While politics and sports dominate the news these days, an environmental story managed to worm its way into the spotlight for a brief moment: A U.N. reports says that 150 "dead zones" have been documented in the world’s oceans.
To clarify, nobody’s referring to the Stephen King novel, movie or TV spin-off of the same name. These dead zones are caused by too much nitrogen flowing into our oceans, acting as a catalyst for the mass creation of plankton, which sucks the oxygen out of the water and creates an unlivable environment for slow-moving critters.
And from where does this "nitrogen cascade" hail? Farm fertilizer, sewage and emissions from vehicles and factories are the culprits, according to the U.N.’s first Global Environment Outlook Year Book. Almost all of these dead zones are in Europe and the U.S. East Coast. The Gulf of Mexico owes its dead zone to the Mississippi River, which reportedly dumps fertilizer runoff from the Midwest. And the report notes that global warming could make the matter worse if rainfall patterns change due to increased emissions of carbon dioxide.
The whole global warming issue is always under debate by dueling experts. But that hasn’t stopped Sens. John McCain and Joseph Lieberman from pushing for the passage of their Climate Stewardship Act to reduce global-warming pollution. The House has introduced a bipartisan companion bill in hopes of addressing the issue.
Whether you believe global warming is reality or hype, you can’t deny that humans do their part to pollute the earth. The U.N.’s report on dead zones offers common-sense solutions to help reduce nitrogen emissions, such as planting forests and grasslands to soak up extra nitrogen, a reduction in the amount of nitrogen emitted by vehicles and better sewage treatment.
A moderate approach that works to reduce pollutants while allowing our factories and farmers to continue their work is a reasonable way to approach our country’s — and our world’s — environmental issues. And it might be the way to breathe new life into our oceans’ growing dead zones.
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