Environmental Glance
Many coastal areas of the world’s oceans are being starved of oxygen at an alarming rate, with vast stretches along the seafloor depleted of it to the point that they can barely sustain marine life, researchers are reporting.
The main culprit, scientists say, is nitrogen-rich nutrients from crop fertilizers that spill into coastal waters by way of rivers and streams.
Rapid Growth Found in Oxygen-Starved Ocean ‘Dead Zones’
"Dead Zones" Multiplying Fast, Coastal Water Study Says
There are now more than 400 known dead zones in coastal waters worldwide, compared to 305 in the 1990s, according to study author Robert Diaz of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science.
Dead zones occur when excess nutrients—usually nitrogen and phosphorus—from agriculture or the burning of fossil fuels seep into the water system and fertilize blooms of algae along the coast.
As the microscopic plants die and sink to the ocean floor, they feed bacteria, which consume dissolved oxygen from surrounding waters. This limits oxygen availability for bottom-dwelling organisms and the fish that eat them.
Navy says sub leaked radiation since 2006
Officials also have told the governments of Malaysia and Singapore that the sub made port calls to those countries while leaking the radioactive water, Navy officials said. The Houston also made stops in Guam and Hawaii.
Officials with knowledge of the incident could not quantify the radiation level but insisted it was "negligible" and an "extremely low level." The total amount of radioactivity that leaked while the sub was in port in Guam, Japan and Hawaii was less than a half of a microcurie (0.0000005 curies), or less than what is found in a 50-pound bag of lawn and garden fertilizer, the officials said.
Convincing the climate-change skeptics
THE FEW climate-change "skeptics" with any sort of scientific credentials continue to receive attention in the media out of all proportion to their numbers, their qualifications, or the merit of their arguments. And this muddying of the waters of public discourse is being magnified by the parroting of these arguments by a larger population of amateur skeptics with no scientific credentials at all.
U.S. sub leaked radioactive water, possibly for months
Water with trace amounts of radioactivity may have leaked for months from a U.S. Navy nuclear-powered submarine as it traveled around the Pacific to ports in Guam, Japan and Hawaii, Navy officials told CNN on Friday.
The leak was found on the USS Houston, a Los Angeles-class fast attack submarine, after it went to Hawaii for routine maintenance last month, Navy officials said.
TVNL Comment: The US military...keeping us all safe!
John Warner: Jimmy Carter Was Right
It took 30 years, but Jimmy Carter finally has gotten recognition for the wisdom of his energy policies. Speaking on Science Friday, Senator John Warner, a Republican from Virginia who first entered the Senate during Carter's term in office, said that Jimmy Carter "was right" when he called for a massive program of energy conservation and alternative energy research.
Warner has recently discovered the threat posed by global warming through his discussions with Pentagon brass who are concerned about the submerging of Naval ports around the world as the oceans rise. Though he is late to the ball, Warner readily admitted the country was asleep at the switch for the last three decades.
California to sue EPA on greenhouse gas emissions
California will sue the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for "wantonly" ignoring its duty to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from ships, aircraft, and construction and agricultural equipment, state Attorney General Jerry Brown said on Wednesday.
"Ships, aircraft and industrial equipment burn huge quantities of fossil fuel, causing greenhouse gas pollution, yet President (George W.) Bush stalls with one bureaucratic dodge after another," said Brown, a strong advocate for the environment since his two terms as a liberal California governor in the 1970s and 1980s.
"Because Bush's Environmental Protection Agency continues to wantonly ignore its duty to regulate pollution, California is forced to seek judicial action," he said.
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