Yes, and a challenge that grows with the unnatural man-made alteration of our de-oxygenated atmosphere? There was a time when our first ancestors took their first upright steps, when the world's atmosphere was around 51% oxygen.

Now we're lucky if it's 20% of the atmosphere? And given oxygen is implicated in all healing and much of nature's disinfection. Many of today's maladies were then unknown?

To be sure we could all be healthier, and would be if those we compel to live on the lowest rungs of the socioeconomic ladder, could afford, wholesome, fresh nutritious food?

Simply put, any successful attack and removal of poverty in all its forms and guises, flows on up the socioeconomic ladder as snowballing economic activity and economic improvement for all!

And Just the foreseeable result of a vastly improved money-go-round, eonomic activity! Thereby virtually compelling economic improvement outcomes the whole way up!

And why do we make simple and relatively cheap hyperbaric oxygen therapy the exclusive province of the rich? And why do we all but outlaw chelation therapy or equally cost effective and relatively safe HRT? Which could be made far safer and vastly more cost effective if it routinely included HGH?

There's so much more we could do and with far fewer currently wasted resources, wasted on the ever upward profit graph of ultra powerful big pharma, who NEED chronic conditions to MAXIMISE and pad out profits and no doubt, the power and influence that buys!?
Alan B.

From my point of view involving long term underwater ocean ecosystem exploration and investigative general research, the major media is obstructing chronic disease prevention.
Investigative reporting and debate seems gagged. Governments are engaged in aquaculture policy but not ocean health management policy.

There is no news or debate about sewage nutrient fed algae that has killed most seagrass nurseries on which baitfish depend on which tuna and most sea animals and birds depend on which seafood dependent island people once depended.
There is no reporting of links between protein deficiency malnutrition and anaemia and increase in maternal mortality that coincides with fish population devastation.

Serious and general fish depletion including of inshore fish also coincides with increase in Diabetes II and major organ failure and other NCD among seafood dependent island people. In PNG reduced immunity and also antibiotic resistant contagious TB are out of control.

Toxic algae is increasing worldwide yet links between cyanobacteria algae causing asthma-like attacks on contact with humans is not investigated and reported and generally known.
Where is the science on particles of beached sun dried toxic algae being swept by wind into the atmosphere? Asthma attacks are not only about pollen.

If the true state of the marine environment was reported and debated the need to reduce the nutrient loading would be known. It is nutrient overload that is proliferating the elevated blooms of toxic and other algae. This includes algae under sea ice considered an “impossible discovery”, involving masses of algae plant matter not even been measured and assessed in AGW, IPCC and Kyoto associated science.
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2012/june/arctic-algal-blooms-060712.html

The state of the world ocean marine environment is not in the news, is it? Nor is under-nutrition and chronic disease health issues linked to collapse of whole world ocean seafood sustainability and affordable protein food supply. Why is that so?

Alan B.,
The 51% oxygen claim on which your argument is based is completely wrong.

See http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sauerstoffgehalt-1000mj2.png

_______________________________________________________________________________________

JF Aus,
Why are you still so obsessed with this one threat to fish stocks when there are so many other factors decimating fish populations?

And when you say "There is no news or debate about sewage nutrient fed algae that has killed most seagrass nurseries ..." do you really not know the reason? There's rarely much world news shown here, and the issue is being adequately addressed in Australian waters.

I don't accept that you or your endless erroneous links, [some of which support completely countervailing positions on the very same day,] are the suppository of all wisdom and advise you to check your facts! Instead of setting yourself up as an absolute authority on everything!

I stand by the published research and the results gained by scientific examination of very old ice core sampling!

Better the world thinks you a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt!
Alan B.

Aidan,

I am still commenting as I am because just yesterday I returned from Solomon Islands where I have had to watch children and adults eating only rice or potato for breakfast and dinner, no lunch.
Increase in NCD there is now of significant concern.
In fact an operating ward has just been set up only for diabetes amputations.

You Aidan, think I am obsessed.
I think I am disgusted that you and Australian major media are ignoring or shunning reality and truth of the causes, impacts and consequences of seafood protein devastation and air and water quality deterioration.

Such is the lack of news of the actual situation that you refer to "factors decimating fish populations" when in fact fish populations are already decimated, past tense.
In reality wild fish populations in general are devastated.

Yes I really know the reason, it is nutrient overload feeding algae as I have stated.
Or can you or major media provide evidence to establish otherwise? You cannot. Media cannot. Science cannot.

What evidence of substance can you provide to establish that health of the oceans is being adequately addressed in Australian waters?
You seem to think Australian waters are not part of the SW Pacific Ocean ecosystem, when in reality they are a vital part.

