Quote: (Originally Posted by Mixaddict)
Just curious what you consider to be "sensationalistic" about the articles?
There's so much in there that's totally unproven and hyperbole that its almost impossible to separate out the rubbish from the legitimate concerns.
There
are legitimate concerns expressed there, but pushing it too far destroys their point - and my empathy for the position they want people to take.
For example, there is a
huge problem with agricultural runoff. The worst manifestation of this in the US is at the mouth of the Mississippi, where the gulf has a huge "dead zone" caused not by this sort of microbial soup but by the feeding frenzy that algae go on with the nitrates - then when they die, the anaerobic processes involved in breaking the dead algae down chokes off the oxygen. The result is that there are no fish.
But - the same environmental lefties who scream about this are
ALSO screaming about how we must use
ETHANOL in our gasoline. Um, guys, corn - from which the ethanol is made - is one of the worst crops you can grow in terms of biological demand for fertilizers, not to mention forced irrigation. What's even worse, they and their cronies at Cargill and ADM have managed to pass tariffs making it uneconomic for us to import the ethanol from Brazil, which makes it out of sugar cane - far more efficiently than you can from corn.
So we have a cadre of "environmentalists" cheerleeding for fixing the oceans and destroying them - at the same time!
There is no doubt that human activity impacts the oceans. Even
observation impacts the oceans. The sewage issue is real, but its not the whole story - where do you think a whale takes a dump? Or a porpoise? Or, for that matter, a human - before we had all the technology we do today? Now which is worse - you taking a dump over the side in Key Largo
or the 150 rookie divers I saw on the Benwood stomping around on the bottom life - coral, sea fans, etc - oblivious to the fact that they were killing things that take years, if not decades, to recover. And of course there's a new crop of tourists
tomorrow who repeat the same exercise.
As for the warming issues, I could go into a book-long dissertation as to why the science doesn't support it being due to our carbon emissions, but I won't sway those of you who believe we're evil and killing the planet. You either are willing to do your own research (instead of watching Al Gore's movies) or you're not. If you are, then you have looked into the emissions of the Sun, and understand why odds are we're not the cause - but we sure can kill our competitiveness - and our way of life - by trying to "cure" something we can't fix. If you're not, then nobody will convince you because you're shouting with your eyes wide shut.
There are REAL issues involved here, but as with most problems the obvious 80% can be fixed if we care, and the other 20% is hard or impossible to resolve. But nobody wants to deal with the 80%. Get rid of the ag emissions of nutrients and MOST of the problem goes away. Ban, by law, the "CCR" mentality in our housing developments requiring "green lawns", forcing people to spray or spread hundreds of pounds of nitrogen on their grass annually, and you'd solve a good part of it too. Get rid of ethanol entirely from our gas supply and part of the "dead zone" issue would disappear; remove all crop subsidies and even more would be addressed.
There are real solutions but they're not the ones being proposed, or how this is being played by the media. The pablum brigade is out in full force..... and it appears it has managed to suck more than a few of you in.