastics;
• The sea level rise.

Endangered species – The international list of protected animals. E.g. the Red List of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature IUCN. Sharpen your persuasive communication skills and judge the conditions for protection.

Marine debris and microplastics – More and more are our ocean, seas, lakes and rivers polluted. Littering: plastic bottles, bags, and so on. Persuade your audience to act. Let them support coastal volunteer operations to remove and prevent debris.

The sea level rise – What is bad about it? What are the predictions of meteorologists regarding the reported weather and climate changes? What should we do to stop it? Is it possible to stop the rise of the sea level anyway?

• The fundamentals of logistics for oil and gas exploration.
• Wildlife protection programs.
• Plants, animals and organisms that live in the ocean.
• The greatest rainforests in the world.
• Facts and figures of littering in our community
• Domestic water waste treatment plans.
• Safety issues of nuclear power plants.
• Local communities can contribute to maintenance of fragile ecosystems.
• Global concern about climate change rose dramatically after Al Gore made his documentary.
• The importance of sustainable development for future generations.
• What is at stake with greenhouse carbon gas emissions?
• Water is the upcoming hot issue in the Middle East.
• Availability and purity of water.
• The Burj Khalifa skyscraper in Dubai – the smart innovative energy reuser.
• South-American tropical forests.
• Global climate change is not only caused by humans.
• We need a healthy environment.
• The effects of global warming.
• Why conserving energy is important.
• The negative aspects of a polluted environment.
• The great Pacific garbage patch.
• The ways that water pollution is harmful.
• The effects of industrial and household waste.
• What is global warming?
• The benefits of organic farming.
• Why drought is a serious problem.
• The pollution of today’s world.
• The importance of reducing, reusing, and recycling.
• The effects of environmental degradation.
• Why should we save birds.
• Why we should save the Ganges.
• How to recycle different materials.

212 Speech Topics For College Students [Persuasive, Informative, Impromptu]

414 Funny and Humorous Speech Topics [Persuasive, Informative, Impromptu]

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Green Cities

Don’t let the plastic get into the ocean.

• Don’t Let the Plastic…

May 2, 2018

• Water: If you use a reusable water bottle, you personally could avoid an average of 156 plastic bottles annually—this sounds like a small thing but it’s doing your part and multiply it by everyone in your office, home, or school, and it really starts to add up. Likewise, bring your coffee mug with you—the go-cup might be paper, but the lid is probably not.
• Carriers: Bringing your own bag to shop (and carrying one with you just in case) can help make a dent in those 4 trillion plastic bags used each year. Bag fees and bag bans do work to reduce waste—with immediate effect on cleanup statistics as to what is collected following their implementation.
• Straws: Remembering to ask for no straw can become a habit. Straws only by request is a huge first step—and a great thing to ask of your favorite restaurant. Paper and reusable straws are an option too—and the movement is slowly growing.
• Clothing: Limit how often you wash synthetic clothing, including fleece. Seek out natural fibers (bamboo, cotton, wool, etc.).
• Entertainment: Remember our roots—we can use glasses, cloth napkins, and real cutlery at events as much as we can. We can use compostable tableware, napkins, and other products (and compost them).
• Prevention: Beach, stream, and river clean ups actually help, even though they seem like a drop in the bucket. Many organizations host regular clean ups and we need everyone to pitch in and pick up in their own neighborhood.
• multiple movies, events, and other outreach seems to have drastically increased ocean plastics awareness,
• educated/mobilized citizens demand less plastic, and
• increased public awareness of the role of NGOs in working towards change, especially where NGOs are working with governments at every level in Southeast Asian countries, and
• increasing the public expectation that solutions will be implemented.
• aim to PREVENT the generation of waste
• contribute to the REUSE of waste
• REDUCE the adverse effects of  waste management
• Earth Day Network
• end plastic pollution

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Amsterdam: the green standard of city governance, what’s stopping green cities, what is a circular economy.

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Speech on the Ocean 2018-2019

• Intervenants-FDM
• Ocean Speech 2018-2019

(Click on the white bubbles to access the speeches of H.S.H. Prince Albert II of Monaco)

– Davos Switzerland

Taking action on oceans

This is the situation and these are the reasons why there is an urgent need to reconcile humanity with the seas and to take action. This requires everyone to be mobilised.

