LATimes - oceans turning to slime cuz of humans

[msongs]

sorry no link it is from tomorrows (sunday) issue - if you subscribe online or real time, look for it.

the ocean is being reduced to slime life, taken over increasingly by bacteria, algae, jellyfish, and other lower life forms because the humans are killing all the lifeforms at the top of the food chain and poisioning the oceans with nutrient rich waste that feeds the lower life forms.

the higher form predators are no longer keeping lower forms in check. some extremely poisonous and toxic fungi and such are growing at a rate of 10 square meters an hour. others are destroying coral reefs, polluting ocean and estuary bottoms depriving fish etc of oxygen. In some areas the shrimp industry has died and fishermen are now harvesting tons of jellyfish that have taken over the shrimping areas.

interesting article that probably will appear as syndication in many papers sunday or next week. look for it.

Msongs
www.msongs.com/howarddean2008.htm

[Ian David]

1. Soylent Green is people! It's made from people! n/t

[readmoreoften]

2. But it tastes so damn good. /nt

[Rex]

3. Well then I guess we know what kind of lifeform will inherit the Earth

after we go extinct - invertebrates.

I guess I should say reinherit the Earth.

[pinto]

4. A brief snip and some background info:

Looks like a good series. Here's a brief snip and some background info from LA Times about the series.

Altered Oceans

A Primeval Tide of Toxins

Runoff from modern life is feeding an explosion of primitive organisms. This 'rise of slime,' as one scientist calls it, is killing larger species and sickening people.

By Kenneth R. Weiss, Times Staff Writer
July 30, 2006

Moreton Bay, Australia -- The fireweed began each spring as tufts of hairy growth and spread across the seafloor fast enough to cover a football field in an hour.

When fishermen touched it, their skin broke out in searing welts. Their lips blistered and peeled. Their eyes burned and swelled shut. Water that splashed from their nets spread the inflammation to their legs and torsos.

"It comes up like little boils," said Randolph Van Dyk, a fisherman whose powerful legs are pocked with scars. "At nighttime, you can feel them burning. I tried everything to get rid of them. Nothing worked."

<snip>

The causes are varied, but collectively they have made the ocean more hospitable to primitive organisms by putting too much food into the water.


http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-me-ocean30jul30,0,952130.story


Other background info from the LA Times website:

Altered Oceans

About This Series

Kenneth R. Weiss, a Los Angeles Times staff member since 1990, has covered the California coast and the oceans for the past five years.

Covering narrow policy disputes over such issues as catch limits on fish and permissible levels of ocean pollutants prompted him to think about the long-term health of the seas. He was further inspired by scientific lectures and papers describing a gradual but profound transformation of the world's oceans, marked by the decline of fish and marine mammals and the proliferation of primitive life forms — algae, bacteria, jellyfish.

Weiss began reporting this series in 2005 and traveled widely — to Australia, Panama and Jamaica; to Midway, Palmyra Atoll and the Hawaiian Islands; and up and down the coasts of California, Washington, Florida and Georgia. He can be reached at [e-mail].

Times photographer Rick Loomis, whose own travels have taken him around the world, accompanied Weiss to most of those places.

Times reporter Usha Lee McFarling contributed to the series. McFarling has worked for the newspaper's science desk since 2000, covering earth science and the space program. In recent years, she has focused on climate change, particularly its effects on the Arctic.

Altered Oceans

Resources
For more information, visit these educational and governmental websites.


PART ONE
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
http://scripps.ucsd.edu

Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation
http://cmbc.ucsd.edu

Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution
www.hboi.edu

International Nitrogen Initiative
www.initrogen.org

Sea Around Us Project
www.seaaroundus.org

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
www.millenniumassessment.org

[msongs]

5. thx for putting up the link. indeed an interesting read nt

Msongs
www.msongs.com/howarddean2008.htm

[pansypoo53219]

6. it makes me extra happy

that i can't eat seafood.because if i loved it, i would have to stop eating it.
humans are so stupid. evolved my ass.