DuBois column: The blob, the ocean, the drought & the pen

 

The blob, the ocean, the drought & the pen 

In addition to the BLM, FS, USFWS, NPS, and the EPA, what do we have to worry about? 

Oh, just a giant blob, the ocean floor, a severe water shortage and Biden’s pen. 

The blob 

A five-thousand-mile wide blob of seaweed is heading for the Florida coast. Sargassum is the variety of seaweed. This “gargantuan” mass is formed in the Atlantic Ocean and will eventually “dump smelly and potentially dangerous” concoction on the beaches of Florida and other Gulf Coast states. It is estimated to arrive in July, right during the height of the tourist season. 

Ocean floor 

Plenty of research has been done on the warming of surface waters, and how in the Pacific Ocean it has disrupted West Coast marine ecosystems, depressed salmon returns and damaged commercial fisheries. 

New research from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows that these marine heat waves also occur deep underwater. The NOAA researchers found these deep underwater heat waves on the continental shelves around North America “tend to persist longer than their surface counterparts” and send “larger warming signals.” 

Supposedly 90 percent of the excess heat from global warming is absorbed by the oceans and these marine heatwaves are occurring 50 percent more often in the last decade, warming the oceans by 1.5C. 

These underwater marine heat waves have been linked to the invasion of lionfish, coral bleaching and the decline of reef fish, changes in the survival rates of Atlantic cod and “the disappearance of near-shore lobster populations.” 

Water 

Our city friends are learning what a drought is. 

Here we are talking about drinking water. A new United Nations report says 1 billion people currently face water shortages, and they predict 1.7 to 2.4 billion will. within the next three decades, face similar shortages, as the urban water demand will increase by eighty percent by 2050. 

The pen 

President Biden is not letting his pen gather dust. 

His department of Interior appointees have just put sixteen million acres of federal property off limits to oil and gas development. These federal land and water acres are in Alaska. Thirteen million acres are located within the National Petroleum Reserve, and 2.8 million acres are in the Beaufort Sea. They also announced that Biden intends to limit future fossil fuel development on five different “special areas”, and prevent installation of a pipeline in northern Alaska. 

Most recently, Biden put his pen to work to create two new national monuments. The first is a half-million acres in the Spirit Mountain area of southern Nevada. The other is a 6,600 acre area near El Paso, Texas. 

We aren always interested in the grazing language each President uses in his proclamation creating a national monument. For the large monument in Nevada, the language is: 

 Livestock grazing has not been permitted in the monument area since 2006, and the Secretary shall not issue any new grazing permits or leases on such lands.

Pretty straight forward, no grazing allowed.

I don’t know how they will do it, but somehow livestock will be listed as one of the causes of the water shortage, the large invasion of seaweed, and the heat waves on the ocean floor.

Until next time, be a nuisance to the devil and don’t forget to check that cinch. 

Frank DuBois was the NM Secretary of Agriculture from 1988 to 2003, is the author of a blog: The Westerner (www.thewesterner.blogspot.com) and is the founder of The DuBois Rodeo Scholarship and The DuBois Western Heritage Foundation

This column originally appeared in the March editions of the NM Stockman and the Livestock Market Digest.