– Edinburgh, Scotland

Monaco Blue Initiative – Opening

In order to succeed in reversing the cycle of decline, we must adopt a new approach, respectful and based on diminishing our resource use. We must stop taking the Ocean for granted and believing it is permanent, that we can take from it and pour into it without consequences. Finally, the aim is to bring together skills and means that are all too often dispersed, to encourage dialogue between experts, and to mobilize concerted action.

– Monaco

Friends of the Ocean Action – Monaco Ocean Week 2018

Whether we wished for it or not, whether we are aware of it or not, the oceans lie at the heart of our economic system. Our trade routes cross them, our food supplies partially depend on them, we build our settlements on their shores. Whether or not we anticipate it, the oceans will play an even more important role in the decades and centuries to come.

– Brussels, Belgium

Air, Sea and Land: Vital Issues of this Century

The air, sea and land form a system. A system billions of years old. A system that has, of course, evolved over the centuries and millennia, while remaining governed by the same mutual interactions. But a system that is now being disrupted by the growing influence of anthropogenic impact.

– Bermuda

Ocean Risk Summit

Because these risks have only one cause. This damage has only one culprit. These problems have only one solution. The cause is our development model. The culprit is us. And the solution, is to change our development model.

– Helsinki, Finland

“Arctic Agenda 2030: a challenge?” – Introduction

If we manage to achieve this goal in the Arctic, then we can do it for the rest of the world. Because this Region is both the crux of many environmental issues and a universal symbol. The Arctic is both local and global.

“Arctic Agenda 2030: a challenge?” – Conclusion

By 2030, it is therefore my hope that we will be capable of coordinating these various levels and putting these levers into full action. If we do this, we will definitely have helped to ensure the future of this region!

2nd UArctic Congress – Opening ceremony

Nature and humanity, science and technology, indigenous peoples and those who have just moved here, the neighboring States and humankind as a whole: we now need to reconcile all of the latter, and this is what the University of the Arctic makes possible.

– University of Newcastle, Australia

Challenger Society Conference

The challenge faced by our oceans, the challenge at the heart of this Conference, it is humankind. It is our development paradigm, which has thrived for centuries on the destruction of nature.

– Bali, Indonesia

The Future of Coral Reefs in a Sustainable Blue Economy

Without them, their capacity for understanding, deciphering and anticipating the phenomena we have spoken of, we would not be able to respond. Without them, we would not be able to grasp the complexity, the adaptability and the variety of corals, which call for special strategies.

Ocean and Climate Plenary Session

This is the reason why the oceans are not only a victim of global warming. They must be a valuable ally for us. They must be the starting point for new balances that we have to build for our world. Once again, as the French historian Jules Michelet wrote, “it is by the sea that we begin all true understanding of Geography. To start to write a new geography for a world fighting efficiently against global warming: this is the challenge facing this meeting, and this is one of the major challenges we all face in this century.

– Katowice, Poland

UNFCCC COP24

The IOC is proud to have taken a leadership role in this Initiative. As the world’s leaders present in Katowice prepare to turn their climate commitments into action, we stand ready to leverage the power of sport to fully support their efforts. The IOC looks forward to working with all of you towards our common goal of building, for future generations, a better world through sport.

(Click on the white bubbles to access the Prince’s speech)

– Düsseldorf, Germany

Düsseldorf International Boat Show (50th anniversary)

Conservationists, recreational fishermen, boat owners, yachtsmen, sports, tourism professionals: we all have a common interest in protecting our oceans, in forging a sustainable relationship with them. Nothing will be gained by opposing one against the other and by believing that the requirements of some will go against the interests of others. We share one ocean and we all need this ocean.

– Davos, Switzerland

Ocean Action agenda leadership meeting

Progress is being made. Solutions do exist. The path is therefore mapped out. It is up to us to follow it. The world is counting on us to have this courage and determination. I know that we can rise to this challenge. That is why we are here and that is the purpose of our discussions.

