Generations will Suffer

With this blog I want to talk about the problem we have in our society today. That is the problem of over fishing that some our doing. There are rules and regulations, but law enforcement can't keep an eye on everybody because they don't have the man power to do that. It all has to do with the personal individual to see if they are going to follow the rules of if they are not. 

I could tell you many different statistics about how people over fish in our society, but I think that won't get the point across that well. The main issue I have with over fishing is that when people over fish they don't see the affect if will have on our future population. Other blogs have some of the stats to show. If we look it as if we over fish parents and children won't have the ability to share the experience of catching that first fish.

Catching your first fish with your mom or dad is something that will always be with you and you would want to show your kids one day how to fish. If they aren't enough fish rules and regulations we get more strict and going fishing as a family might now be possible anymore. 

Public Transportation

Being that I attend Portland State University and the school is located in downtown portland public transportation is an easy way to get to and from school. Now personally I don't use the public transportation to get to school anymore because I live an hour away now. I once did use the system. I felt that using the public transportation was very helpful. 

When I was I actually felt good about myself because I was saving a lot of money not driving to school and having to deal with the traffic headaches that come with downtown traffic. Then also when your using the public transportation your lowing the greenhouse gas emissions. Then also you could even walk to school if you live downtown. The good thing about portland is that you can even bike to school too. 

i was talking to one of my old community college teachers and she was giving me some interesting facts about how it helps to drive less. The main thing that stuck with me is that every mile that a regular car drives it produces a pound of exhaust waste with carbon dioxide. I will post a link to a website that will tell you how much less you can pollute the environment by driving less.

http://www.terrapass.com/individuals-families/carbon-footprint-calculator/

What Can We Do?

What Can You Do?

With many of the problems the world faces most of us don't think we can make a difference, or are unsure as to how we can create change.  Sadly what we don't realize is with small shifts in our living habits some of these problems can be prevented or alleviated.  The biggest thing we must realize is we as individuals can make a difference.  With a major cause of dead zones being fertilizer runoff the obvious solution is to get farmers to stop using such chemical rich foods for their crops.  How can you possibly change that?  Well the biggest and most important thing the everyday consumer can do is really focus on buying organic foods, and on supporting your local farmers markets.  If demand for organic foods rises grocery stores will be forced to stock more earth friendly products, which in turn will cause the farming industry to start supplying crops which have been grown under these improved conditions.  By supporting your local farmers, it keeps even the smaller farms from using these chemicals on their crops and stopping the runoff of chemicals into lakes and the build up of these chemicals in the land.  Because dead zones are not just limited to the oceans this is extremely important because the smaller farms are more likely to use cheaper methods to keep up with the big guys, and right now feeding with chemicals is a whole lot cheaper.  If we increase the demand for organics these methods will become cheaper and with any luck will be able to see cheaper organic foods in our local grocery store.

                                       Image by Getty/The Bergman Group.

The Future of Dead Zones

What We Can look Forward To

As one can speculate dead zones through out the world are getting worse.  Currently the issue has not yet become mainstream enough for a public outcry.  A large reason for this is due to the fact that most of the worlds population does not live on the coat lines and is not subject to the mass death of sea life that occurs on a daily basis.  Sadly this diminishes the importance the dead zones effect on everyday living, in this case out of sight is truly out of mind.  If this doesn't change the size of the dead zones, especially in the gulf of mexico, is predicted to increase dramatically due to the excessive flooding and run off into the Mississippi river.  Also because the current weather patterns are worsening and rainfall records are rising these predictions are rather modest and most believe it will be much worse than what we could imagine.  In just this last year the nitrogen runoff in may was 35 percent higher than what was estimated in the previous three decades, and in the past five years alone the size of this particular dead zone is triple of the original prediction that was set by the Gulf of Mexico/Mississippi River Watershed Nutrient Task Force.

Fixing Dead Zones

Solutions to help the environment don’t come without cost and effort. The best solution is prevention but when the U.S. has a dead zone the size of Rode Island. It is no longer possible to just provide reduction and prevention. In order to fix the problem we will have to look at the main cause. This cause is the excessive distribution of nitrogen run off, off of the Ohio River valley and the Mississippi basin north of St. Louis. This run off then creates a hypoxic, or oxygen-depleted, state known as a dead zone which is slowly growing which each passing year if nothing is done. Making it difficult for shrimp and fish to live.

Some of the solutions that would help to reduce the dead zone would be erosion protection; Or the prevention of farm land and sole washing into the river basins. By installing buffers near streams to prevent runoff, or restoring wetlands along the river. We can help slowly reducing the effect of the dead zone on the regain. There is only one problem with this solution it cost money a lot of it, and the only way to get finding is to bring awareness of the need for such funding. The estimated cost just to reduce the nitrogen 20 percent is somewhere in the means of $20 billion to 30 billion dollars. With our current economical state it is vary difficult to come up with that thru federal funding or otherwise. 

What needs to be done is for everyone to pitch in and do a little and as we do a little, then that little slowly turns into a lot. But to get there we have to be aware of the problem. This blog is meant to help us gain that awareness. So please post your comment or thoughts below and tell us how you feel.

Source : http://blog.nola.com/times-picayune/2007/06/despite_promises_to_fix_it_the.html

Teaching Children About Dead Zones

Children are curious about the world round them, eager to help, and often more open minded than their adult counterparts.  For these reasons it is very important to teach children about environmental problems such as dead zones.  Dead zones are a complex issue that deal with watershed, decomposition, water density, and of course death of marine life, this subject is probably best suited for children 5^th grade or higher who have some previous knowledge of those area.  If the term “dead zone” seems too intense they can also be referred to as “hypoxic” or “low oxygen” areas.   

                Children learn best when they are encouraged to participate in discussions, ask questions, and engage in hands on activities. 

Here is a simple experiment, which can be done at home or in a classroom, to demonstrate water density.

This can also be done with two cups of fresh water (one hot and one cold).  The hot water will float on top of the cold.  Videos of these experiments, along with lot of great interactive information, can be found on the Science Museum of Minnesota website.  

After teaching children about dead zones have them fill out and color the sheet below.  Ask them to draw the animals they would find in each section of the water.  This is a fun way for them to demonstrate what they have just learned. 

 Sources: 

http://www.smm.org/deadzone/

How dead zones affect our economy

The more we have of something the lower the price. The less we have of something the more the price. This is the basics of economics and the effects on our society. Think of what would happen if In the U.S. we no longer any shrimp on the market. This would cause a huge increase in the price because there harder to find. Well this is happening know and in our time with our watch on this blue marble we live in.  Brown shrimp are dying off in groves and generations of brown shrimp can no longer reproduce. Why? The answer is Dead Zones. 

   

 

As you can see in the chart below that over time dead zones effect murrain life and as a result affect us humans. We need to be more aware of our environments and how our contributions affect the climate. The shrimp population is diminishing do to the gulfs of Mexico dead zones. Juvenile brown shrimp are having a difficult time traversing the dead zone from their offshore spawning grounds.  This in turn creates a mass population decrees. The chart below expresses the catch ratio of the fishermen within the regain.  Lower shrimp catch result in higher pay per pound of shrimp affecting the bottom dollar we spend to eat the delectable catch. 

 If we help reduce the creation of dead zones it doesn’t just help the environment but it helps our ability to have and obtain seafood at a more reasonable price without having to deal with inflation due to limitations of quantity. 

Sources:

http://www.classzone.com/books/earth_science/terc/content/investigations/es2206/es2206page08.cfm