In a message dated 7/17/01 11:00:35 AM, mlorrey@datamann.com writes:
>> The ecologists have concerns with the amount of fertilizer we're dumping
>> in the oceans. While not exactly pollution, it tends to eutrophize the
>> water (ie make it full of algae) and this could zap a lot of coastal
>> communities. Jeremy Jackson claims, based on sediment cores,
>> that our concept of bays a eutrophic is wrong; they weren't that
>> way before farming.
>
>Sure, but how far back? Back to the introduction of chemical
>fertilizers? Back to the beginning of organized farming (~3500 BC)?
>
The data he cited was from Chesapeake bay, and he claimed a noticeable
effect from European farming in the 1700's, becoming more extreme
since. If he were looking at, say, some European lagoon it would be
hard for him to claim it wasn't some ongoing silting-up process over
the many thousands of years. (It's boggling to see how much the
Hwang Ho has filled in over 2500 years)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:39:49 MDT