High-level Conference on Climate Change and Ocean Preservation

I also want to believe that we will be able to go beyond and turn away from our habits, for the sake of our seas and oceans.

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• ENVIRONMENT

Tsunami Facts: How They Form, Warning Signs, and Safety Tips

National Geographic News looks at how the killer waves are caused, what the warning signs are, and how to respond when a tsunami threatens.

• A tsunami is a series of great sea waves caused by an underwater earthquake, landslide, or volcanic eruption. More rarely, a tsunami can be generated by a giant meteor impact with the ocean.
• Scientists have found traces of an asteroid-collision event that they say would have created a giant tsunami that swept around the Earth several times, inundating everything except the tallest mountains 3.5 billion years ago. The coastline of the continents was changed drastically and almost all life on land was exterminated.
• Tsunami (pronounced soo-NAH-mee) is a Japanese word. Tsunamis are fairly common in Japan, and many thousands of Japanese have been killed by them in recent centuries.
• An earthquake generates a tsunami if it is of sufficient force and there is violent movement of the earth to cause substantial and sudden displacement of a massive amount of water.
• A tsunami is not a single wave but a series of waves, also known as a wave train. The first wave in a tsunami is not necessarily the most destructive. Tsunamis are not tidal waves.
• Tsunami waves can be very long (as much as 60 miles, or 100 kilometers) and be as far as one hour apart. They are able to cross entire oceans without great loss of energy. The Indian Ocean tsunami traveled as much as 3,000 miles (nearly 5,000 kilometers) to Africa, arriving with sufficient force to kill people and destroy property.
• Scientists say that a great earthquake of magnitude 9 struck the Pacific Northwest in 1700 and created a tsunami that caused flooding and damage on the Pacific coast of Japan.

As Fast as a Commercial Jet

• Where the ocean is deep, tsunamis can travel unnoticed on the surface at speeds up to 500 miles an hour (800 kilometers an hour), crossing an ocean in a day or less. Scientists are able to calculate arrival times of tsunamis in different parts of the world based on their knowledge of water depths, distances, and when the event that generated them occurred.
• A tsunami may be less than a foot (30 centimeters) in height on the surface of the open ocean, which is why they are not noticed by sailors. But the powerful shock wave of energy travels rapidly through the ocean as fast as a commercial jet. Once a tsunami reaches shallow water near the coast, it is slowed down. The top of the wave moves faster than the bottom, causing the sea to rise dramatically.
• Geological features such as reefs, bays, river entrances, and undersea formations may dissipate the energy of a tsunami. In some places a tsunami may cause the sea to rise vertically only a few inches or feet. In other places tsunamis have been known to surge vertically as high as 100 feet (30 meters). Most tsunamis cause the sea to rise no more than 10 feet (3 meters).
• Geological features such as reefs, bays, river entrances, and undersea formations may dissipate the energy of a tsunami. In some places a tsunami may cause the sea to rise vertically only a few inches or feet. In other places tsunamis have been known to surge vertically as high as 100 feet (30 meters).
• Most tsunamis cause the sea to rise no more than 10 feet (3 meters). The Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004 caused waves as high as 30 feet (9 meters) in some places, according to news reports. In other places witnesses described a rapid surging of the ocean.
• Flooding can extend inland by a thousand feet (300 meters) or more. The enormous energy of a tsunami can lift giant boulders, flip vehicles, and demolish houses. Knowledge of the history of tsunamis in your area is a good indicator of what is likely to happen in a future tsunami event.
• Tsunamis do not necessarily make their final approach to land as a series of giant breaking waves. They may be more like a very rapidly rising tide. This may be accompanied by much underwater turbulence, sucking people under and tossing heavy objects around. Entire beaches have been stripped away by tsunamis.
• Many witnesses have said a tsunami sounds like a freight train.The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami could rank as the most devastating on record. More than 200,000 people lost their lives, many of them washed out to sea.
• The most damaging tsunami on record before 2004 was the one that killed an estimated 40,000 people in 1782 following an earthquake in the South China Sea. In 1883 some 36,500 people were killed by tsunamis in the South Java Sea, following the eruption of Indonesia's Krakatoa volcano. In northern Chile more than 25,000 people were killed by a tsunami in 1868.
• The Pacific is by far the most active tsunami zone, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). But tsunamis have been generated in other bodies of water, including the Caribbean and Mediterranean Seas, and the Indian and Atlantic Oceans. North Atlantic tsunamis included the tsunami associated with the 1775 Lisbon earthquake that killed as many as 60,000 people in Portugal, Spain, and North Africa. This quake caused a tsunami as high as 23 feet (7 meters) in the Caribbean.
• The Caribbean has been hit by 37 verified tsunamis since 1498. Some were generated locally and others were the result of events far away, such as the earthquake near Portugal. The combined death toll from these Caribbean tsunamis is about 9,500.
• Large tsunami waves were generated in the Marmara Sea in Turkey after the Izmit earthquake of 1999.

