Unintended Consequences of Carbon Footprint Reduction

Now this is a true knock-on effect of all this Al Gore reduce your carbon footprint stuff.

The nation's corn crop is fertilized with millions of pounds of
nitrogen-based fertilizer. And when that nitrogen runs off fields in Corn Belt
states, it makes its way to the Mississippi River and eventually pours into the
Gulf, where it contributes to a growing "dead zone" — a 7,900-square-mile patch
so depleted of oxygen that fish, crabs and shrimp suffocate.

So in other words farmers grow more corn to make ethanol to add to the gas to keep the carbon out of the air. In return it kills off 7900 square miles of fish. This is one of those lose-lose propositions that the environmentalists don't tell you about. We can either stop using the nitrogen fertilizer and thus make it harder to grow the plants to replace the oil that is creating global warming. Or we can keep the nitrogen and then the fish will die off.

I guess this is a prime opportunity for someone to come up with a way for nitrogen to be kept from going into the Mississippi river. I think this is a job for the EPA (or a private company) to find a way to prevent the nitrogen but also increase the corn yields. I think some of those hefty farm subsidies need to start going to Monsanto and Bunge Ltd.