The “dead zone” of the Gulf of Mexico | Nancy Rabalais

Ocean expert Nancy Rabalais tracks the ominously named "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico — where there isn't enough oxygen in the water to support life. The Gulf has the second largest dead zone in the world; on top of killing fish and crustaceans, it's also killing fisheries in these waters. Rabalais tells us about what's causing it — and how we can reverse its harmful effects and restore one of America's natural treasures.

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50 Comments on The “dead zone” of the Gulf of Mexico | Nancy Rabalais

    • JOAN OSMAN I saw you praising the girl in yesterdays talk (the one with the useless inventions) and this talk, an actual good and informative talk, gets just an irrelevant comment? OK

    • Hector Buba I saw you misunderstanding what words mean and context and your own assumptions versus what’s actual objective reality, and this comment, an actually perfectly validly affirmative comment, gets just an irrelevantly uninformed sniping reaction? not ok….

  1. Environmental genius. Hopefully her device can reverse what’s left of the BP oil crisis in addition to our river pollution. Excellent Talk!

    • John Con Queso I think she is greatly underestimating the level of pollution that the BP spill (and the other unknown spills) and the pollutants run offs have done to the gulf… my backyard.

    • Well if from “Nature’s pov” humanity as-is has become a cancer, then including through the ozone layer, and otherwise, then sure “she” in time will either heal (irradiate and chometherapeutically attack the cancer of) the planet by entirely extinguishing or reducing us to nondetectible trace amounts… or not and the planet will die — either way yeah time alone’s not gonna cut it.

  2. Keep in mind that we are in a beautiful stationary flat Earth. The globe Earth society Doctrine is just fantasy…

    • EARTH IS seriously FLAT ..Give it time, eventually you’ll be embarrassed for falling for such a basic psyop.

    • EARTH IS seriously FLAT .. You just don’t, there’s no need. It’s taken care of by now. This one’s misguided and will do noone any good.

    • Ok so let’s forget about Earth for s second. Are other planets flat? What about the Sun? Please explain and use the biggest words you can think of to help expand your answer.

    • Animal manure (regenerative polyculture) and mycorrhizal fungi where crops benefit (not brassicas). There needs to be large scale mycorrhizal powder or pellet production, on a similar scale to fertilizer production.

    • GMO crops that don’t need as much fertilizer and water. They are proven safe.

      But just like anything else people don’t understand, there will be those who are afraid to accept it.

    • Reduce the use of fertilizer, reduce run-off, reduce erosion, increase the minimum distance to waterways. The states around the Baltic Sea have been dealing with this exact same problem for decades now.

  3. These are a few EASY things I did to save the environment/money: 1. switched from incandescent to LED light bulbs 2. Added additional insulation to attic 3. Put TV’s and computers on power strips and turn them off when not in use AND here are some harder things I did: 1. Installed my own solar power system that runs our house 2. built a solar water heater for $40 3. built a solar pool heater AND next I am going to trade my gas guzzling truck for a electric car and drive it for free by charging it with my home solar power. You can save a LOT of money while helping the environment!

  4. Such a very informative talk. Thank you Dr. Rabalais for your efforts, for going above and beyond your responsibility as a scientist – not letting your research findings just be confined in the academic and scientific community but you made ways for these findings to reach the media and policy makers, thereby resulting in ways (or policy making) that help protect and sustain our environment. As a woman of science, I am inspired with what you did and hopefully, I can also make a good impact in the near future with my research.

    • Goku
      I was as surprised as you when I heard that animal agriculture had such a bad impact on environment. They all tell us about cars, planes and all that like one of the biggest threat we face while animal agriculture emits more green house gases than all transportation combined.
      If you are interested about environmental issues, you may enjoy cowspiracy (which is becoming outdated, things are worst today).

    • Way to bring up your own agenda. She just said “eat less meat” no “go full vegan”… Also, agriculture is the root of the problem (that’s where most of your veggies come from in case you forgot) so, unless you are a vegan with you pwn little sustainable farm and you only eat organically cultivated and fertilizer free plant based foods, you are still part of the problem, not the solution.
      See? This comment is the reason people makes fun of vegans, it makes you seem shallow, preachy and full of yourself.

    • Héctor BuBa I just want to point out that the majority of agricultural crops grown is for animals raised for slaughter. PS I’m not vegan.

  5. I liked this talk and would like to see a follow up on it in the future. It actually got me engaged and curious to learn on the subject. A very important subject and great talk!

  6. What she fails to mention is that this is probably helping to mitigate climate change. The nitrogen, phosphorous, and other nutrient chemicals lead to blooms of phytoplankton and algae; these microorganisms grow and multiply by absorbing carbon dioxide; when they die they sink to the bottom of the ocean, permanently removing carbon from the atmosphere.

  7. Elementary. Protective zones of 10 ft to river banks with no farming allowed, better treatment of sewage water. That’s it.

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