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Warning signs.

• An earthquake is a natural tsunami warning. If you feel a strong quake do not stay in a place where you are exposed to a tsunami. If you hear of an earthquake be aware of the possibility of a tsunami and listen to the radio or television for additional information. Remember that an earthquake can trigger killer waves thousands of miles across the ocean many hours after the event generated a tsunami.
• Witnesses have reported that an approaching tsunami is sometimes preceded by a noticeable fall or rise in the water level. If you see the ocean receding unusually rapidly or far it's a good sign that a big wave is on its way. Go to high ground immediately.
• Many people were killed by the Indian Ocean tsunami because they went down to the beach to view the retreating ocean exposing the seafloor. Experts believe that a receding ocean may give people as much as five minutes' warning to evacuate the area.
• Remember that a tsunami is a series of waves and that the first wave may not be the most dangerous. The danger from a tsunami can last for several hours after the arrival of the first wave. A tsunami wave train may come as a series of surges that are five minutes to an hour apart. The cycle may be marked by a repeated retreat and advance of the ocean.
• Stay out of danger until you hear it is safe. Survivors of the Indian Ocean tsunami reported that the sea surged out as fast and as powerfully as it came ashore. Many people were seen being swept out to sea when the ocean retreated.
• A tsunami surge may be small at one point of the shore and large at another point a short distance away. Do not assume that because there is minimal sign of a tsunami in one place it will be like that everywhere else.
• Tsunamis can travel up rivers and streams that lead to the ocean. Stay away from rivers and streams that lead to the ocean as you would stay away from the beach and ocean if there is a tsunami.
• It's always a good idea to keep a store of emergency supplies that include sufficient medications, water, and other essentials sufficient for at least 72 hours. Tsunami, earthquake, hurricane—an emergency can develop with little or no warning.

Advice for Sailors

For hungry minds.

• NOAA advises that since tsunami wave activity is imperceptible in the open ocean, vessels should not return to port if they are at sea and a tsunami warning has been issued for the area. Tsunamis can cause rapid changes in water level and unpredictable, dangerous currents in harbors and ports. Boat owners may want to take their vessels out to sea if there is time and if the sailors are allowed to do so by port authorities. People should not stay on their boats moored in harbors. Tsunamis often destroy boats and leave them wrecked above the normal waterline.
• Heightened awareness of the potential for a tsunami to inundate the U.S. western coastline has caused NOAA, the U.S. Geological Survey, and the Federal Emergency Management Administration to initiate a program to predict tsunamis more accurately. As a tsunami traverses the ocean, a network of sensitive recorders on the sea floor measures pressure changes in the overhead water, sending the information to sensors on buoys, which in turn relay the data to satellites for immediate transmission to warning centers.
• The Tsunami Warning System (TWS) in the Pacific, composed of 26 member countries, monitors seismological and tidal stations throughout the Pacific region. The system evaluates potentially tsunami-causing earthquakes and issues tsunami warnings. An international warning system for tsunamis in the Indian Ocean was launched in June 2006.
• Use your common sense. If you feel or hear of a strong earthquake do not wait for an official tsunami warning. Tell your family and friends to join you in leaving for high ground.

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1 Minute Speech on Ocean In English

A very good morning to one and all present here. Today, I will be giving a short speech on the topic of the ‘Ocean’.  

