Posts: 4287
From: Southern 'Bama
Registered: Aug 2002

posted March 29, 2004 08:55 AM         

---

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20040329/D81K25N00.html

U.N. Warns About Ocean 'Dead Zones'

JEJU, South Korea (AP) - So-called "dead zones," oxygen-starved areas of the world's oceans that are devoid of fish, top the list of emerging environmental challenges, the United Nations Environment Program warned Monday in its global overview.

The spreading zones have doubled over the last decade and pose as big a threat to fish stocks as overfishing, UNEP said its Global Environment Outlook Year Book 2003, released at the opening of the agency's 8th summit for the world's environment ministers.

The new findings tally nearly 150 dead zones around the globe, double the number in 1990, with some stretching 27,000 square miles.

Dead zones have long afflicted the Gulf of Mexico and Chesapeake Bay, but are now spreading to other bodies of water, such as the Baltic Sea, Black Sea, Adriatic Sea, Gulf of Thailand and Yellow Sea, as other regions develop, UNEP said.

They are also appearing off South America, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

The main cause is excess nitrogen run-off from farm fertilizers, sewage and industrial pollutants. The nitrogen triggers blooms of microscopic algae known as phytoplankton. As the algae die and rot, they consume oxygen, thereby suffocating everything from clams and lobsters to oysters and fish.

"Human kind is engaged in a gigantic, global, experiment as a result of inefficient and often overuse of fertilizers, the discharge of untreated sewage and the ever rising emissions from vehicles and factories," UNEP Executive Director Klaus Toepfer said in a statement.

"Unless urgent action is taken to tackle the sources of the problem, it is likely to escalate rapidly," Toepfer said.
(...)
There's more to the article if you click on the link.

IP: Logged

Posts: 503
From: durban
Registered: Nov 2002

posted March 29, 2004 09:01 AM         

---

This needs to be sorted out before it is irevocably damaged.

MD

IP: Logged

Posts: 90
From: Spring,Tx
Registered: May 2002

posted March 29, 2004 11:27 AM         

---

yeah, really. What you said Moondreamer.

The Gulf of Mexico is a dead zone? It's almost always a challenge to keep from getting stung by all the jelly fish there.
I wonder how do they survive?

IP: Logged

Posts: 4287
From: Southern 'Bama
Registered: Aug 2002

posted March 29, 2004 11:53 AM         

---

I don't think that they're saying that the entire Gulf is a dead zone, but that it has several or a sizeable one in it.

IP: Logged

Posts: 1794
From: sleepy Rocky Mountain village
Registered: Dec 2002

posted March 29, 2004 12:09 PM         

---

The answer is relatively simple.
http://www.weblife.org/humanure/default.html

The problem is helping people deal with often severe cases of fecophobia.

IP: Logged

Posts: 508
From:
Registered: Oct 2003

posted April 04, 2004 04:05 PM         

---

The oceans of the Earth are her lifeblood. When catastrophic changes that threaten the ecosystems of the planet start to occur, the first evidence will be in the oceans. I fear for the health of our planet's systems. Yikes.

MK

IP: Logged

Posts: 1008
From: CA
Registered: Jan 2004

posted April 08, 2004 01:13 PM         

---

fecophobia LMAO no pun intended

------------------
“The good things which belong to prosperity are to be wished, but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired.” Seneca

IP: Logged

Posts: 865
From: beautiful, hidden mountain village, BC, Canada
Registered: Aug 2003

posted April 08, 2004 03:00 PM         

---

Coral reefs worldwide are also experiencing massive die-offs. They are extremely important biomes. It seems that most people barely notice or just shrug and say that there is nothing anyone can do. But we can do something. We can make a difference. I just did a documentary on some aspects of forestry in British Columbia. The Environmental movement has forced major changes in forest practices. It took time and there are still more changes to make, but we did it. It turns out that although protests, etc. did get people's attention, the real changes came about because of money. People stopped buying products that were harvested or produced in an environmentally unfriendly manner. Now there are environmental certification standards that must be met before large store chains like Home Depot or Lowes will even purchase the wood products for resale. The same thing happened with tuna. When people stopped buying it until the dolphin issue was addressed, changes were made. Not that either industry is perfect to my personal standards, but we have definitely made changes for the better. So part of the solution to oceanic dead zones and coral kills is for people to stop buying the products that are causing the problem. If fertilizers and industrial waste is causing this, stop buying the products that use them. Don't pay those industries that dump those pollutants. Buy organic veggies or grow your own or purchase them from farmer's markets. The internet is a wonderful tool to find out about the environmental practices or the companies we support with our hard earned dollars.

IP: Logged

Posts: 1794
From: sleepy Rocky Mountain village
Registered: Dec 2002

posted April 08, 2004 05:27 PM         

---

A BIG part of the problem is the way we deal with human 'waste'. Just the way we look at it needs total reconsideration. It's not waste.. it's a potential resource. A very valuable resource I might add. If we stopped pooing in clean drinking water and then pumping it with chlorine so we can wash it out to sea, it would go a looong way towards solving this dead zone problem.

IP: Logged

Posts: 348
From:
Registered: Nov 2003

posted January 04, 2005 10:03 AM         

---

IP: Logged

Posts: 20334
From: Columbus, GA USA
Registered: Nov 2000

posted January 05, 2005 09:48 AM         

---

------------------
"Never mentally imagine for another that which you would not want to experience for yourself, since the mental image you send out inevitably comes back to you." Rebecca Clark

IP: Logged

Posts: 348
From:
Registered: Nov 2003

posted January 06, 2005 10:09 AM         

---

A big part of the devastation in the tsunami was owing to the depredation of Coral reefs, which protect the shorelines. These had been destroyed to be used in building plans, for profit.

IP: Logged

Posts: 4287
From: Southern 'Bama
Registered: Aug 2002

posted January 15, 2005 09:42 AM         

---

Hear, hear, FK!

(Yeah, I'm a little late.)

IP: Logged

Posts: 20334
From: Columbus, GA USA
Registered: Nov 2000

posted January 15, 2005 11:46 PM         

---

Where you been hiding, Proxie?

------------------
"Never mentally imagine for another that which you would not want to experience for yourself, since the mental image you send out inevitably comes back to you." Rebecca Clark

IP: Logged

Posts: 20334
From: Columbus, GA USA
Registered: Nov 2000

posted January 18, 2005 04:45 AM         

---

------------------
"Never mentally imagine for another that which you would not want to experience for yourself, since the mental image you send out inevitably comes back to you." Rebecca Clark

IP: Logged

Posts: 4287
From: Southern 'Bama
Registered: Aug 2002

posted January 18, 2005 10:22 PM         

---

Oh, I was up in Virginia for a while visiting w/ fam, and since being back have just been getting a lot of stuff done.

And reading quite a bit

That's not to say that I haven't missed LL

IP: Logged

Posts: 20334
From: Columbus, GA USA
Registered: Nov 2000

posted January 19, 2005 08:22 AM         

---

------------------
"Never mentally imagine for another that which you would not want to experience for yourself, since the mental image you send out inevitably comes back to you." Rebecca Clark

IP: Logged