Coastal “Dead Zones”: Area Affected Doubles Every 10 Years August 15, 2008

Although the Dead Zone* in the Gulf of Mexico tends to receive the most publicity in the US, there are an increasing number of dead zones around the world and the area covered by dead zones is doubling about every ten years (reported in NY Times, original study in Science).

As reported by Bina Venkataraman in the New York Times, 

“What’s happened in the last 40, 50 years is that human activity has made the water quality conditions worse,” the study’s leader author, Robert J. Diaz, said in an interview.

The trend portends nothing good for many fisheries, said Dr. Diaz, a professor at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science at the College of William and Mary. “Dead zones,” he said, “tend to occur in areas that are historically prime fishing grounds.”

Indeed, while the size of dead zones is small relative to the total surface of the oceans, scientists say they account for a significant part of ocean waters that support commercial fish and shellfish species.

The authors of the study conclude their report in Science with this observation:

Currently, hypoxia and anoxia are among the most widespread deleterious anthropogenic influences on estuarine and marine environments, and now rank with overfishing, habitat loss, and harmful algal blooms as major global environmental problems.  There is no other variable of such ecological importance to coastal marine ecosystems that has changed so drastically over such a short time as DO [dissolved oxygen].

The major cause of dead zones is the flow of too many nutrients down our rivers and out into coastal waters.  These nutrients come from agriculture (fertilizers), animal waste (from raising cows, pigs, poultry, etc.), and also from sewer overflows, air pollution, and other smaller contributors.  The entry of these nutrients into the rivers is made easier when wetlands and other riverside vegetation systems are destroyed for farmland or for other development. 

Better management of crop fertilization, manure disposal, and the requirement of ‘buffer zones’ of nutrient-absorbing vegetation and soil can all help lessen the problem of nutrient pollution (eutrophication) of our rivers and coastal zones.  Because the pollution often takes place across state and even national boundaries, this problem needs to be managed, and managed responsibly, at the highest levels.

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*A dead zone is a low-oxygen area in the ocean; the term tends to refer to areas where this low-oxygen (hypoxic) area is persistent in time, often leading to the death of sedentary and sessile organisms and attempts by mobile species to leave the area.

Bush Administration Solution to High Gas Prices? Cut Mass Transit Funding. August 14, 2008

The Department of Transportation is a little upset that Americans are driving less.  You see, they promised money to a number of states for road upkeep and when people started driving less, and thus consuming less gasoline, gasoline tax revenues declined. 

So, Secretary of Transportation Mary E. Peters, proposes that the slack be taken up by taking money from the MASS TRANSIT BUDGET [NY Times].  This, of course, at a time when much mass transit is pushed to the limit as former drivers look for more affordable ways to get to work. 

Way to get to the root of our nation’s transportation issues and do the best for the people, Secretary Powers!

Bush Administration vs. Endangered Species August 12, 2008

According to the Washington Post,

The Bush administration yesterday proposed a regulatory overhaul of the Endangered Species Act to allow federal agencies to decide whether protected species would be imperiled by agency projects, eliminating the independent scientific reviews that have been required for more than three decades.

The rule change would mean that agencies, most of which have no biologists on staff, would be making decisions about how their projects affected endangered species.  Hmm, maybe while we’re at it, we should just let the chemical companies decide how much pollution is okay to dump in rivers, and let pharmaceutical companies decide if their drugs are safe…why bother with the whole FDA?

I’m not saying this is bad because the Department of Transportation, or any other agency, would purposely harm endangered species.  But their job is to get THEIR projects done, not to understand the biology and ecology of endangered species and act to protect them.  So if they reach a point where their actions may harm an endangered species, and they are being evaluated and funded based on their completion of projects, do you think that the completion of the project or the endangered species is going to win out? 

Those in the Bush Administration seem to live in a world where the relationships of humans with their environment is based completely on humans being able to extract as much benefit from the environment without any sort of stewardship.  This has never been sustainable. 

Think about farmers.  Farmers realize that if they try to extract the maximum yield from their land in one year, they will soon have completely useless land.  They realize that they must rotate crops, or leave lands fallow, often enough for the soil to replenish the nutrients needed to maximize plant growth.  They realize that they must irrigate their lands in a way that does not wash all the topsoil away, or erode parts of their land.  They manage for maximum plant yield over the LONG TERM.

Look at hunting groups, like Ducks Unlimited.  Ducks Unlimited realizes that to be able to hunt waterfowl, there must be suitable habitat for those waterfowl.  Their actions have been integral in preserving wetlands and undeveloped spaces.  Although hunting might be seen as a one-way, extractive sport, these hunters have realized that they must respect the land and the ecological needs of the animals in order to hunt them sustainably. 

