Did you know...... 1. Oceans cover 70 percent of the Earth’s surface. 2. More than 90 percent of the planet’s living biomass is found in the oceans. 3. Eighty percent of all pollution in seas and oceans comes from land-based activities. 4. Forty percent of the world’s population lives within 60 km of a coast. 5. Three-quarters of the world’s mega cities are by the sea. 6. By 2010, 80 percent of people will live within 100 km of the coast. 7. Death and disease caused by polluted coastal waters cost the global economy US$12.8 billion a year. The annual economic impact of hepatitis from tainted seafood alone is US$7.2 billion. 8. Plastic waste kills up to one million sea birds, 100,000 sea mammals and countless fish each year. 9. Sea creatures killed by plastic decompose, the plastic does not. Plastic remains in the ecosystem to kill again and again. 10. Harmful algal blooms, caused by an excess of nutrients -- mainly nitrogen from agricultural fertilizers -- have created nearly 150 coastal deoxygenated “dead zones” worldwide, ranging from 1 to 70,000 sq km.
Posted on: Thu, 08 Aug 2013 22:21:31 +0000
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