[HN Gopher] Scientists make discovery of dead zones where nothin...
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       Scientists make discovery of dead zones where nothing can live on
       two US coasts
        
       Author : DocFeind
       Score  : 65 points
       Date   : 2021-08-07 14:24 UTC (8 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (thehill.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (thehill.com)
        
       | jvanderbot wrote:
       | They blame climate change, but it is caused (per article) by
       | nutrient runoff from cities and (much more so) farms.
        
       | dataviz1000 wrote:
       | As a joke, I boycotted sugar for nearly 1 year protesting the
       | mismanagement of land and water resources in South Florida by the
       | sugar industry and the environmental destruction they cause. I
       | doubt I changed anything other than my health in noticeable
       | beneficial ways including weight loss and lower blood pressure.
       | Like recent deadly spikes in covid transmission in Louisiana and
       | Florida, people in both states don't care about the death caused
       | by unmanaged agricultural runoff from the sugar industry either.
       | Last year Louisiana was hit by several hurricanes which
       | oxygenated the coastal waters so the dead zone decreased[0]. This
       | is an odd benefit if climate change causes stronger or more
       | frequent storms, although I read somewhere that there is an
       | equilibrium for the maximum intensity and possible frequency for
       | large storms.
       | 
       | https://www.nola.com/news/environment/article_02d39f24-d66c-...
        
         | k12sosse wrote:
         | I dream of cutting out sugar - but it would ruin most coffees
         | for me! I measure my sugar to coffee ratios in seconds poured.
         | I like my sugar with coffee and cream!
        
           | bluefirebrand wrote:
           | I am the opposite. Sugar or cream in my coffee ruins the
           | coffee for me.
           | 
           | Give it a try maybe, you'll find that a lot of coffee has
           | really rich flavour that you're burying under the sweet
           | sugar.
        
           | LandR wrote:
           | Same here, but with tea. I drink tea with milk and 1 sugar. I
           | keep trying without sugar but its just undrinkable.
        
             | cocoa19 wrote:
             | High quality loose leaf teas taste great on their own.
             | 
             | If you get your tea from a grocery store, chances are
             | you're getting the lowest grade of tea (tea dust).
        
           | carom wrote:
           | Try it for 30 days.
        
           | Nadya wrote:
           | You don't need to do all or nothing. Even if you just cut it
           | out everywhere except your coffee you'll already be making a
           | significant and healthy change for the better.
        
           | rapsey wrote:
           | The first step is the hardest. It will not take long to get
           | used to it.
        
           | darkerside wrote:
           | Seconds poured? That sounds terribly unhealthy. Not as bad as
           | drinking soda, but close.
        
           | anonuser123456 wrote:
           | From a health perspective, simply use allulose instead of
           | sucrose. It tastes exactly the same but is non digestible.
        
           | Skunkleton wrote:
           | If you are interested in cutting sugar out of your coffee, I
           | would suggest maximizing the quality of your coffee while you
           | adjust. I would recommend trying single origin coffee from
           | Central America. These have fruity and sweet flavors, and are
           | a good place to start with black coffee. It also helps to
           | have some to help explain what you should be tasting.
           | 
           | This is at least how I (accidentally) ended up switching to
           | black coffee. Ymmv.
        
             | rolleiflex wrote:
             | Likewise. After falling into the coffee rabbit hole in the
             | pandemic, I've accidentally discovered coffee does in fact
             | taste good. You don't need to go as deep as I did with an
             | espresso machine and roasting my own beans, but having
             | freshly roasted beans and a v60 dripper is a cheap, sub-$40
             | way to get good coffee that is sweet enough on its own that
             | it doesn't need to be balanced with milk and sugar.
        
               | elijahparker wrote:
               | I second this -- I love the taste of quality black coffee
               | but the bad stuff really does need help (for me some
               | cream). It can be a huge difference. Also the origin --
               | this is a subjective thing, but I agree with the parent
               | that single origin Central American is ideal by my
               | tastes. Nicaraguan medium-dark roast, freshly roasted and
               | ground. (Freshness is also very important).
        
           | stirfish wrote:
           | Once you go black, you won't want to go back. How are you
           | brewing your coffee?
        
         | bwanab wrote:
         | I cut out sugar about two years ago. I recently had blood work
         | for a yearly physical (almost 2 years later than it should have
         | been). All my levels (cholesterol, triglycerides, etc.) were
         | significantly better than before.
         | 
         | Highly recommended.
        
           | dorchadas wrote:
           | I've mostly cut out processed sugar, with a few holdouts. It
           | was hard at first to give up sweet tea, but now that I've
           | done it I just found sweet tea tastes weird.
           | 
           | The last (big) holdout I have is with protein bars. I can't
           | seem to find _any_ , let alone any with decent amounts of
           | protein, without sugar or even more sugar alcohols. So right
           | now I stick to a set of pure protein that has only 2g of
           | added sugars and 2g of sugar proteins. All the rest of my
           | sugar is natural (usually from bananas or other fruit), and I
           | still manage to keep it under 30g a day for the most part.
           | 
           | It's made a tremendous difference not only in my health, but
           | also my body _shape_ I 've found. I'm still getting the same
           | amount of exercise as I used to, but as the weight falls off
           | it seems to be more fat than muscle. It's also forced me to
           | eat somewhat better, though I still do too much processed
           | stuff (I just check it for sugar first).
        
