As of right now, we are still discovering so much in the ocean which gives us the right to believe we’re not doing enough to explore. According to a National Geographic article named “Ocean” written in 2021, only about 5% of the ocean worldwide is explored, keep in mind that about 70% of the Earth is oceans. Sylvia Earle, an American marine biologist, has discovered so much in the ocean and wants more. Sylvia is known for her many books and her determination to explore and research the ocean. Sylvia’s hard work and determination lead me to believe that we should spend more time and money on ocean exploration. This is because of safety concerns, cost, convenience, and saving animals.

First is safety concerns, it’s said by USA today news in an article named “On a planet where you cannot breathe, is living on Mars the best idea?” written on December 30, 2020, by Antonia Jaramillo, that the sun will run out of fuel at some point, then what? A lot of people tend to think that going to Mars to colonize is the best idea. Why colonize mars when the air isn’t even breathable? I mean if we just explored the ocean more we could find places to build things so we could live there one day when the temperature drastically changes. If we explore deeper an article named “Why do we explore the ocean?” by NOAA Ocean Exploration says that the things that we find could potentially hold new cures to some medical illnesses. Exploring more means mapping more of the ocean which can produce better GPS systems. So, safety concerns like colonization, medical cures, and GPS systems are one reason that we should spend more time and money on ocean exploration, these things are also very convenient.

Second is convenience, think of how much more we would know about our planet if we just explored more. Creating new industries is a big problem in the world right now. The website Wired has an article called “It’s Time for the Next Wave of Ocean Exploration and Protection” written by outside contributors, says that Ocean exploration would create so many new industries. For example, exploring more would tell fishermen where and when to fish so that we could keep the rate of how many fish we catch steady. Another convenience is that the ocean can help predict weather conditions like hurricanes, tornados, and earthquakes. Approximately 60,000 people are killed from natural disasters like this each year. We can use the ocean to predict the weather so people can prepare, this would greatly decrease the death rate from natural disasters. So, ocean exploration is very convenient when it comes to things like new industries and weather conditions. What is also very convenient is the overall cost of exploring deeper in the ocean.

Third is the cost, sure we would be spending a lot of money but exploring the ocean is a lot cheaper than some other worldwide projects like space exploration. “We need Nasa for Ocean Exploration” is an article on the website Inverse written by Jacqueline Ronsin that explains that Nasa’s mars budget is currently 2.5 billion dollars for 2022 while the ocean exploration budget is about 20 million dollars. Just imagine if the budgets were flipped. We would know a whole lot more about the ocean and we would be discovering a lot more. Some of the things that would come with ocean exploration would cost barely anything. An example of this would be helping and saving animals.

Finally, the fourth reason is saving animals. There are many ways we could be saving them with ocean exploration. One of them is exploring and discovering the places with the most trash and pollution. An example of this is the Mariana Trench, we’ve already explored some of this and discovered lots of trash. The article “He went where no human had gone before. Our trash had already beaten him there.” written by Reis Thebault on May 14, 2019, on The Washington Post, says that Victor Viscovo took a submarine to the bottom of the Mariana Trench and discovered numerous kinds of trash. We should clean and clear it up for animals. We can also save animals from extinction, even animals that we may not have discovered yet. Animals could be getting killed by pollution, other animals, starvation, and more. We don’t want animals to go extinct before or right after they’re discovered. We never want extinction in general. Ocean exploration can help animals by just simply discovering life and pollution in some of the deepest parts of the ocean.

So in conclusion, ocean exploration is so important and goes beyond safety, convenience, cost, and saving the lives of animals. It’s a much more convenient and cheaper plan than trying to colonize Mars. It can save the lives of so many people, even animals too, by discovering new medical cures, new budgeting, better GPS systems, predicting weather conditions, and many more. We need to think about what would do the most for our planet, in this case, it’s spending more time and money on exploring a lot more of the ocean. As Sylvia Earle once said, “Far and away, the biggest threat to the ocean is ignorance.”