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Thursday, October 18, 2012

Faux Environmentalists Take Their Collective Eyes Off the Ball

While faux environmentalists up and down the East Coast are concerned about fracking in the oil industry, it turns out "they" have an immediate, proven problem -- a problem that has been going on for decades, and it took a nine-year study ... 

Headline: fertilizer, sewage damage critical ecosystem, study finds

Link to Boston Global here.
... stark evidence in an unusual scientific experiment that demonstrates the profound damage fertilizers and sewage can wreak on marshes that are critical for protecting young ­marine life and blunting the sea’s fury.
The nine-year study, conducted in the golden-hued Plum Island estuary and published Wednesday in the journal Nature, is the first to show that marshes may be crumbling from the inside out from a massive overload of nutrients.
“This idea that everyone has to have a bright green lawn is part of what is killing the coast,’’ said lead ­researcher Linda Deegan of the Marine Biological Laboratory Ecosystems Center. “Even if you are 25 miles from the coast, it sinks down into the ground ­water and makes it there.”
Yup.  Profound damage.

Didn't even make the front page of the Boston Globe.

2 comments:

  1. I hope that one day we can learn to be more accurate in use of the term, "environmentalist." You have never met a sentient adult who was not an environmentalist. Everybody cares.

    There are no educational prerequisites to use of the term. You need no degree.

    The term has been vastly misused to cast activists as somehow finer and nobler than you and me.

    Properly expressed, the folks alluded to in this article are, "environmental activists," "environmental attorneys" or possibly "environmental extremists."

    I know that you cannot change stories that come from major media but it helps immensely to correct improper use of the term anywhere we can.

    I am an environmentalist. You also are an environmentalist.

    Better yet, it looks like each of us has some expertise that your average environmentalist lacks.

    Keep up the good work.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There are times I worry I am less of a conservationist/environmentalist than I should be. That was brought home to me (again) after reading Dick Russell's "Eye of the Whale," a book pretty much about a 1850's whaler turned conservationist/protector of whales (Charles Scammon).

      Lots could be written, but at the end of the day, my thoughts and 75 cents will still only get you a cup of coffee, so I will move on for now. I really appreciate you taking the time to write. Gives me an opportunity (albeit too brief) to reflect.

      Delete

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