Political Quotes

“the world's oceans serve as a crucial carbon sink, a home to hundreds of thousands of known and countless unknown species of marine life, an essential source of protein for billions of people, and a facilitator of billions of dollars in tourism, fishing, shipping, and other economic activity. Today, the oceans, on which life on Earth depends, are under serious threat. Threats from climate change, habitat destruction, illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing, and pollution--plastic waste pollution in particular--are accelerating and causing potentially irreparable harm to this planet. I spoke recently on the significant health, environmental, and economic impacts of the more than 300 billion pounds of plastic waste circulating in the oceans, and on funding in the Senate version of the fiscal year 2020 Department of State and Foreign Operations appropriations bill to strengthen U.S. efforts to address this pollution. Today I will further discuss the scale of the problem and actions that governments, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), private companies, and other stakeholders can take to address this challenge. I want to share a few findings and recommendations from a report recently published by Ocean Conservancy and the Trash Free Seas Alliance, a global group of companies and NGOs seeking to reduce and reinvent products and services that contribute to ocean pollution.…”