Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Invasive species, climate change threaten Great Lakes
New book presents long list of dangers but also offers hope
By
Cassie Martin
8:00am, March 7, 2017
The Death and Life of the Great Lakes
Dan Egan
Every summer, people flock to the Great Lakes to swim and fish in the seemingly infinite waters and hike along the idyllic shores. But an ominous undercurrent flows just out of sight. Below the waters surface rages an environmental catastrophe 200 years in the making.
In The Death and Life of the Great Lakes, journalist Dan Egan describes how the lakes natural history gave way to an unnatural one. From the effects of global trade and urbanization to climate change, the book offers an exhaustive (and sometimes exhausting) account of the abuses the lakes have endured.
Scars left by retreating glaciers and a failed continental rift, lakes Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie and Superior are more like inland seas, holding about 20 percent of Earths surface freshwater. The lakes were mostly isolated from international waters until a series of canals and seaways let in freighters from around the world. These ships are like syringes, as one biologist put it, injecting into the lakes living pollution.
Nearly 200 nonnative species now call the lakes home. The worst offenders alewives, sea lampreys and zebra and quagga mussels have ruined food webs. Egan dedicates a third of the book to these invaders and biologists best, and sometimes misguided, efforts to contain them
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/invasive-species-climate-change-threaten-great-lakes
InfoView thread info, including edit history
TrashPut this thread in your Trash Can (My DU » Trash Can)
BookmarkAdd this thread to your Bookmarks (My DU » Bookmarks)
4 replies, 974 views
ShareGet links to this post and/or share on social media
AlertAlert this post for a rule violation
PowersThere are no powers you can use on this post
EditCannot edit other people's posts
ReplyReply to this post
EditCannot edit other people's posts
Rec (5)
ReplyReply to this post
4 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Invasive species, climate change threaten Great Lakes (Original Post)
BeckyDem
Mar 2017
OP
It won't matter. tRump's EPA will be powerless to prevent the lakes from becoming dumps
ffr
Mar 2017
#1
ffr
(22,649 posts)1. It won't matter. tRump's EPA will be powerless to prevent the lakes from becoming dumps
for industrial pollution.
So those invasive species are just temporary dwellers in what will end up being nothing short of toxic.
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)2. Four years of Trump policy, scary to see the upcoming results. Not that we did not know. sigh.
safeinOhio
(32,531 posts)3. Nothing will be done about Pipe line #5 and it could be
the end of Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. Enbridge Inc.s Line 5 pipeline two 20-inch pipelines that run parallel to the Mackinac Bridge across the Straits of Mackinac and that carry almost 23 million gallons a day of light crude oil and natural gas liquids. It was built in 1958 and is in bad shape. Enbridge has a terrible record on spills, but says there are no problems with #5.
Two Michigan Indian tribes are in Federal court to shut it down based on treaty rights. Please Help.
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)4. Maybe put this up as an original opinion piece? Help is needed in so many ways and I think
it can't hurt to spread awareness about the court cases.