Have you ever imagined what the lives of humans would be like if the world’s oceans disappeared one day?

In order to promote marine environmental conservation and education, the Marine National Park Headquarters is planning and organizing a series of marine conservation forums as of March till October this year, to explore in depth the impacts and influences on marine environment based on different topics including climate, fishery, aquatic plants, sea turtles as well as whales and dolphins, hoping to allow every member of the Island country to make a contribution to the earth.

The theme for the first forum is exploring the dual effects of global change and the ocean. The influences of “global change” on the living environment do not simply exist in the adaptation to the coldness or hotness of the climate. They also include climate change, transformation of land and marine biological productivity, transformation of the atmospheric chemical components, as well as water resource transformation, ecological system change etc. These global environmental changes caused by nature or humans will eventually affect all life energies cultivated on earth.

The theme for marine conservation forum series on March 20th was “Global Change”.

Amongst these influences, the damages as a consequence of human behaviors take up the majority of the proportion. Yet people often only see the enjoyment before their eyes, but neglect the cruel truth behind the glorious surface. Taking the famous Tuscan beach mentioned by the speaker, for instance, what appears to be the “white” beach and “azure” seawater are actually already polluted by chemical plants, whereas the agricultural drought currently faced by the entire world is also the result of consequent influences caused by damages on the ocean.

When the ocean is damaged, agricultural drought also becomes one of the world’s severe issues. (Source: flickr//CC(Creative Commons), photo courtesy of Tim J Keegan).

The Aral Sea crossing over the current Republic of Kazakhstan and Republic of Uzbekistan was ranked as the fourth biggest lake in the world. However because of human’s relentless extraction of water resources for crop irrigation, the Aral Sea has now turned into a barren desert with reduced river water flow and increased lake water saltiness. With the vanishing of locations for egg laying and food ingestion, activities such as fishery and navigation are also influenced. What is even more ironic is the Aral Sea, which used to provide water access for humans, is now covered in salt and pollutants including pesticides and farm chemicals on the shrunken, dried up and exposed seabed. As a result, when a strong wind blows, these salt and pollutants are then blown directly towards peripheral regions with dense population, not only suppressing the growth of local natural plants and crops, but also causing humans to suffer from respiratory tract infection diseases due to inhalation of these pollutants.

Dried up Aral Sea (Source: flickr//CC(Creative Commons), photo courtesy of upyernoz)

The Colorado River is one of the vital water resources in America. It is the main source for fresh water in California. However, due to excessive extraction and close to 110 thousand gallons of radioactive underground water being released into it, the river is almost dried up, and the domino effect for the drought of the river resulted in significant direct influence towards California agriculture.

The Colorado River was ranked as one of the top 10 endangered rivers in 2015. (Source: flickr//CC(Creative Commons), photo courtesy of Mia & Steve Mestagh)

Climate change has directly changed the global environment, and humans are the most direct inflicters as well as the victims; lives and economies have been severely affected. However, if the ocean vanishes one day due to global change, marine organisms will certainly not be the only ones influenced. Organisms worldwide will not be able to get away with the consequent damages. Throughout the past 500 million years, collisions from asteroids caused the fifth catastrophic mass distinction of plants and animals on earth. Now, scientists have put forward warnings that human interference and destruction will be the chief culprit for the sixth ecological mass distinction.

Thinking carefully, when we are still wearing heavy sweaters in Spring, while complaining about the non-stopping rainfall, as well as the blowing hot and cold weather-- these are merely a small part of the warning signs for nature’s counterattack. The issue of global change is not merely a part of the research data from the scientists; it should be an ecological issue to be taken seriously guarded against by all human beings.