The Invasion of the Slime Part One

Since my friend Marigolds2 is away tending to some pretty serious family matters, I feel as if I should take up the environmental beat. I stopped writing about environmental issues because the seriousness of the crisis that faces us seems insurmountable, and it may be that it's already too late to stop the decline of the planet. It is surely too late for some living species, but is it too late too sustain the human race? We may well live out our natural lives without too much difficulty, but the question we should ask is of the future of our children.

I stumbled across a disturbing article in the LA Times. It's a 5 part piece, and I have to admit that I haven't had time to read the whole thing, but the several pages that I have read are like something out of a futuristic horror movie, where primitive bacteria grow unchecked and float up to the surface of the ocean to cause painful boils and swelling of human flesh.

MORETON BAY, AUSTRALIA -- The fireweed began each spring as tufts of hairy growth and spread across the seafloor fast enough to cover a football field in an hour.When fishermen touched it, their skin broke out in searing welts. Their lips blistered and peeled. Their eyes burned and swelled shut. Water that splashed from their nets spread the inflammation to their legs and torsos."It comes up like little boils," said Randolph Van Dyk, a fisherman whose powerful legs are pocked with scars. "At nighttime, you can feel them burning. I tried everything to get rid of them. Nothing worked."

A botanist put the stuff under a microscope and identified it as some bacteria that lived in the ocean some 2.7 billion years ago. The common thinking among scientists is that the toxic conditions of today's world are make the oceans a favorable growing field for pre-historic micro-organisms. Forgive me if my science is a bit spotty, but what I understand from the short time I spent reading, is that agricultural run-off, and all of the shit we put into the air is filling the ocean with nitrogen, carbon, iron and phosphorous, the four basic food groups that this weed feeds on.

I stopped eating Tuna and Swordfish because of the heavy concentrations of mercury found in those fish. I'm severely allergic to shellfish, so I'm not that crazy about eating things that swim in the same water as those evil crustaceans. Now I feel a little freaked out about eating fish of any sort, I don't want to break out in hives and boils because I enjoyed some Chilean Sea Bass with lime-cilantro butter. Because it's impossible to quarantine any toxin once it hits the water. Water doesn't stay in one place, it travels, or it evaporates and is dispersed in rain-clouds that wander the planet. What we dump into the water will eventually find it's way onto our dinner plate.

I had this nice Halibut steak in the fridge that I was going to grill for dinner. Right about now, the donut I bought two days ago is looking pretty appetizing.

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