Oxygen-Poor Ocean Zones Growing

That sound you hear is the "sky falling" into the ocean. Chicken Little would be proud.

Perhaps this has gone on for thousands of years at different intervals but we didn't have the scientific tools or reasoning to understand it. The facts may be evident but is the interpretation correct? We seem to be interpreting the facts based upon the scientific dogma that is in vogue today. It's more "scientism" than science. Scientism being a new religion.

Obviously, something is going on because something observable exists. But is it real? Or is it something subject to a variety of interpretations. Numbers are real even though you don't see them (they don't "exist").

Perhaps we are contributing to the phenomena. That's something we can change, but nature will do what it does whether we like it or not.

Sometimes I find those who sound the alarm and cry wolf the loudest are Luddites and people who don't believe humans are the measure of all things. I don't believe humans are simply just a cog in nature's wheel. For better (or worse) we are on top of the food chain. We have a responsibility to preserve the environment and be good stewards. Only a fool destroys his own house.

Good stewardship requires good judgement and judgement that's based on reason not the latest dogma.

And because I want to add some humor to this conversation, I must admit that I'm a big advocate of saving the silkworm and the mullberry trees they feed on. Why? If they cease to exist I won't be able to buy those fine Italian silk ties I like.

Ultimately, you'll save what's important to you.

The phrase ExPat uses above that really catches my eye is "perhaps we are contributing to the phenomena". It occurs to me that I've heard a lot of noise about how we have truly "had an impact".

My response is "I should certainly hope so." I would hate to think that I had left this life without having any impact on the world in which I live. The last thing I want is to have no impact at all. Implied in the phrase is that we should have no impact. The alarmists would have us believe that "impact" automatically and inherently equals "harm". While I acknowledge, of course, that our impact CAN be harmful, I have a sufficiently high opinion of the human race to doubt that it is NECESSARILY harmful.

Speaking of harmful things, I want to express my great sadness (I'm sure shared by many in this little online community) at the tragic passing of Eight Belles. Truly a shame. That said, I am even more upset at the bizarre and unreasonable public reaction I have read in some quarters. It reads something along the lines of "How dare you people use these animals for your entertainment! I'd like to see you run a race and then die because you ran your heart out!" and stuff like that. As horrible as Eight Belles' death is (and it truly is), it is no different from any other sports tragedy. She is not the first athlete to die in the throes of competition and she won't be the last.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand: ExPat is also right that you save what's important to you. One of my pet causes has been Save the Elephants. Why? Because I happen to like elephants.

To; DreadPirateRoberts,

I, too, question the motives of the people who are against horse racing. I understand that horse love to run and compete. It's the same as humans. I like to run in marathons and triathlons. I would be pleased to die during a race if that's the way I'm going to die. I'd sooner be in the midst of achievement when I go, than sitting down waiting for something to happen.

There was an amateur long distance cyclist who was fighting a fatal cancer who was training for a race recently. He died during the training, knowing he wouldn't make it to the race. He could've sat at home waiting to die. He didn't.

I'm 59. My father, his brother (my uncle) and my father's father (my grandfather) all died of multiple cancers in their early to mid seventies. Will that happen to me? I don't know. But I know I'll be defiant to the end.

Keep up the good work with elephants! Elephants are unique. I've seen them actually paint a picture. Are they just tricks they've been trained to do or are they really capable of understanding what they're doing? I think the latter without anything to base it on. They are worth your efforts to save them!

Now silk worms are a tru labor of love (Ha!Ha!), but someone must raise awareness and save all those great Italian ties. Perhaps Geoffrey Beene, the designer of some great silk ties (made in Italy), would donate some money to the cause.......well, probably not.

My last entry last evening was perhaps too late for some to have seen. I won $25 by drawing Eight Belles from a $5 pot at the Derby party I went to. I was most distressed about making money from the actions of a horse that had given its life in so doing, but I quickly got over it enough to take the money anyway.

I will now be completely un-p.c. This is about a passe' movement that I think really should be re-thought through. Population zero. When one flies over NYC or LA, how can one possibly think that simply the impossible number of H. sapiens that are inhabiting the world isn't making an environmental impact. Think of trying to survive as an earth worm under that solid cement slab that is NYC. Our numbers alone make the rest of the environment struggle to keep a balance. There are too many of "us" on one end of the seesaw to expect the other end to be able to keep up. Even with the obscene amount of energy we use as individuals, if there just weren't so MANY of us, it would be easier for nature to keep up. And I can be self-righteous here as my sister has no children, my husband was an only child, we only had one, and our son only has one. But this seems to be a topic that others find offensive and an attempt to keep the minorities down. But no, it is a topic that, if not addressed, will be the downfall of us all, majority and minority. We hear about how the Native Americans were so "one with the environment" and cared so much more than we do. Are you kidding?! Do you really think that the plains Indians counted the number of buffalo they ran off the cliff and only took what they needed for the week and diverted the rest off into another direction? How do you explain the exhibit at the Gene Autry Museum of a necklace made from the claws of the "now-extinct plains bear". Just what contributed to the extinction of the plains bear? Man has always been exploitive, there just weren't so many of us to have such a tremendous impact as we do today. I think this is another way we should look at just how we can help get the world's eco-system back on tract. Change our way, yes. Definitely! But work on cutting our numbers too.

