I once saw an illustration of Chesapeake Bay at the time the first European explorers appeared. All the varieties of native fish were drawn into the picture to show how bountiful the Bay was. In fact, it was claimed to be so heavily populated with fish, according to the caption, that in certain places boats sometimes found it hard to navigate..The fertilizer and other chemicals in runoff from agriculture kills the regular water ecologies but nourishes algae. Within the colonies of algae, sometimes vast in size, dwell bacteria and viruses that exchange genetic material at random at fates about a million times faster than in larger creatures. .Bilge water from ships all over the world brings microbes from far places to join in the miniature “orgy”. This includes, for instance, cholera from Bangladesh. And it is one of the reasons whales and seals die off in large numbers..And since the microbes come up against a variety of chemicals, some inevitably develop resistance to them. This is the aquatic equivalent of what is happening on land. But for many, the oceans are far away and mysterious, so the greater danger is not as apparent to them..The oceans, lakes, and streams are the real life-blood of life on Earth. Why do we continue to poison them and ourselves?
I once saw an illustration of Chesapeake Bay at the time the first European explorers appeared. All the varieties of native fish were drawn into the picture to show how bountiful the Bay was. In fact, it was claimed to be so heavily populated with fish, according to the caption, that in certain places boats sometimes found it hard to navigate..The fertilizer and other chemicals in runoff from agriculture kills the regular water ecologies but nourishes algae. Within the colonies of algae, sometimes vast in size, dwell bacteria and viruses that exchange genetic material at random at fates about a million times faster than in larger creatures. .Bilge water from ships all over the world brings microbes from far places to join in the miniature “orgy”. This includes, for instance, cholera from Bangladesh. And it is one of the reasons whales and seals die off in large numbers..And since the microbes come up against a variety of chemicals, some inevitably develop resistance to them. This is the aquatic equivalent of what is happening on land. But for many, the oceans are far away and mysterious, so the greater danger is not as apparent to them..The oceans, lakes, and streams are the real life-blood of life on Earth. Why do we continue to poison them and ourselves?