Research Draft 1


Putting Death in the Seas so that you can drive your SUVs.

Imagine, if you will, taking a cruse or being on a charter fishing boat hundreds of miles of the coast of Florida, and all that can be seen for miles around is death. Well in some areas in the Gulf of Mexico that is what it is like. Pollution from the push for more “Green” fuels has put a strangle hold on the fish and the industry that relies on them for their survival. Farmers are happy due to the rich government sponsored programs to get more corn on the market.



Although moving to green fuel is good for mitigating the air pollution it is destroying the coastal areas that depend on the fishing industry because Nitrogen rich waters from corn fields increase the growth of harmful algae, there are better crops than corn to produce biomass for fuel, and even with natural weather patterns the problem still exist.



Nitrogen rich waters from corn fields increase the growth of harmful algae

Since the beginning of the Bush administration, the President has called for a decreased dependence on foreign oil and a way to find a greener fuel. That push has led to a growth in the use of corn as bio-diesel. A growth so big that by spring 2007 it has been reported that by combining all the corn fields in North America it would be about the same size as the state of California. (cite source Phoilpott, Tom) The lack oversight on the farmers and loose laws has helped to create a trickle down effect that is damaging the oceans around our nation. According to (look at bib) those responsible for the enforcement of the laws to protect our lands and waters have handed over the duty to the states and local government. Then they do not check up to ensure the law is followed. Since Corn was the easy choose for many farmers, the crops get bigger. It has even gotten to the point where land that was set aside to naturally replenish itself is being used. The main ingredient to get the corn to grow is synthetic Nitrogen. This is due to the over farming of fields and that corn requires large amounts of nitrogen in the soil to grow. Unfortenly most of this nitrogen is washed out of the fields and into the streams and rivers and on out to the Gulf of Mexico. When the Nitrogen rich waters along with all the other runoff from various sources along the way reach the Gulf it mixes with the organisms at the mouths of the water outlets and serve to feed the plant organisms. It has gotten to a point where the algae in the areas grow rapidly, die, and then fall to the sea floor. In a process known as Hypoxia, where the oxygen gets depleted by the decomposing of the dead algae and the organisms that consumes them. (cite source Phoilpott, Tom)

What makes it worse is that there are now plants that turn corn into ethanol using 300 tons of coal per day. This is taking a step in the backwards direction from trying to make a clean fuel. (Clayton, Mark)



there are better crops than corn to produce biomass for fuel

Studies and research have and keep finding that there is better ways to make green fuel. The current technology in practice is still just barely able to keep corn as a green fuel (Schmid). Even the big oil companies are seeing the profit in helping the research and are working with universities for find the next technological break through. There are better crops that produce an outstanding higher percentage fuel rating; 30 to 100 more than corn or soy bean crops. (Gotfried) New technologies are being looked at to use more diverse bio-mass to make the ethanol fuel like grasses, the whole corn plant, and some types of tree bark. Well I have lost train of though on this and internet connection. I still have to deal with problems at home and on top of all this I need to find a Lawyer. If anyone reads this part it is just me free writing to get all the crap out so I can get back to work. I would like it very much to find the phone number to Reta Lee (a divorce lawyer) so I can find out what my rights are and better take care of my son. The ex was going to move here with me and my son but then grabbed him and said that she will not move. Mind you I moved to Florida to help with family here I believed that she would also move south to be near her dieing father. She has told me that because she is getting her degree in K-12 education she would be better able to take care of any problems in his education. She has also been going to school for the past ten years to get this four year degree. I keep thinking what about the PTA and the fact that I was able to successfully teach him basic sign language at under a year old. The kid is also one year from kindergarten and the schools here are top in the state with some top in the nation. She also brought up the weather that happens here like hurricanes, tornados, and floods. She also said famine which messed up my thinking on the whole conversation. I did say that living in Alaska has its problems like winter for almost more than half the year. She augured that the state has programs to keep heating fuel in the home. That is fine but for the times people go out side to play or get stuck on the side of the road with a dead car. Just a small fact; in this area flooding and tornados are caused by hurricanes and the season is very short with many days notice to get out of town. If every home, along with all my family here gets wiped out I could go move to my father-in-laws house. Last thing I keep hearing from her is that she does not trust me with my son. This is what gets my goat about it all! After he stopped breast feeding she went back to work and school, fine, if I worked I took him to daycare and picked him up after. When I stopped working to go full time to school again I had him most of the time. I spent most our time together playing outside in the summer and finding indoor things in the winter. Playing at the beach year round is much better than freezing your butt looking for the few run around places to take kids in Fairbanks. I sometimes felt like a convent babysitter that was expected to clean up after her. Just think of a complete role reversal for man and woman of old. Like the housewives of old I wanted help cleaning up, not seeing her sit in front of the television and telling me to get my son because she had a hard day, raising kids is a full time job also. Towards the end I she would wake up before us and either not come home till after our son went to bed or not at all. At the very end more things of a personal nature went on, and I do not want to air that much dirty laundry, but it is public record just go to the courts. So after three and a half years of me being the primary caregiver to my son, paying rent, utilities, insurance, and going to school. How can she say that she does not trust me to care for him? Some of the things I hear about why I do not have that trust is that I do not tell her every move I make, I saved money by living with my dad for a few months when I move to Florida with my son, I say I will do some things and then problems arise that force delays or speed things up in my actions, and that I am trying to screw her over every chance I get.

Listening to the Beatles, “We can work it out” is how I feel at times. I do not want to take my son from her. We had an agreement made with the help of a court ordered mediator that my son would move here and then she will and we both would share custody. I left Alaska with my son last year before winter so that I did not have to suffer with my frostbite, so that my son can have a chance to grow up in a warmer environment, and a place where he does not have to worry about his allergies to cotton wood trees in Fairbanks. He is also much closer to all his grandparents and most of his extended family. I do want my son to go to school in my care. I can not be with out him for to much time. I am established with a home. I go to school and can work a part time job during the time he is in school. A part time job is all I need to keep a home and food on the table in a safe and growing environment and still be there to play when he is not in school. He is four now and the only thing he needs to worry about is to wear shoes at the beach or not, to go swimming in the sun with his playmates or running though the woods with his cousins.

even with natural weather patterns the problem still exist.


Video uploaded from the North West Florida Daily News. Found on Brightcove TV. Retrieved March 1 2008 from http://www.brightcove.tv/title.jsp?title=1254115790 Just a view of the effects of the Red Tide and the problems effecting the states near the Gulf of Mexico.


Citations


"Source: Greenpeace (http://www.greenpeace.org)" Creeping dead zones.. Greenpeace. Retrieved March 1, 2008 from http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/oceans/pollution/creeping-dead-zones

Phoilpott, Tom. (2007, Jul. 17) Gulf Dead Zone: bigger than ever.. Gristmill. Retrieved March 1, 2008 from http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/7/16/161412/560

Schmid, Randolph E. (2007, OCT. 10) Ethanol push could threaten water supplies.. The globe and Mail. Retrieved March 1, 2008 from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20071010.wethanol1010/BNStory/Science/home