Sea Turtles threatened with extinction (Argument Essay)

I read in an article that a lot of species are endangered because of global warming and more specifically the Sea turtle, which is the oldest species known in the world (Velaquez-Manoff 2007); it lived during the dinosaurs. Now the change of the climate threatens these species, and if we don’t do something in a hurry, this species will disappear. The increasing temperature (more than 2 degrees these last years) has an impact directly on the turtle’s eggs (Velaquez-Manoff 2007, Brahic 2007). The problem is that more females than males are born; that means the future will be difficult for reproduction. According to WWF (2007), it’s not only the future population which is in peril, because there is also habitat loss and degradation, pollution, disease because of human and marine pollution, and natural predators. As Bhattacharya (2007) said, we need to do something and we can already cut emissions of greenhouse gases, employ new energy efficient technology and use strategies to sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. These examples will decrease the effect of global warming, and that is good for the sea turtle.

In Bhattacharya’s article, she said that global warming is the change of climate, this is due to all the different activities due to human which increased pollution. Different causes are the origin of this change of climate, such as the increased pollution due to cars and factories, too strong emission of gases and of different toxic products. These increased the pollution in the air but also the water like sea where some waste is thrown by the factories. All of these have an impact directly or indirectly on the habitat and the life of the sea turtle, threatening them with extinction and different diseases which have been observed in them.

First, to save the sea turtle we need to start with global warming and to find a solution to decrease it. And the most important is carbon dioxide, which is in big part responsible for global warming. So we need to use strategies to sequester and to decrease CO2, to cut emission of greenhouse gases to protect ozone, and to find new technology and source of energy for our vehicles and factories to decrease all the different emission of gases and toxic products to decrease pollution on the air and on the sea. That is something that government needs to care about and use money to find and to try solutions to save our planet.

Second, if we want to decrease pollution due to human, it’s easy; we need to get all the population to participate and to teach them to care about pollution, because it’s their future which is in degradation. As for human activities and factories, we need to put in place laws to ban and to stop the flow of pollutants into the sea, or to bury them in different place, because it’s not a solution to do that, we just displace the problem. And displacing pollutants affects sea turtles and their environment. And for the air, we need to decrease emissions of pollution due to factories and cars. So we should use our car less and use transportation like bus or train, which are electric so no pollution, more. And for the factories, we should find new sources of energy and technology to protect the atmosphere and environment.

Third, we should protect the sea turtle from human and predator. To begin we need to save some place for sea turtle without human activities, so stop building buildings and roads too close to the beach, because these increase the temperature near the beach by all the emission of gases due to cars and all the activities due to humans. We should find a project to push the turtle to migrate to the North, where the temperature is colder and better for the birth of sea turtles. And when we have found these places, at the beginning some scientists need to be here during the birth of the young turtle to protect them from predators, like human predators or animals. I think it’s important to do that to save the turtle and for the restocking of these species.

But some people who don’t really care about endangered species or the future of our planet and global warming, can say that it’s a cycle of natural species disappearing, and we can’t go against the nature, like dinosaurs. And global warming is not an effect of humans; they don’t really believe in global warming. For them it’s a cycle like before, during the ice age, and now temperature and climate change because it’s something normal, it’s the cycle of the earth. It’s not human activities which did that; it must happen again like before, and we can’t do something to prevent this.

In conclusion, sea turtles are endangered because of global warming and this is an effect of human activities, so to save this species we need to protect our planet from pollution; in this way we can decrease global warming with new technology and sources of energy, we can find solutions to decrease pollution due to human activities, and this will have an effect on global warming and sea turtles, and we can protect sea turtles from human and predators. We are the key to the solution; we are at the origin so we need to solve it, and we can do something to protect and save this species and this will have not only an impact on the sea turtle but on global warming and our future lives.

References:

Bhattacharya, S. (2004, January 07). Global warming threatens millions of species. New Scientist. Retrieved October 16, 2007
from: http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn4545&print=true

Brahic, C. (2007, February 21). Male turtle populations crashing in the heat. NewScientist Environment. Retrieved October 29, 2007
from: http://environment.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn1227

Holtcamp, W. (2007) Surf’s up for these sea turtles.
Defenders of Wildlife. Retrieved November 1, 2007
from:http://www.defenders.org/newsroom/defenders_magazine/winter_2007/surfs_up_for_these_sea_turtles.php

University of Exeter (2007, February 22). Scientists warn of climate change risk to marine turtle. ScienceDaily. Retrieved November 1, 2007
from:http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/02/070220003809.htm

Velasquez-Manoff, M. (2007, June 21). Climate turns up heat on sea turtles. The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved October 23, 2007
from: http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0621/p25s03-sten.htm

WWF (World Wildlife Fund). (2007, February 16). Under threat before they even hatch. World Wildlife Fund. Retrieved November 1, 2007
from:http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/species/about_species/species_factsheets/marine_turtles/marine_turtles_threats/index.cfm