Google defines the term ‘ocean’ to be “a very large expanse of sea, in particular each of the main areas into which the sea is divided geographically.”

Ocean, simply put, is a large water body that consists of salt water. Approximately, it covers 70% of the Earth’s surface and is said to contain 97% of the Earth’s water as a whole. 

In the world, there are 5 oceans prevalent. They are the Arctic Ocean, Southern Ocean, Indian Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, and Pacific Ocean. Here, the Arctic Ocean is the smallest whereas the Pacific Ocean is the biggest. The Southern or Antarctic Ocean was recognised as one only later. 

Technically speaking, there exists only one ocean on planet Earth- the Global ocean, that is. However, different ocean names have been given to the 5 oceans based on geographical, navigational, scientific, and historical reasons.

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How humanity’s ear-splitting racket deafens whales and other marine animals

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Imagine it’s the early 1900s and you’re a giant blue whale basking in the warm waters of the Santa Barbara Channel, just off the coast of Southern California. What do you hear? Fellow whale songs, murmuring currents, the occasional foghorn, perhaps.

Fast-forward to 2024, and the quiet environment you once called home now sounds vastly different as massive cargo ships churn overhead, slicing through the water with powerful propellers as they converge upon two of the busiest ports in the world.

Aggressive and impactful reporting on climate change, the environment, health and science.

While few land dwellers have given much thought to this shift in ambient marine noise, new research has modeled, for the first time, how the Industrial Revolution and the advent of commercial shipping have turned up the volume in the waters off Los Angeles.

The once-quiet environment of the Santa Barbara Channel is now about 30 times louder than it once was, according to a study published recently in the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin .

Researchers estimated noise levels in the Santa Barbara Channel using acoustic modeling. The black lines represent ships passing through the channel. (Scripps Institution of Oceanography)

The noise can have a profound effect on whales and other creatures that pass through the channel or call it home, many of whom rely on sound and echolocation as their primary mode of perceiving the world around them, according to Vanessa ZoBell, the study’s lead author and a postdoctoral researcher at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

“Sound is everything to marine organisms,” ZoBell said — particularly because about 90% of the ocean is pitch black during the day, and 100% at night.

“It’s the only sense that a lot of marine organisms have, and noise pollution — specifically for the L.A. region — is dominated by commercial shipping,” she said. “When you’re radiating a bunch of noise into the region, it’s kind of masking that sense that these animals need to survive.”

The researchers chose to focus on the Santa Barbara Channel in part because it encompasses Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary and a foraging ground for the federally endangered northeastern Pacific blue whale.

The study modeled the channel’s soundscape in August 2017, when both whales and heavy ship traffic were present, and compared it with the same area decades earlier — before the influx of commercial shipping transformed the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach into the two busiest ports in the Western Hemisphere .

They found that before the introduction of vessel cargo containerization in the 1950s, the baseline volume in the channel was about 60 to 80 decibels — a relatively low hum compared to the cacophony heard today. Now, noise levels are up to 15 decibels louder.

“It’s like having a conversation in your kitchen [versus] having a conversation on the side of a freeway with a bunch of semi-trucks,” ZoBell said.

The problem may get worse in the years ahead, the study says, as global containerized trade is expected to continue to increase due to growing consumer demand and expanding global markets. The volume of such trade more than tripled between 1990 and 2021, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development .

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Sean Hastings, a policy, information and management officer with the Channel Islands Marine Sanctuary, described the study’s findings as “very significant” and said they drive home the urgent need for slower ship speeds, adjusted shipping lanes and other efforts to mitigate ocean noise and protect wildlife.

“These animals have evolved for millions of years in an ocean that only in the last 150 years — the Industrial Revolution era — has dramatically changed on a pace and on a scale that they haven’t evolved with,” he said.

The noise pollution can reduce an animal’s ability to detect and interpret acoustic cues, including sounds used to mate, feed, travel and migrate, Hastings said. It can also increase their stress.

The findings are especially important in the Santa Barbara Channel, which is an internationally recognized biosphere reserve , a designated Whale Heritage Area , and one of the most important whale migration routes in the United States. Blue whales and humpback whales typically arrive in the channel around May 1 and stay through December to feed, breed and birth their calves, “and so this is a really important time frame when they’re up here,” Hastings said.

