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You Don’t Have to be an Engineer to Understand Wind... Mary Jones, Guest Editorial Wind is a result of the uneven heating of the Earth by the sun and the fact that temperatures will always seek to reach an equilibrium (heat moves to a cooler area). With the rising price of energy and the destruction of the environment from non-renewable fuels, it is increasingly important...

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“I’m not 24 anymore: Up Close and Personal” ... Perhaps this is just a 70 year-old’s lament: alas, he’s not 24 anymore. For those of us at this end of the age spectrum, even for those who are still pretty energetic, there is an on-going conflict between mind and body. As always, the body sets the physical limits on what we can do on a sustainable basis, one-off activities...

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GUEST EDITORIAL: Spain’s Climate Challenge: A brief... For many people in the World, Spain brings to mind a sunny warm country with beaches along the Mediterranean Coast, with excellent food, friendly people and “Fiestas” with brave bulls. They might also think of Pamplona and the “running of the bulls” on narrow streets filled with young people. It is like talking...

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A few centuries of US-Mexico interactions: Going Full... Some months ago I came across a high school world history book (Human Achievement, 1967 by M.B. Petrovich and P.D. Curtin). It was a typical history book in that it began with discussions of the Egyptian, Roman and the Greek civilizations and ending up with the state of the globe in the post World War II era. It was filled...

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“It’s the 100th day since the start of the BP leak... “It’s the 100th day since the start of the BP leak in the Gulf of Mexico … But, it’s the 13,000th day(!) since the discovery of the Gulf ‘s Dead Zone” Michael Glantz. 29 July 2010. Well, the leaking oil well on the Gulf of Mexico seabed has finally been capped. Soon it will be recorded permanently in...

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“It’s the 100th day since the start of the BP leak in the Gulf of Mexico … But, it’s the 13,000th day(!) since the discovery of the Gulf ‘s Dead Zone.” Michael Glantz. 29 July 2010.

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Posted by mglantz | Posted on 29-07-2010

Category : Climate Affairs, Disasters, Environment and Society, Fragilecologies

“It’s the 100th day since the start of the BP leak in the Gulf of Mexico …
But, it’s the 13,000th day(!) since the discovery of the Gulf ‘s Dead Zone”

Michael Glantz. 29 July 2010.

Well, the leaking oil well on the Gulf of Mexico seabed has finally been capped. Soon it will be recorded permanently in historical records as the worst environmental disaster in the US history to date, beating out the Exxon Valdez oil spill (where was that spill? Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. Most people don’t remember that). Soon, I believe most Americans (except those along the Gulf Coast) will put the BP leak — despite its widespread environmental damage and huge ecological, economic and social costs — in the back of their minds (who remembers the Torrey Canyon spill or the Amoco Cadiz spill?). I call that “discounting the past,” that is, societies think that history is of decreasing value as one looks back in time. It’s the opposite of what economists refer to as “discounting the future” of, say, the dollar.

Back in 1974, Dr. R. Eugene Turner, Director of Coastal Ecology Institute at Louisiana State University, discovered a “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico. The dead zone is the result of runoff from cities, farmlands, feedlots and factories into the mighty Mississippi River. This River basin drains about 40% of the continental United States. Herbicides, pesticides, fertilizers among other chemicals are released on a routine basis throughout the basin. In the springtime they accumulate of the Gulf Coast forming an 8000+ square mile region, which adversely affects all living marine resources.

Each year the dead zone increases in size and has an increasingly negative impact on the fish population and in turn on the commercial fisheries. As I wondered in an earlier podcast titled “Pick Your Poison!”, why has there been no constant, even deafening, uproar about either the causes or the consequences of the ever-increasing dead zone? Although it is not the only dead zone in the world (there are an estimated 300 of them of varying sizes worldwide), it is OUR dead zone.

While in the midst of having a coffee at a local Starbucks, I began to jot down a few ideas about a comparison between the BP spill and the dead zone. The ideas herein do not represent the results of a systematic review but are only first-order thoughts. Such a comparison would make for an interesting class project or paper. Feel free to send me your thoughts, comments, corrections and additional comparisons related to the chart below.