I've been teaching about the dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico in my university's first-year seminars since I started teaching in 2005. These are hypoxic regions where virtually every living thing is killed off if it is unfortunate enough not to be able to flee.
The current dead zone spans 8,543 square miles.
But, like so many of the issues that plague humankind, it doesn't pose an immediate enough threat to our existence, and so we ignore it.
From Grist Magazine:
It should be remembered that oil drilling is not the only human activity that imperils this vital ecosystem. Every year, millions of tons of synthetic nitrogen and mined phosphorous leach from Midwestern farm fields and into streams that drain into the Mississippi. The great river deposits those agrichemicals right into the Gulf, where they feed a 7,000-square-mile algae bloom that sucks up oxygen and snuffs out sea life underneath.
The bulk of this vast Dead Zone's rogue nutrients comes from the growing of corn, our nation's largest farm crop. Half of the corn crop ends up in feedlots, feeding cows, chicken, and pigs stuffed together in pollution-spewing, factory-style feedlots.
So it's complicated, but it is also man-made and something we could conceivably address. Though at this point, with the BP-Halliburton catastrophe that continues to gush into the gulf, I doubt that it will get much attention.
Irritatingly, a large portion of that pollution from corn production comes from corn being grown conventionally for ethanol production so, ironically, in trying to reduce out environmental impact via the iuse of biofuels, we've caused other sorts of environmental damage.
From The Environmental Woorking Group:
The past decade has been especially bad for the Gulf Dead Zone, as federal mandates for ethanol fuel and robust commodity subsidies spurred the planting of millions more acres of fertilizer- and pesticide-intensive crops. Corn ethanol is an especially troubling contributor to the Dead Zone, and to the resulting nitrous oxide emissions, since we’re told that the subsidies and mandates for corn ethanol are there because of its potential to reduce greenhouse gases. Hmm. That’s not really working out too well, is it?
Feeding livestock to feed the American appetite for meat.
Worsening the dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico through shortsighted, conventional corn production.
And the thing is, corn isn't even a very efficient crop to convert to biofuel! Miscanthus, sweet sorghum, switchgrass, sugar cane, and poplar are all much better candidates, though limited by what we can grow and where.
My point is that if the BP/Halliburton catastrophe doesn't destroy the gulf, we can do something to address the dead zones - if we have the willpower.
The obvious steps are back again: Eat organic, rather than conventionally grown foods. Eat lower on the food chain as an environmental act. Eat locally when possible.
And for the oil disaster? Isn't it obvious? Reduce the demand we make for fossil fuel.