Though divers typically avoid swimming where the ships and whales converge, Hastings said it’s not hard for humans to imagine what the added noise feels like.

“I know when I’m snorkeling or diving and a small boat goes overhead, it’s dizzying because the sound feels like it’s everywhere,” he said.

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The Channel Islands can also act as a “shield” that constricts sound within the Santa Barbara Channel, enabling noise to rattle around more than it would in deeper, more open ocean waters, according to ZoBell. It’s one of many factors the researchers had to consider in their acoustic modeling, along with wind speed, temperature and time of year, which can all affect how sound propagates through the ocean.

And though container ships create the most underwater noise, smaller vessels — including fishing boats and pleasure craft — also contribute to the volume, which can affect not only whales but also dolphins, spiny lobsters and some fish.

“It’s a region with a lot of human and wildlife interactions,” ZoBell said.

Ocean noise also isn’t limited to commerce. In recent years, the U.S. Navy has come under fire for testing and training activities involving high-intensity mid-frequency sonar in ocean waters, with the Navy admitting in 2002 that the noise had killed at least six whales near the Bahamas.

In 2015, a federal court approved settlements in two cases brought by environmental groups against the Navy and the National Marine Fisheries Service for deploying sonar testing off the coasts of Hawaii and Southern California, which were again found to harm marine life.

“There’s no easy solution to separate ships and whales and national defense training,” Hastings said. “So ... when whales are present, we’re asking ships to slow down. And when and where we can, we’re pushing the lanes into deeper water, we’re expanding areas to be avoided. You see this multi-pronged approach.”

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That approach includes a program called Protecting Blue Whales and Blue Skies, run by a coalition of nonprofit organizations, government agencies and industry groups, which recognizes and rewards shipping companies for voluntarily reducing their speeds to 10 knots or slower in the Santa Barbara Channel, as well as other parts of the Southern California coast and the San Francisco and Monterey Bay region.

The slower speed not only helps limit noise but also reduces greenhouse gas emissions and prevents more ships from striking whales and other animals, the group says.

The program’s 2023 season included the participation of 33 global shipping companies, which collectively traveled about 375,000 nautical miles at 10 knots or slower within the speed reduction zones.

The top-performing ships had sound levels 5.4 decibels lower per transit compared with 2016 baseline source levels, the organization reported, adding that “with a reduction in noise pollution, whales can likely communicate easier.”

New legislation introduced this year, Assembly Bill 2298 , seeks to expand the Protecting Blue Whales and Blue Skies program across the entire California coast “in order to reduce air pollution, the risk of fatal vessel strikes on whales, and harmful underwater acoustic impacts.”

The shipping industry is also beginning to explore new, greener designs such as electric engines and hydrogen hybrid propulsion systems, which could help reduce sound and provide other benefits including improved air quality.

Though it may be some time before those changes are capable of meeting the needs of the largest cargo ships, Hastings said consumers can ask themselves whether they’re willing to trade slower shipping speeds for better ocean and marine wildlife conditions.

“Can they wait an additional few hours for their favorite shoe or computer or smartphone?” he said. “These are really special places, and we can still get the products we love, and we can do it in a more sustainable way.”

And though the study may help inspire additional changes in the future, ZoBell said it also plays an important role in establishing a clearer sense of the past.

“Now we have a target to get back to, and we know what the natural soundscape is that the animals there have evolved to thrive in,” she said. “I don’t think we’re going get back to that, but at least we have something to strive for.”

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Hayley Smith is an environment reporter for the Los Angeles Times, where she covers the many ways climate change is reshaping life in California, including drought, floods, wildfires and deadly heat.

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Ocean Literacy Dialogues at the 2024 Ocean Decade Conference

In April 2024, the world's leading Ocean Literacy advocates gathered at the World Trade Center in Barcelona for the 5th edition of the Ocean Literacy Dialogues, coinciding with the UN Ocean Decade Conference.