We can keep extracting natural resources and using the landscape solely for our own needs, but it is not a sustainable policy.  It will leave an undiverse, naked landscape for our children or grandchildren.  This move again marks the Bush administration as short-sighted.

Offshore Drilling: An old, unsuccessful idea August 7, 2008

If you still think offshore drilling is going to solve our short-term gas price problem, or our long-term foreign-oil dependence problem, consider these analyses:

Energy Information Administration (U.S. Government website):

“The projections in the OCS access case indicate that access to the Pacific, Atlantic, and eastern Gulf regions would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030. Leasing would begin no sooner than 2012, and production would not be expected to start before 2017…Because oil prices are determined on the international market, however, any impact on average wellhead prices is expected to be insignificant.”

Joseph Romm at Huffington Post

“Who thinks that adding under 100,000 barrels a day in supply sometime after 2020 — some one-thousandth of total supply — would be more than the proverbial drop in the ocean? Remember the Saudis didn’t stop prices from rising when they announced earlier this year that they would add 500,000 barrels of oil a day by the end of this year!”

Coal Power Plants and Children’s Health August 7, 2008

Ground-breaking work in molecular epidemiology, headed by Dr. Frederica Perera, has demonstrated that emissions from a coal-fired power plant in China had adverse effects on children’s health in the surrounding area.  Learn more about the work at Scientific American, the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health, and Living on Earth.

Environmental news: Birds move north, Ice sheet breaks July 30, 2008

Reuters this morning reports on two different scientific observations demonstrating the effects of global warming.  Bird populations in Northern Europe are shifting northward in response to changing temperatures (I haven’t yet read the scientific article, but according to the news article the researchers controlled for other possible factors).  Giant chunks of the Canadian Ice Shelf are breaking off in response to warming temperatures. 

For those who are, for some reason, skeptical of climate change, these observations add to the incredible amount of evidence for a changing climate.  You can argue until you are blue in the face about whether this change is caused by humans or not, but if you really think that climate is not changing in the face of the scientific evidence available today, it is the rough equivalent of still believing the world is flat.  Luckily, there will soon be many more deserts in which you can bury your head in the sand as the rest of us actually deal with the issues.

Science vs. Media Coverage of Science July 29, 2008

In the New York Times, Andrew C. Revkin analyses the effects of climate change media coverage on the public’s understanding of the issues and the consensus.  As a scientist, I have to admit that I found the article somewhat simplistic mostly due to its failure to describe the actual process that scientists use to communicate their findings and which seems to cause the most confusion for the public.  But the article did raise some interesting points and is worth reading, especially for those of you who find yourself confused by the climate change issue. 

The best part of the article, in my opinion, was the comparison of the climate change issue to scientific, medical findings on diet.  News coverage of studies on diet are always showing dramatic turnarouds:  butter is bad–use margarine!  margarine is bad–use butter!, or the always fluctuating opinion of whether coffee is good or bad.  But really, scientists are agreed–and have been for a long time–that if everyone ate a little less, and used just a reasonable amount of butter or margarine, and represented all the food groups in their diet, that we would all be much healthier and less overweight.  Switching from butter to margarine is not going to be the difference between fitting into your high school jeans and shopping in the ‘Big and Tall’ store.  Eating a sensible diet and exercising a reasonable amount will have a much greater impact than following the latest spreadable fat advice. 

This is how science is in general:  there is a body of knowledge, of understanding, that is generally acknowledged as true by scientists.  Most scientists then do their research at the edge of that understanding:  where the knowns stop and the unknowns start.  When scientists complete their research on a certain topic, they prepare the work in a manuscript, which is submitted to a journal and goes through a process called peer review, in which 2 or more scientists in the same field (but not collaborators on the project, or from the same institution) review the work for the proper use of methods, proper analysis of results, and for clear communication of the ideas.  If the reviewers and the editors of the journal feel the manuscript fulfills the standards of the journal and represents science carried out according to general standards, then the manuscript is published.  And, yes, most scientific papers are not fun to read.  But that is because scientists are so careful to distinguish between what has been accepted as fact, what is the precise question being worked on in this manuscript, which questions are still out there.  Therefore, you will get lots of scientific papers on a topic before it tends to be generally accepted:  ‘Five pieces of fruit a day improves the health of 10 male adults’, ‘Five pieces of fruit a day improves the health of 72% of 2000 female nurses studied,’ ‘Eating fruit does not increase health of 8 morbidly obese patients,’  ’Increasing fruit consumption tied to increased health in 92% of 700 nursing home patients’ eventually leads to someone summarizing a wide array of studies on the topic and concluding, again using statistics, that eating fruit is good for you.  It is a slow process, but it works for the most part.  But it does not transfer well to today’s fast-paced media.  The media wants a sound bite, and is rarely willing to settle for a scientist saying, ‘My data indicates, with 89.2% confidence, that eating 2.7 g of butter per day is better for the functioning of the blah blah blah system in white males of ages 30-39 in good health than eating 2.7 g of margarine per day.’  The media (and the consumers of media) want a scientist that says, ‘The final word on butter vs. margarine is that butter is better.’   Until there is a better understanding of the scientific process by the public (and, perhaps even more importantly, by the media), there is never going to be solid coverage of science by more than a few talented journalists who have taken the time to understand the process of science, and the current state of science on the topics they cover. 

