Environmentalists, and those in the media infected with this malady, enjoy horror stories and use such fantasies as arguments for inflicting harm on society that they want to do in any event. It's an excuse, rather than a reason.

Last week there was a report published in the Journal of Science that stated that the number of these ocean dead zones around the world has doubled every decade since the 1960s. There are now some 400 coastal areas that periodically or perpetually become dead due to oxygen starved bottom waters.

While the size of these dead zones is small relative to the total surface of the oceans, they account for a significant percentage of ocean waters that support commercial shellfish and fish species. This is due to the fact that these zones occur in areas that have historically been prime fishing grounds since these grounds are close to dense human populations. . .

We humans know that all life comes from the ocean. That was where life first began on this glorious planet. We have often referred to ourselves as the highest form of life on this planet. How can we think of ourselves in such a manner if we are allowing our behavior and sloppy use of fertilizer to start to kill the cradle of life?

We have often referred to our planet as Planet Earth. That is because we are land animals. Actually, with oceans covering close to 70% of the surface of the planet, a better name would be Planet Ocean. We know how we have polluted and damaged the land on which we live. We are now doing the same to the 70% of the planet where we don’t live.

We need to immediately start to do whatever is necessary to stop damaging the oceans and the life forms that live there. We need to treat the oceans as our connection to survival. I have only half jokingly suggested that humanity should declare a year moratorium on eating seafood. Would you stop eating sushi and seafood for a year and refuse to eat food grown with nitrate fertilizers if the survival of your children and grandchildren depended upon it?

It isn't the use of fertilizer that causes dead zones, it is the lack of wetlands along water ways that empty into the oceans. If those wetlands had not been drained to build along waterways, if those waterways had not been dredged and straightened to be more easily navigable, and if the natural deltas that develop at the mouths of such rivers still existed, then runoff from land would enrich them and provide breeding grounds for even more sea life.

Would you be willing to restore rivers to their former condition "if the survival of your children and grandchildren depended upon it?"

I thought not. That wouldn't accomplish the true purpose, and would cause those who live in cities along waterways and sea shores to change, instead of shifting the burden to farmers and dreaded agribusinesses. Urban whiners would have to foot the bill rather than faceless others.

You know that you are dealing with people who are not very bright, not very good, and not very sane when they speak of "moratoriums". How is such a thing enforced? What sort of society can do such things? To even imagine such a thing reveals a world view that is itself a horror story. This is rubber room stuff, criminal insanity.

Our problems require better information, better analyses and the better solutions that can come from them. The consequences of lack wit proposals like the above moratoriums must be analyzed too since they often, as in this case, would cause more harm than they cured. They would not only harm the environment, they would harm society too. There is simply nothing good about them unless you yearn for such a society. In other words, if you are insane.

There is already abundant research about methods to reduce or even eliminate runoff, as well as research about wetland restoration which not only purifies such runoff, and makes use of it, but also reduces flooding. They are nurseries for all manner of wildlife for both land and sea, and would actually benefit from silt and nutrients carried in on the flood.

Knowing this, work is already in progress to restore, enhance and even create wetlands. The more that good information, rather than the pathetic nonsense in the linked article, is made available to society the more and faster such improvements will be made. One line of communication that would be very helpful would be to make the economic benefits of such efforts known. Where there's a profit, there's an entrepreneur. The precise form of such enterprises and their business plans are yet to be created for the most part, but that's what such folks do for their pay. The key is to get them interested, get them to imagine possibilities, and I expect there will be some who are moved as much by the social purpose as by the profit potential.