Pity the poorly prepared politician. In this day of righteously raucous railing, posturing, pandering, and panning, one does not have to look far to fault an opposing candidate for overlooking some problem facing the human race that few voting humans want to face.
Just for a moment, put aside the considerable worries of our economic recession, our health-care mess, officially undeclared wars raging in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the threat of yet another war with Russia concerning Georgia, etc., etc. What we are not paying close enough attention to are the worrisome stories about the health of our planet.
Buried in the “C” section of the Globe and released at 2:20 a.m. on television network news shows are grim tidbits about a world that is much sicker than it should be because of man’s stewardship is far less than it could be.
We learned in August, via The Associated Press, that scientists have discovered at least 400 expanding hypoxic areas in the world’s oceans. These are enlarging sections of “dead zones” with too little oxygen for life. The 400 number is double what was known just two years ago.
Hypoxia isn’t a local problem, it’s global — having severe consequences for ecosystems, according to Robert J. Diaz of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. “. . .it is starting to affect the resources that we pull out of the sea to feed ourselves. If we screw up the energy flow within our systems,” he says, “we could end up with no crabs, no shrimp, no fish. That is where these dead zones are heading unless we stop their growth.”
How do they grow?
Most of the blame can be traced to fertilizer and other farm run-off, city sewage discharge and fossil-fuel burning. Algae feed on these pollutants and in the process their growth deprive other marine life of oxygen. Thus, hypoxia, of a “dead zone.”
Some expanse of that kind of algae was shown prior to the Olympics off the coasts of China. By the way, you did notice on TV that the air pollution in Beijing persisted despite rains and governmental traffic restrictions in China, didn’t you?
Several weeks ago on TV there was a story of another worldwide phenomenon allegedly caused by run-off pollution: a stunning increase in all types of jellyfish which kill fish with their dangling poison tentacles. There were thousands of them causing so much discomfort to summer swimming humans that beaches were closed. Offshore one boat captain noted an estimated 20,000 jellyfish per acre of seawater for miles. The jellyfish population is expected to die off somewhat when ocean waters cool for the winter, but they are due for an unpopular major comeback next summer. You may be eating fewer, more expensive fish.
And have you seen the story of the troubling die-off of frogs? These creatures have fascinated scientists for years because they have served as nature’s early warning indicators of chemically-caused malformations due to cellular damage. If you ever noticed a bunch of grotesquely formed frogs you knew you’d better start testing for something wrong in that environment. Now they’re dying off. Why?
Then there are the bees. Rather, there “were” the bees. They’ve been disappearing for the last two years. Entire colonies of bee hives are gone. Honeybees are the most efficient pollinators used in farming. A few remaining hives are being trucked around now at great expense. Consumer’s food costs on many fruits are due to increase at the grocery store. Scientists currently think a combination of insecticides and pollutants are pole-acing the pollinators.
If I’ve forgotten any species we seem to be endangering, please don’t think I’m flippant when I suggest Obama and McCain make their own lists.
John T. McDonald lives in Joplin.
Opinion
Guest columnist, John T. McDonald: Plethora of planetary pollution problems
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