I wish. I wish I had the mental capacity to wrap my mind around all of the tangible, observable environmental phenomenon as well as all the scientific facts and theories and hypotheses; chunk it all down, separate fact from fiction, and then determine a solution that would be palatable to everyone. Or to put it another way, if Mother Nature walked into a doctor’s office, exhibiting all manner of symptoms, some obvious, others less so; I would hope that she would be properly evaluated, that the doctor would truly listen to her and with an open mind as she describes what’s bothering her, and even though he had never encountered these symptoms before, would use the resources and information at hand to try and cure her.

I am comforted however that we participants in this dialogue all are willing to do what we can to be good stewards of our planet. I’m sure many of us support those causes close to our hearts that help our environment in some way. My personal contribution is participating in prairie restoration at the Morton Arboretum and more locally. By itself, it probably has less of an impact than a butterfly sneeze. Collectively….. I can only imagine what we are capable of accomplishing.

Well before I ramble on any further, I have heard and believe I understand the gist of the thought that all of these environmental chains of events may just be a pattern that has repeated itself over the history of our planet but are only now causing us concern, simply because we lacked the skills and scientific knowledge to be aware of it before. This I believe may well be true.

My concern is that this is (at least as far as I know it is), the first time these environmental events could have taken place in an era where man has populated/over populated all of the major continents, depleted resources on such a grand scale, and become an industrial society. In other words, these changes to the environment never happened under these circumstances before.

I’m not preaching (or at least I don’t intend to be preachy, because after all, what do I know?) but I do hope we don’t end up turning a death ear to this issue for to much longer. We may never have all of the data required to make all of the right decisions in a timely fashion. That would be the ideal circumstance. All manner of advances in technology, science and medicine would never have happened if we waited had for this ideal condition to occur. Sometimes you just got to start doing something with the information that is available, to the best of your abilities. There’s risk either way.

In the words of Neil Gaiman taken from the novel “American Gods” “I believe that anyone who claims to know what is really going on will lie about the little things too”

ExPat, I understand that Arnold has put through a bill that will give tax incentives to those who build smaller houses. Nice start!

To: Spinner,

I like the idea of smaller houses. Many contracors, however, have a problem with the overall cost of building materials to build a smaller house. The cost could be proportionally higher than a McMansion unless the smaller house is built in greater numbers.

But you're right, it is a nice start. I'm all for it. It's a type of "smart growth" that makes sense.

If you go to any IKEA and look at the room layouts you'll see that you can do a lot with a small space. The Japanese have lived in very small spaces for years.

By the way, I've been to the the Autry Museum. I agree with your observation. If we think the native Americans were so "in-tune" with the environment how does one explain the decline of the mayans an essentially agricultural people. There is evidence that they certainly weren't one with the natural environment.

Before a next level event occurs, usually of a magnitude to divert or change a course, habit, or pattern in society, such as a more compact housing model, or offer a more efficient choice to the average person, must offer very good benefits, future returns, and profits to those in power that act to make such a change. That effort might come from such unlikely powers such as Toyota.JP that have a little known corporate division that produces efficient modular living units, produced much as their cars and trucks are constructed. Such a product in our current economic market would change the business strategies of a variety of finance, real estate, and other principle ownership institutions. Maybe, such a large change in the fabric of our society would in the near term, redistribute some wealth back into industry and manufacturing.

It's just a thought, We may consider alternate social changes to what exists, but with any change, there is always a price to be paid, profits to reap by some, and losses suffered by others. Mark

to Spinner:

I did see your last post yesterday evening and you were absolutely right to take the money. After all, to fail to do so would mean that poor Eight Belles died in vain and that’s the only way to make such a tragedy even worse. So you were quite right.

We find ourselves on opposite ends of the philosophical spectrum on virtually everything else. My point about making an impact was not that we aren’t doing so; we certainly are. My point was that we SHOULD make an impact. Failure to do so would render a being irrelevant and I take serious exception to the notion that the only way to avoid harm is to make no impact.

As for “overpopulation”, there is much data to suggest that the birth rate hasn’t really changed all that much in the last century or two. But the death rate has decreased enormously. We have more octogenarians, nonagenarians, and centenarians now than ever before. More people are surviving to see their great-grandchildren than ever before. There has also, in the last several decades, been a monumental reduction in infant mortality and mothers dying in childbirth. This is why we have six-billion people on the earth. Therefore, to complain about overpopulation is, essentially, to complain that not enough people are dying.

To describe NYC as a “solid cement slab” leads me to suspect that you haven’t spent much time here. I spent this afternoon under the blooming cherry blossoms of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. This is only one ingredient of New York’s statistic of having the most park land of any major city in the world. From Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx to High Rock Park in Staten Island with Central, Riverside, Prospect, and Flushing Meadows in between (as well as many others; those are just the biggies) no other city comes close to us in terms of greenery. Our earth worms are flying. And the Audubon Society names Central Park’s “Ramble” as one of the top 15 best bird watching spots in the nation. And, if you like the notion of smaller houses, you can’t beat our apartment lifestyle for the lodging space-to-family ratio.

We do agree on the notion of the Native-Americans’ oneness with nature concept being greatly exaggerated.

George Eliot says: "A few rows of figures are enough to deduce misery from." I think it might be relevant.

To: The One at the Desk

Short and to the point. Well done.

Reminds me of the very painful corporate budgeting / financial forecasting process I used to participate in. After seemingly endless hours, sometimes days of operations and finance working "together", our CFO would at some point just throw up his arms and ask us what we wanted the number to be. He was of course merely making a point.