BBC News (excerpts):  The oceans are in a worse state than previously suspected, according to an expert panel of scientists.  In a new report they warn that ocean life is "at high risk of entering a phase of extinction of marine species unprecedented in human history."  They conclude that issues such as over-fishing, pollution and climate change are acting together in ways that have not previously been recognized.  The impacts, they say, are already affecting humanity.  The panel was convened by the International Program on the State of the Ocean (IPSO), and brought together experts from different disciplines, including coral reef ecologists, toxicologists, and fisheries scientists.  Its report will be formally released later this week.  "The findings are shocking," said Alex Rogers, IPSO's scientific director and professor of conservation biology at Oxford University.  As we considered the cumulative affect of what mankind does to the oceans, the implications became far worse than we had individually realized.  "We've sat in one forum and spoken to each other about what we're seeing, and we've ended up with a picture showing that almost right across the board we are seeing changes that are happening faster than we'd thought, or in ways that we didn't expect to see for hundreds of years."  These "accelerated" changes include melting of the Greenland and Arctic ice sheets, sea level rise and release of methane trapped in the sea bed.  
Fast Changes:  "The rate of change is vastly exceeding what we were expecting even a couple of years ago," said Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, a coral specialist from the University of Queensland in Australia.  "So if you look at almost everything, whether it's fisheries in temperate zones or coral reefs or Arctic sea ice, all of this is undergoing changes, but at a much faster rate than we had thought."  However, more worrying than this, the team noted, are the ways in which different issues act synergistically to increase threats to marine life.  Some pollutants, for example, stick to the surfaces of tiny plastic particles that are now found in the ocean bed.  This increases the amounts of these pollutants that are consumed by bottom-feeding fish.  Plastic particles also assist the transport of algae from place to place, increasing the occurrence of toxic algal blooms - which are also caused by the influx of nutrient-rich pollution from agriculture land.  In a wider sense, ocean acidification, warming, local pollution and overfishing are acting together to increase the threat to coral reef so much so that three-quarters of the world's reefs are at risk of severe decline.  Life on earth has gone through "five mass extinction events" caused by such things as asteroid impacts; and it is often said that humanity's combined impact is causing a sixth such event.  The IPSO report concludes that it is too early to say definitively, but the trends are such, that it is likely to happen, they say, and far faster than any of the previous five.  "What we are seeing at the moment is unprecedented in the fossil record - the environmental changes are much more rapid," Professor Rogers told BBC News.  "We've still got most of the world's biodiversity, but the actual rate of extinction is much higher [than in past events] - and what we face is certainly a globally significant extinction event."  Levels of CO2 being absorbed by the oceans are already far greater than during the great extinction of marine species 55 million years ago (during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum), it concludes.  
Blue Planet:  The report's conclusions will be presented at the UN headquarters in New York this week, when government delegates begin discussions on reforming governance of the oceans.  IPSO's immediate recommendations include:  stopping exploitative fishing now, with special emphasis on the high seas where currently there is little effective regulation; mapping and then reducing the input of pollutants including plastics, agricultural fertilizers and human waste; making sharp reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.  

My Comments:  We certainly shouldn't pollute our oceans and there is a need to take care of the beautiful landscape and resources God has given us.  What scientists do not take into consideration is the Word of God, which already tells us that because of man's wickedness, the earth will languish, "Therefore, the land will mourn and everyone that dwells in it will languish, with the beasts of the field, the fowls of heaven; yes, the fishes of the sea will also be taken away" Hosea 4:3.  Zephaniah 1:3 also says, "I (God) will consume man and beast; I will consume the fowls of heaven and the fishes of the sea and the stumblingblocks with the wicked, and I will cut off man from off the land, saith the Lord."  God's judgment is being poured out on the earth, which is also a sign of the return of the Lord.  Jesus said, "When you see these things come to pass, then look up and lift up your heads, for your redemption is near" Luke 21:28.