8th June 2022 is the day we celebrate our seas across the globe. The ocean plays a massive role in our everyday life and today is all about taking action to protect it under the 30×30 conservation goal. This is a global movement calling world leaders to establish a network of marine protected areas covering 30% of the global oceans by 2030.

“World Ocean Day supports collaborative conservation, working with its global network of youth and organisational leaders in more than 140 countries, and providing free and customisable promotional and actionable resources.  World Ocean Day is powered by the World Ocean Day Youth Advisory Council” (World Ocean Day, n.d.)

But how does the ocean affect our day-to-day life?

The Air We Breathe

Tiny plant-like organisms that live in the sea called Phytoplankton are responsible for at least 50% of the oxygen on Earth. They contain chlorophyll to capture sunlight and use photosynthesis to convert it into the energy they need, producing oxygen as a by-product. They also consume carbon dioxide, transferring about 10 gigatonnes of carbon from the atmosphere deep into the ocean each year.

Climate Regulation

The ocean absorbs massive amounts of heat from the sun.  “More than 90% of the warming that has happened on Earth over the past 50 years has occurred in the ocean,” according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.  Sea currents transport the heat around the world towards the North and South Poles.

A Sustainable Source of Nutrition

Fish account for almost 17% of all animal protein, and 7% of all protein consumed globally. There is, however, more to seafood than fish, crustacea and other edible creatures. A range of algae and sea plants are also commonly used in cooking, seaweed being the most well-known.

To get one gram of protein from cattle, you need 112 litres of water and as such, the oceans form an important part of a more sustainable approach to feeding the planet’s livestock, who then are used to feed the growing human population.

Biodiversity

The ocean is habitat to an unknown number of species, nobody knows for certain exactly how many that could be as the ocean is simply too vast to find them all! According to the US National Library of Medicine’s National Institutes of Health, “91% of species in the ocean still await description.”

Employment

Millions of jobs are created by the ocean, by 2030, ocean-based industries will employ more than 40 million people worldwide, an OECD report estimates.

Clyde Marine Recruitment add new jobs to our website daily, you can browse our latest opportunities here.

Fancy a career at sea? Find out what the basic minimum requirements here.