Tuesday, June 10, 2008

The Dead Zone

No, not Bush's skull, the Gulf of Mexico:

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Scientists have monitored the growth of these so-called dead zones since the late 1970s. They have tried to promote policies to reduce their size, without much success. Last summer, the dead zone along the Gulf of Mexico coast spanned nearly 8,000 square miles— its third-largest occurrence on record and roughly the size of Massachusetts.

Although states have tried to address the problem, cooperation among them is suffering, and federal leadership and funding are lagging. And now, scientists say, there is a new obstacle: the impact of ethanol production on water quality.

Spurred by recent ethanol mandates and, to a lesser extent, high commodity prices, U.S. farmers are planting record-size crops. From 2006 to 2007, corn acres rose by about 15 million, mostly in the Mississippi River basin. Mid-Atlantic farmers are expected to plant 500,000 more acres of corn, soybeans, and wheat this year than they did in 2006, a 7 percent jump.

Everyone is to blame and no one will take responsibility. Finger pointing resolves nothing. In the mean time the Gulf continues to die. It's up to EIGHT THOUSAND square miles. What will the magic number be to galvanize people to act? It obviously must be from the ground up because politicians by their very nature will do nothing.

So where does one begin?

Update 6/11: RB of The Wicked Witch of the Web has posted on this as well as written an article.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I swear to God I'm gonna drop-kick this POS computer out this mucking window.
ARRREAH everything I've been trying to post for all kinds of long time keeps Mucking disappearing.

I'm seriously needing un otra way to communicate here ..

Ellroon ~ poss-o-bill you contact me homie ?
The suits (Black) got in somehow awhile ago, midnight stealth run, they confiscated all ALL my hard-copy info & files, took the whole f-ing hard drive & computer shit and left some other POS 'puter here. So I got nothin ~ yeah, I donno if it's NSA or some other Black Ops Flying Monkeys

ellroon said...

BOFMs are the worst kind. Will connect by hard line or other!

RB said...

Great post. Isn't it ridiculous that this has been going on for years? If you look at this piece, http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/environment/May-June-08/Gulf-of-Mexico--Dead-Zone--Reaches-Size-of-Massachusetts.html You can see that basically, the headline is the same every year--every summer it just grows and the newspapers report it again. So depressing...

ellroon said...

Thanks for your comment, rb. I linked your blog and your article.