Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone Much Larger than Forecast While Agriculture Industry Leaders Succeed With Sustainable Business Praxis

By Walter Borden

Evidence continues to mount. The time for a rapid transformation away from Industrial Agriculture methods towards Sustainable ones is now. The size of an hypoxic ‘dead zone’ that disrupts and destroys marine life and fishing lifeways in the Gulf far exceeds this year’s forecast, NOAA scientists report. The dead zone — areas in red to deep red that have far too dissolved oxygen to support marine life other than often toxic algal blooms— is the size of Rhode Island and Connecticut combined.

Source: Tech Times and NOAA
Source: Tech Times and NOAA

From Tech Times: ”

The Gulf of Mexico’s “dead zone,” a region depleted of oxygen to the point where fish and other marine life can die, covers 6,474 square miles this year, federal scientists say.

That is above the yearly average and much larger than had been forecast for 2015, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says.

A “dead zone,” also known as an hypoxia area, is the result of the runoff of nutrients from agriculture and other human activity carried by rivers into the ocean. There, those nutrients accelerate an overabundance of algae that then sinks to the bottom where it decomposes, consuming the oxygen needed to support marine life, the agency explains.

This year’s dead zone in the Gulf is the size of Rhode Island and Connecticut combined, scientists say, with nutrients flowing from the Mississippi River affecting coastal resources and marine habitats in the Gulf.

The good news is that companies on many fronts continue to make considerable advances in sustainability. Coca-Cola Company is years ahead of schedule in its efforts to replace the water that it uses around the world to make its beverages, it recently announced, as reported in the New York Times. Another consumer staple is the beverage market The Bacardi unit, The Rothes CoRDe, a John Dewar & Sons distillery part-owned by The Combination of Rothes Distillers is:

the latest facility under the Bacardi umbrella to produce energy through a biomass boiler fuelled by Scotch whisky distillery by-products. The Dewar’s facility produces enough energy to power entire communities of neighboring distilleries — along with about 8,000 homes….We generate 8.3 megawatts of electricity every hour of every day. We use some onsite and export the rest — enough for 20,000 people in 8,000 homes,” said Frank Burns, Managing Director at Rothes CoRDe….Converting pot ale (the residue from copper whisky stills) into organic feedstock is another technique used to divert waste from the distilleries. Local farmers use it for their animals. Each of these initiatives helps the company get a little closer to creating a “closed loop” lifecycle for their whisky products.

As oft-noted here before, sustainable business practices and principles are not a fad or fringe aspect of modern management and fiduciary practice. Rather, they are essential for planning for long term success in the 21st Century.