If you are not a scientist and you want to understand what the news is on a scientific issue, what can you do?  Well, you can continue to read the news.  Just take it with a grain of salt…remember that the journalist has probably substantially simplified the findings of a paper, or substantially edited what the scientist actually said (many institutions now offer media training for scientists, but trust me…most of us are not good at producing little sound bites of our work).  If you are particularly interested in an issue, or think it might affect you, read a more in-depth article on the topic from a respected magazine or a respected web-site.  Many government agencies provide good background on important issues on their website, for the public as opposed to for other scientists.

News Flash: NASCAR lags in environmentally sound practices July 29, 2008

In what should come as little surprise to most of you, the Washington Post today confirms that NASCAR is a llittle behind in reducing its carbon footprint.  For example, NASCAR only stopped using leaded gasoline in 2007.  But the report does mention that other racing organizations, such as the Indy Racing League (which is responsible for the Indy 500), have made substantial changes without sacrificing the pleasure of viewers. 

If you’re gonna pay for a day at the speedway, support one of the innovative organizations.

In the news: Baby penguins dying, Archbishop Tutu speaks on Global Warning July 20, 2008

• Baby penguins are washing up dead on the shores of Brazil.  Penguin experts interviewed feel pretty confident that somehow humans caused this.  Probably yes, but actually no one knows the reason(s) yet.  If it is climate change, and now there are dying penguins and polar bears, I predict a solution to greenhouse gas emissinos by next week.  [Washington Post]
• There is concensus that humans are messing up the salmon populations, especially in California.  The issue is complex but basically Northern California is exporting water, from rivers, where salmon reproduce.  Then lots of the young die, and the salmon populations are drastically reduced (the salmon season was cancelled this spring due to such low numbers).  There was a recent legal victory for the salmon (and their human lawyers), but no real changes will result immediately due to the decision.   [LA Times]
• High oil prices mean consumers are turning to coal.  Crap.  That is also polluting.  But cheap!  But polluting.  Also, most cars don’t run on coal.  [LA Times]
• I hate baseball.  Hold a little home-town love for the Mariners, but that is about it.  But I have to give kudos to the efforts of MLB and all others involved for taking the lead on helping sports go green.  [Washington Post]
• Police budgets are not rising as rapidly as gas prices, so more police officers are having to get out of their cars.  This actually is probably a good thing, for the most part, because if you watched The Wire you totally know that cops on the street have a much better feel for the community.  As long as they can still use the car for emergencies.  [NY Times]
• Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu castigates the rich white-collar workers who fly around the world for business trips that could easily be accomplished by phone or video-conference.  Practices like these accelerate global warming and that affects the poor more than the rich.  BTW, phone calls and video-conferences also save money, so stock-holders might want to point that out at the next meeting.  [Reuters]

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.  Go outside for a while.

Today in Environmental News… July 16, 2008

• Just as the people affected by the Midwest flooding still feel the effects, there will be a lasting signature of the floods in the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem.  The ‘Dead Zone,’ or the area which suffers severe hypoxic and anoxic conditions, is predicted to be larger this year than after Katrina.  (See the whole story, and how increasing use of ethanol could affect the future health of the Gulf of Mexico, at The Daily Green.)
• See?  Even small changes in the way we manage fisheries can make big changes.  Witness the changes seen off the coast of Devon, in the UK.  (BBC News)
• Seabird breeding is affected by a number of factors, including climate and food availability (read:  fish populations).  Therefore, it is just another bad sign when usually large colonies of seabirds are showing dramatically reduced breeding.  (BBC News)
• And finally, how long is it before the Bush administration craps on this step forward by the EPA in combatting our CO2 output?  (NY Times)