World Ocean Day

Tomorrow (June 8th) is World Ocean Day. World Ocean Day was started in 1992 as way to celebrate our world ocean and our personal connection to the sea.

This year's World Ocean Day is a big deal because this is the first time ever that the event is being officially recognized by the United Nations. Receiving this designation by the U.N. is a giant leap in encouraging the conservation and protection of our world's ocean.

According to the Ocean Project website, World Ocean Day "is a opportunity to encourage individuals to think about what the ocean means to them and what it has to offer all of us with hopes of conserving it for present and the future generations."

If you would like to show your support of World Ocean Day you are encouraged to wear blue tomorrow and tell others about your support of this event.

And in the honor World Ocean Day, I have dug up some interesting ocean facts on the internet.

Did you know...

The oceans cover 71% of the Earth's surface and contain 97% of the Earth's water. Less than 1% is fresh water, and 2-3% is contained in glaciers and ice caps.

An estimated 50-80% of all life on earth is found under the ocean surface and the oceans contain 99% of the living space on the planet.

Currently, scientists have named and successfully classified over 1.5 million ocean species. It is estimated that there are as little as 2 million to as many as 50 million more species that have not yet been found and/or have been incorrectly classified.

90% of all volcanic activity occurs in the oceans.

The blue whale is the largest animal on our planet ever (exceeding the size of the greatest known dinosaurs) and has a heart is the size of a Volkswagen.

And now for some not so nice ocean facts...

Air pollution is responsible for 33% of the toxic contaminants that end up in oceans and coastal waters. About 44% of the toxic contaminants come from runoff via rivers and streams.

Each year, three times as much rubbish is dumped into the world's oceans as the weight of fish caught.

Fish supply the greatest percentage of the world's protein consumed by humans and most of the world's major fisheries are being fished at levels above their maximum sustainable yield; some regions are severely overfished.

(All the above facts were stolen from www.marinebio.com)

So if you feel like it, throw on a blue shirt tomorrow in honor of the ocean. Delaney and I certainly will since the ocean is Delaney's absolute favorite place to visit.