Dead Zone

The Gulf of Mexico's "dead zone" -- an area of water where oxygen is depleted, preventing any marine life from surviving -- is now 6,765 square miles wide. That's bigger than the state of Connecticut.

They can ruin a perfectly nice beach day and are the very definition of spineless, and now jellyfish are drawing international attention with their power plant hijinks.

Bad federal policy and intensifying storms are washing away the rich dark soils in the Midwest that made this country an agricultural powerhouse and that remain the essential foundation of a healthy and sustainable food system in the future.

A new interactive map of oceanic dead zones charts hundreds of areas across the globe where sewage and fertilizer runoff have created areas virtually uninhabitable for most marine life.

This report provides a chilling and comprehensive account of the lead-up and response to the BP oil disaster. It's time for industry and government to do everything possible to renew the prosperity of the Gulf through bold action on restoration.

Iowans can no longer afford to have a governor, or any elected official, partying like it's 1999 on the environment.

United States Senator Mary L. Landrieu, D-La., today gave testimony to the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Dr...

Bacteria that attacked the plumes of oil and gas from the Deepwater Horizon gusher in the Gulf of Mexico mainly digested natural gas spewing from the ...

GULF SHORES, Ala. — Dolphins and sharks are showing up in surprisingly shallow water just off the Florida coast. Mullets, crabs, rays and small ...

Most scientists agree that it's far too early to write off the possibility of long-term consequences from releasing 210 million gallons of oil into the ocean. Case in point: the growing Gulf Dead Zone.

Facts can be filed away and forgotten. But a story is often vividly remembered. So here's a story about the Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone -- what it looks and feels like to experience this as an undersea diver.

All told, there are over 400 dead zones worldwide, affecting an area of more than 245,000 square kilometers, a number that has increased exponentially since the 1960s.

Editor's Note: This post has been removed from the Huffington Post....

The oil spill is a catastrophe, but risks that are catastrophic scare us more than those that are chronic -- even though in many cases, the chronic risks are far bigger threats.

Today's oil spill news is dominated by Obama's Oval Office speech, but the highlight for me was a quiet update by the head of NOAA yesterday.

Between 2005 and 2009, U.S. taxpayers spent a whopping $17 billion to subsidize corn-ethanol blends in gasoline. What did they get in return? A reduc...

EWG can hardly wait to get our invitation to hear how the corn growers are going to boost their image with environmentalists by growing more corn.

BP's oil spill is humanity's latest strike against against the World's oceans, according to Phillippe Cousteau Jr., an explorer and host for Animal Pl...

Perhaps the biggest challenge in changing human behavior to address the reality of climate change is connecting impacts to every day life.  But t...

I requested of Holmes an elucidation as to how residents of the rural Midwestern United States could be responsible for a dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. "It's elementary," he said with aplomb.

The fertilizer used on America's corn fields is the principle culprit responsible for the dead zone, a huge swath of ocean devoid of fish and shellfish.

Of the two billion people living on less than $2 a day, three quarters live in rural communities that depend on natural ecosystems for sustenance and livelihoods. If subprime development persists, many will pay: first with their livelihoods, and then with their lives.