-The Gulf Of Mexico Before-

[G_j]

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/52942

Published May 28 2010 by Decline of the Empire, Archived May 28 2010

The Gulf Of Mexico before the oil spill
by Dave Cohen

The oil leak on Mississippi Canyon seafloor of the Gulf of Mexico proceeds apace. It is not clear that recent actions have succeeded in plugging the leak. The widely dispersed petroleum is a great disaster, but I get the distinct impression that this oil is seen as despoiling a pristine environment. Nothing could be further from the truth. I get this impression because, to my knowledge, the sorry state of the Gulf of Mexico before the oil spill has not been discussed. Before the oil spill, the Gulf of Mexico was being ravaged by—

-coastal erosion

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/25/us/25louisiana.html?_r=1
<snip>

-hypoxia (very low oxygen)

http://serc.carleton.edu/microbelife/topics/deadzone/
<snip>

-harmful algal blooms (red tides)

http://www.seaweb.org/resources/briefings/algae.php
<snip>


These ongoing, slower-acting environmental disasters have a common cause: human activity.

Satellite image of the northern Gulf of Mexico/Mississippi Delta showing hypoxic coastal water (light blue). This color change is due to excessive nutrients being washed into the sea.

...
Reading this (at link) text, perhaps you've gotten the impression that the Gulf of Mexico is just one big toxic waste dump. You would be correct. Although coastal erosion, deepwater hypoxia and algal blooms are natural processes, human interference has made such conditions much worse in each case.

So there you have it. Is this brief presentation meant to detract from the awfulness of the oil spill? Not at all. I merely wish to point out that the oil spill is a case of piling on. Many species in the Gulf were already under severe pressure before the blow-out. Now everything, including the wildlife, is covered with oil, which just accelerates the ongoing environmental deterioration & species die-off. See my How We Wrecked The Oceans to understand the full extent of our destruction of the world's oceans:

http://www.declineoftheempire.com/2010/05/how-we-wrecked-the-oceans.html

How We Wrecked The Oceans

Like the Indo-Aryan God Shiva, Destroyer of Worlds, marine ecologist Jeremy Jackson is here to turn your comfortable, complacent Mental World upside-down. He's able to do that because we are destroying the Physical World—in this case, the Earth's Oceans.

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/850

(Thanks to Sally for the photos.)