Ocean's "Dead Zones" Now Top 400
 

Something smells fishy about this.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26202398/

I read a story in National Geographic that pointed the finger for the largest dead zone in the history of the Mississippi River outlet at the increase in fertilizers used to grow corn. and Nat-Geo blamed the increase of corn production on demand for ethanol.

Seems off-shore oil rigs are better for the Golf of Mexico then Ethanol... Hmm INTERESTING!

It's not just increased crops. It is also draining and separating wetlands from the river systems, leveeing to prevent overbank flooding, and channelization to increase flow volumes. Each of these factors reduce retention times which decreases the denitrification of the water -- more poopie water goes more quickly into the Gulf.

Ecologically Challenged
 

We,Humanity,live on the surface of the Earth
(and see to it's degradation by Pollution)
as if we had a "Spare" Planet we could escape to after defiling
this one into a Cold Black Orb like an Asteroid.

There was a program on TV this week about a lake, in the Lower Portions of
which there is No Oxygen in the Water.The lower portions of the lake are now
infested with an Anaerobic Bacteria Bloom
(Sort of like the Red Death in the Ocean,except,that is not a Bacteriological infestation)
that is Poisonous.

The program quoted that of all the species ever to exist on Earth...
Less Than One Percent are still in existence Today.

On a side note: if it's screwed up environmentally ,in America, the USACE
is the root of the problem!

Yup, I saw that episode on Nova Science Now. The one particular extinction that this episode talked about was triggered by global warming due to massive volcanic eruptions in Siberia that raised the oceans' temperatures sufficiently to bubble up all the toxic hydrogen sulfide at the bottom and create a gas-chamber atmosphere on the whole planet. I hope we're not close to that point yet with the current warming we have.