             | __turbobrew__ wrote:
             | Have you looked into Quest protein bars? Lots of protein
             | and no sugar.
        
               | dorchadas wrote:
               | I haven't heard of those. I'll look into them and see if
               | any are at my local Kroger. But I'm fixing to move
               | countries so I hope I can find better options there. I
               | know other stuff has less sugar than America (bread was a
               | real pain in the ass to find without sugar!)
        
       | clircle wrote:
       | I have in my Firefox settings selected the option to block all
       | autoplay audio and video, yet this site is able to slip through.
       | Is there anything I can do about this? (Other than manually
       | blocking elements with ublock)
       | 
       | And is there a way to prevent videos from 'following' me as I
       | scroll?
        
         | wallacoloo wrote:
         | Click the 'x' button on the top right of the video in this
         | article and it will quit following you.
        
         | betwixthewires wrote:
         | I use the umatrix browser extension and turn off all scripts
         | except for web apps I use like github and this site. Sites look
         | funny, but the truth is 90% of your browsing is probably
         | reading text, and something you're trying to read has no
         | business embedding all this nonsense in it. Try it, use umatrix
         | and turn off JS by default.
        
       | betwixthewires wrote:
       | What a horrible article. I'm very interested in the details of
       | this phenomenon and the article said basically nothing about it.
       | I'm tired of journalists who hide behind dumbing things down for
       | the reader as an excuse to not actually look into what they're
       | supposedly writing about. If you're going to write an article for
       | the supposed reason of informing the reader it better actually
       | inform the reader.
        
         | soco wrote:
         | With the rise of AI newswriters we might be looking at a
         | machine generated piece of "information" without even realizing
         | it.
        
       | knuthsat wrote:
       | I do not understand how cities are blamed when a farm with 2500
       | dairy cows produces similar waste to a city of 411,000 people.[0]
       | Cow poop is destroying the oceans due to massive amounts of
       | mismanagement or just floods. Just goes to show the unpredictable
       | n-th order effect of allowing the current ways of raising
       | livestock (excluding the, now known for centuries, effect of
       | global pandemics).
       | 
       | 0:
       | https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyNET.exe/901V0100.txt?ZyActionD=Z...
        
         | User23 wrote:
         | Two things. First, if it weren't for cities the demand for that
         | many dairy cows wouldn't exist. Second, that study is just
         | comparing manure production. Cities produce a great deal of
         | other waste that cows don't.
         | 
         | Edit: Yes, just pointing out that people rightly look at cities
         | because they are the driving force so any solution needs to
         | consider that. I don't have a particular solution in mind, but
         | I do hope if one is necessary it optimizes for personal freedom
         | as well as sustainability. I lack the expertise to be specific,
         | but making it economical to capture waste and runoff via tax
         | credits or something might be a possibility. However, I know
         | enough to know this isn't an issue that's going to be solved by
         | me.
        
           | mjevans wrote:
           | What solution are you implying with: "if it weren't for
           | cities the demand for that many dairy cows wouldn't exist"
           | 
           | Maybe you were reaching for a need to wholistically look at
           | the entire problem of both population and the resources
           | needed to sustain it?
        
         | CuriouslyC wrote:
         | And I bet your solution is for everyone to go vegan.
        
           | knuthsat wrote:
           | Why would that be a solution if you still need to manage
           | manure to grow plants? You would still have runoffs due to
           | similar mismanagement. It's not the management of human
           | wastewater that is an issue with ocean deadzones.
        
       | pyuser583 wrote:
       | > "This year, we have seen again and again the profound effect
       | that climate change has on our communities -- from historic
       | drought in the west to flooding events."
       | 
       | But this is being caused by agricultural runoff, not carbon
       | emissions. It's also not clear how I it affects the weather.
       | 
       | Seems "climate change" has become a buzzword for any type of
       | pollution.
        
         | ljf wrote:
         | What caused the dead zone to be larger and start earlier this
         | year?
         | 
         | Excess run off from farms.
         | 
         | What caused the increase in run off this year?
         | 
         | Flooding.
         | 
         | What caused the extra rainfall this year?
        
           | calkuta wrote:
           | Weather and climate may impact the severity. The root cause
           | of the problem is pollution and that should not be
           | obfuscated.
        
           | pyuser583 wrote:
           | The article doesn't mention flooding or extra rainfall.
           | 
           | Edit: blah sorry it mentions flooding. not rainfall, but
           | flooding.
        
             | extra88 wrote:
             | The part you quoted includes "flooding events!"
        
               | pyuser583 wrote:
               | Sorry, you're right. It does mention flooding. No more
               | commenting for me until I have coffee.
        
           | tessierashpool wrote:
           | it's almost as if environmental destruction has cascading
           | effects
        
       | calkuta wrote:
       | The result of chemical pollution, but climate change is still
       | being invoked as the culprit.
        
       | sammalloy wrote:
       | Eutrophication has been a known issue for 50 years or more. Why
       | hasn't anything been done to address the problem?
        
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       (page generated 2021-08-07 23:02 UTC)