Teens Protecting the Ocean
Kaila Turley and Waian Turley are teen ocean activists. They are literally, teens protecting our oceans. Teen ocean activists founded The Original Surfers. They grew up in the ocean in San Diego, California surfing and swimming with dolphins. Teen ocean activists saw dolphins surfing the waves and they knew that dolphins were truly, The Original Surfers.
The Original Surfers is a movement for teens to help protect the beach and the ocean. The idea is to encourage teens to love the beach, ocean, and dolphins so they will stand up to protect them. “We’re teen ocean activists,” explains Kaila Turley. “We have three main causes. First, stopping sewage pollution at our beaches and ocean. Second, to stop plastic pollution in the ocean. Third, to stop climate change because it’s destroying the ocean ecosystems.”
Teen Ocean Activists – Stopping sewage from being dumped into the ocean
As Waian Turley tells it, “Teens protecting our oceans is so important because problems such as sewage being dumped into our local beaches are not being addressed by hardly anyone. There was a recent sewage study by San Diego State University that found that the biggest problem with sewage in our local oceans is not due to rain or the border sewage problem, but rather due to aging and leaky sewage pipes.”
Waian continues, “Where we grew up and still hang out at the beach, there is a permanent sign posted on the beach on the bluff, warning of sewage flowing into the ocean. This is where we hang out, swim and surf.” “The dolphins swim right by here every day. They can’t make the choice not to swim. This is where the dolphins live.”
* By the way. This photo of sewage in the ocean in San Diego was taken more than a month after the last time it rained. Supporting the SDSU study that found the biggest cause of sewage being dumped into the ocean is old and leaky sewage pipes.
Teens protecting our oceans from climate change
Climate change is destroying ocean ecosystems in every ocean in the world.
There are three main ways that climate change is causing serious damage to our oceans: temperature increase, sea level rise, and acidification. Oceans are becoming more acidic as they absorb more CO2 from the atmosphere.
The harm to coral reefs is by all three of these. Marine life is being killed due to these harmful changes.
Kaila and Waian are helping to spread the word to teens about the way climate change is harming our oceans. “Without teens protecting our oceans, we are afraid for our ocean’s future,” Kaila says.
Australia’s Great Barrier Reef has lost more than half of its corals since 1995 due to warmer seas driven by climate change, a study has found. There has been mass bleaching of the reefs. This is all due to greenhouse gas emissions. This bleaching happens when corals under stress drive out the algae – known as zooxanthellae – that give them color. Climate change is the biggest threat to reefs’ long-term survival.
Plastic pollution is Waian’s Teen Ocean Activist Challenge
Waian has made plastic pollution her own challenge. “It starts with cleaning up our rivers. 90% or plastic pollution in the ocean comes from three rivers. We have to do everything we can to stop these rivers from harming our oceans,” Waian declares.
Two separate studies concluded that 90% of the plastic from rivers comes from the world’s three largest rivers: Nile, Amazon, and Yangtze.
You might have heard of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The Ocean Cleanup is trying to clean up all this garbage in our ocean.
What is a teen ocean activist?
We all know what a teen is – someone that is between 13 and 19 years old. And the ocean is pretty obvious. We hang out, swim and surf in the Pacific Ocean.
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