Blue Education and Global Integration

The dialogues kicked off with focus on Blue Education, stressing the pivotal role of Blue Schools and the Blue Curriculum in fostering connections with the ocean among the youth. Educational sessions emphasized the need for a Blue Curriculum that would encompass not just academic learning but also emotional engagement with marine environments, and a more holistic approach. The Global Blue Schools Network was presented to the participants and the occasion supported a first meeting with all established national coordinators

The discussions emphasized the need for a standardized yet flexible approach to embedding Ocean Literacy in school systems worldwide. This idea was bolstered by inputs from various international representatives, including the Angolan Minister for Marine Resources, Carmen dos Santos, who is in contact with the Angola Blue Schools and underscored the importance of collaboration across borders to ensure the efficacy and sustainability of ocean education. Ms. Kogie Govender of the South African Environmental Observation Network stressed the importance of field trips and practical activities to familiarize learners with the importance of Ocean Literacy, going beyond the classroom.

Innovating Ocean Literacy

On the innovation front, the dialogues explored how Ocean Literacy could be transformed into ocean fluency, where communities are not merely literate but fluent in the language of the seas—a language informed by cultural, historical, and ecological insights. Experts like Dylan McGarry from One Ocean Hub highlighted the need for a paradigm shift from traditional literacy to a more immersive, culturally resonant fluency that empowers indigenous and local coastal communities.

Innovative practices in Ocean Literacy were also discussed, with a focus on integrating arts and storytelling to make ocean science more relatable and engaging. This approach seeks to break down the barriers of conventional science communication, creating a more inclusive, empathetic, and effective discourse around ocean science and ocean conservation.

Strategic Ocean Communications Symposium

A significant addition to this year's Ocean Literacy Dialogues was another UN Ocean Decade Conference satellite event; a symposium dedicated to "Exploring the Nexus of Strategic Ocean Communications and Ocean Literacy". This event explored how strategic communication and Ocean Literacy enhance public engagement and action for ocean conservation. One keynote speaker, the UNESCO Champion for the Ocean and Youth and big wave surfer Maya Gabeira, discussed the importance of leveraging new and traditional media outlets to bolster Ocean Literacy.

The symposium also underscored the importance of evidence-based communication strategies and highlighted the Ocean and Society Survey as a crucial tool for gauging public perception. Through engaging dialogues, participants identified best practices and called for a unified approach to Ocean Literacy that incorporates the “JEDI” principles: Justice, Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Ocean Literacy

Beyond the symposium, and within the Ocean Literacy Dialogues themselves, there was a significant portion of the event dedicated to integrating diversity, equity, and inclusion into Ocean Literacy discourse and practice. Through various case studies, participants examined how inclusivity in Ocean Literacy could be enhanced. For instance, the Thalassophile Project, led by Rada Pandeva in the UK, showcased methods to make Ocean Literacy accessible to people with disabilities, stressing the need for multisensory educational materials that cater to diverse learning needs.

Discussions also highlighted the intersection of marine conservation with social justice, emphasizing that true Ocean Literacy encompasses understanding and addressing the human rights of those who depend on marine resources. This broader view encourages a more comprehensive approach to Ocean Literacy, one that takes the socio-economic realities of diverse communities into account.

Collaboration and Future Directions

The need for strong international partnerships was a recurring theme. Whether through the sharing of best practices across the Global Blue Schools Network or through collaborative projects that integrate Ocean Literacy with arts and digital technologies, the dialogues underscored the importance of collective efforts in advancing Ocean Literacy globally.

Looking ahead, the conference set the stage for future initiatives aimed at expanding the reach and depth of Ocean Literacy. These include enhancing digital platforms for resources, establishing more inclusive educational practices, and fostering financial strategies that support sustainable Ocean Literacy projects worldwide.

The Ocean Literacy Dialogues in Barcelona marked a significant advancement for the global Ocean Literacy community and its agenda. By weaving together themes of education, innovation, inclusivity, and international cooperation, the dialogues painted a vision of an interconnected and empathetic global community united by a shared commitment to the oceans. As these insights and initiatives move forward, they promise to shape a more ocean-literate world, equipped to face the ecological challenges of our time.

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This article is related to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals .

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