WorrisomeFollow

This bothers me. I like to eat seafood. Also: survival and all that jazz.

Nexa

This needs to be combated in two steps. First require runoff from farms be sent to a water treatment facility, say a county owned facility, instead of going straight into rivers and thus the sea. In addition, rather than a different type of fertilizer, farmers need to follow more efficient fertilizer and irrigation procedures. They often over irrigate and wash away and waste much of the fertilizer and water. This becomes a problem in certain backwards water rights states where if you don't use the water you own you lose the rights to it.

Kelp is a type of algae. On land plants could be used to help filter nutrients out of runoff before it hits the ocean.

However I'm a bit confused by the stories on this topic: algae make oxygen. How is an overabundance of algae creating a lack of oxygen? From what I've read, the lack of oxygen is specifically mentioned to be at the bottom of the ocean, so either the algae keep the oxygen near the top of the ocean or release it into the atmosphere. (Both seem to happen, the question is how much of which?)

I have to admit I'm more worried about global warming then the fish. If dead zones help stem the tide of global warming, well...it's not that I don't like Nemo, it's just that global warming could be really, really bad.

It isn't totally unreasonable to expect these algae blooms remove CO2 from the atmosphere since algae are essentially plants and when they die they (likely, mostly) fall to the bottom of the ocean where their carbon stays put for a while. Of course, global warming is complex and it could go the other way.

Lastly, I read just a few weeks ago that they figured out which chemical maximized dead zones. I think it was phosphorus (I could be way off here) and as I recall it was a Canadian study. Googled it, can't find it, but if I stumble across it I'll post. Anyhow, as I recall the article, there were ways of creating fertilizers which would minimize this effect and save the ocean. There had been vigorous debate for decades on this point and the latest results seemed conclusive.

I saw this a few days ago. It provides a very nice map that shows the relationship between the dead zones and human impact.

Kelp is great! I remember the first time I went to the beach in Washington. There were huuuuuuuge semi rigid kelp thingies all over. Looked like a big rubber jousting lance or something. You could pick them up and run up and down the beach whacking seagulls with this 14 foot long kelp spear. Best plant ever!

Thats what the "Whack-a-gull" stunt kite battery is for. Trust me, we know how to bop seagulls around here. It's like, the state beach passtime!

You can't go in the water, it's cold, full of salmon eating great wites, and the beaches are all rocky. have to do something!

The ratio of farms to golf courses worldwide is, well, huge.

I agree that golf courses are an abomination, and they could certainly be more responsible.

Sure, but even so farms most likely use more overall. If you piled fertilizer to your anklebones on every golf course in the world (and that's pretty much what they do), the massively larger land use for farming would dwarf the comparative use of fertilizer, certainly not per acre but in raw amounts.

Be interesting to see a study comparing the two. A cursory search doesn't turn up much except some very local land use studies.

Yeah, golf courses are easy picking because it's simply recreational. Golf courses plus all the other manicured lawns (commercial and residential) plus paved/impervious surfaces that extend to the shores edge are likely nearly as prominent player as farms in the amounts of chemicals ending up in the oceans.


edit- for some reason golf = gold to my computer.

Edited, Aug 19th 2008 4:57pm by Elinda

The average residential lawn can handle about 4lb of nitrogen per 1000 square feet, with bent grass on a golf course taking around 6lb. They'll also take a minimal amount of weed control, but this is typically spot treatment, as cities are starting to legislate this. In a golf course with bent grass weeds don't typically fare very well, so spot treatement is all that is needed, although I'm sure they soak the course at least once a year in spring, and maybe fall.

Wheat will take around 100lb per acres which is around 2.3lb per 1000 sq ft. However farm crops take a lot more other chemicals then lawns. Now given there are a lot of good chemicals such as roundup that have virtually no run off whatsoever, but there are also some fairly persistent chemicals we still use. I'd say given the sheer amount of farmed acreage that impact that a golf course has, however bad it is per square foot, really doesn't compare. I can't however find a number for the size of golfcourses, although any number would be misleading, as they don't fertalize the whole course.

The argument about seaside golfcourses is interesting though. As well as the idea that if golf courses are using too much due to the ability to water exessively more might run off.

how many golf courses are there in third world contries compared to the US.

Edited, Aug 19th 2008 10:10am by Xsarus

I wasn't comparing the number of acres of golf greens in the US to other countrys. I, originally was just picking on golf courses because they're a know extragance in the enviro-world. As I mentioned, all our manicured lawns outside our homes and business, and our golf courses, and our poorly planned system for urban/suburban run-off capture (mostly non-existant), is a significant source of chemical contamination in the ocean. This is a measured and true statement. Yes, there is more surface area of the earth given over to farming than any other single activity. As it should be, since we eat alot. This is where my comment about the article linked in the OP stems from.





Edited, Aug 19th 2008 5:22pm by Elinda

What point? Your point that golf courses have the same impact as farms?

That's all I'm debating, I was skeptical that it would have even close to as much impact.

Why are you suprised? When we talk about CO2 emissions how often do we mention slowly gertting rid of farm animals (not dairy cows and hens, though) and using mycoprotein (which is superior in the amount of energy used to grow it, the amount of space it takes to grow andin the amount of carbon emissions given off) instead, which would allow a great deal more room for forestry and cut CO2 emissions, because farm animals emit a @#%^load of CO2.

In this case, people don't want to play golf on a bad lawn, in the other people don't want to eat something that's technically a fungi. The point is, people care more about minor things that impact their daily life than whether the world dies.

Edited, Aug 19th 2008 11:04am by Kavekk