The degraded health of the ocean is degrading the health of humans and marine feeding animals and some of the disease involved is contagious and all of it is very costly, including to control civil unrest.

And all the business and employment and industry development that could be involved with relevant solutions is being ignored or shunned. How totally stupid.

There is dire need for nutrient trading, not just emissions trading associated with air pollution.

//There was a time when our first ancestors took their first upright steps, when the world's atmosphere was around 51% oxygen.//

No there was not. It's never been above 35%.

//Now we're lucky if it's 20% of the atmosphere?//

No we're not. It should be very nearly 21%; if it's less than 20% something is amiss.

Still, it's nice to see old and discredited ideas being given a new coat of paint and wheeled out:

http://zapatopi.net/kelvin/papers/end_of_free_oxygen.html

So once again the AlanB makes some scientific claims. Unfortunately Alan's access to google must be down because if he did the slightest bit of research before launching into must-be-first-to-comment mode he'd have discovered that oxygen is actually toxic at the 50%+ levels that he claims: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_toxicity

(Also, as an aside, not only is oxygen toxic at these levels but you sure as hell wouldn't want to be making any sparks near anything that is flammable. Every day stuff that surrounds us, such as clothing, would burn very easily at these levels.)

JFAus..

Most people's idea of a healthy ocean is from a surfboard.
I witness the appalling state it is, submerged in it, and it ain't always pretty.
Not helped at all by local council installation of a sewage outfall, planted in the river eighteen months ago in my local area. Sewage vandalism!

Sydney sewage outfall was extended 3klm into the ocean off Bondi...out of sight out of mind. Who checks the checkers, since local councils are the public health officials! But yet it's them installing crude sewage outfall systems to this day...again, sewage vandalism...

thinkabit.

Google reveals medical oxygen is 99.5 percent oxygen.

To my knowledge oxygen becomes toxic to humans only when human lungs are subjected to increased pressure such as when diving deeper underwater.

Diver Dan.

Yes. Spot on.

If your river is on the east coast of Australia the prevailing SE winds push the sewage fresh water bonded nutrient load against the coast where that nutrient is often drawn by tides into bay and estuary ecosystems.

And media dumbed down councils are hounding and harassing live aboard seafarers who are part of the marine economy.

JF Aus: If you read the wiki article that I linked to (ie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_toxicity) you will see that oxygen *is* toxic at 50% of normal atmospheric pressure. Indeed, it indicates that it is toxic at a partial pressure as low as only 30kPa which at standard atmospheric pressure is very close to 30%.

It is impossible for early humans to survived and reproduced with 50% oxygen in the atmosphere. Yet this is what Alan claims- but not only is he saying that we can survive at 50% but that it is better for us and that somehow us humans have caused it to decrease from 50% to <20% which is causing all sorts of maladies.

Now, not that any of this talk about oxygen has anything to do with the original article but so often I've seen AlanB state stuff about science (and also economics but that's another story) which is simply a lie. Because I have a university level science based background it annoys me no end when people state things in a way that could convince people that it appears to be sound and well founded but is really just bluff and bull that is factually incorrect. Indeed, I'd prefer to read some of runner's comments regarding science instead: because it's better to say absolute complete utter nonsense than some false "sciency" sounding facts that could be preceived as true.

I think it essential to talk about health of oceans and atmosphere and especially to talk about oxygen production, levels underwater, and loss of oxygen due to unprecedented anthropogenic proliferated algae taking up oxygen when under dense cloud and at night.

In the Kelvin documents you referred to I don’t see any measurement or assessment or even mention of ocean algae plant matter that produces oxygen during photosynthesis, in oceans that produce over 50 percent of world oxygen. Some people say well over 50 percent.

The government of Norway is very concerned about health of the whole Baltic Sea that is now said to have the world’s biggest dead zone.
Dead zones are killing fish and coral, and devastated fish supply is linked to malnutrition and various disease, matters I have studied since 1982.

Aquaculture is not the answer because the end product is too costly for the majority of would be consumers.
Unfortunately aquaculture waste is a point source of nutrient overload pollution, that in addition to dumping of human sewage nutrient is linked to dead zones and also to the El Nino and impact.
Sorry to have to say it, but it is inevitable these problems and consequences become understood and reversed (a.s.a.p).
(Aquaculture interests should be provided with legislation to farm open oceans and bays without pens and tanks, legislation to protect effort and investment.
The Law of the Sea is out of date.

I think there is enough evidence of substance to establish incidence of chronic disease will continue to increase because shortfall in affordable food is worsening unchecked and is not properly or duly investigated and generally reported.
Media seems reluctant to refer to the massive sewage nutrient loading dumped daily from government and big business sewage ‘treatment’ plants, into ocean ecosystems.

Think about health of the environment and dissolved oxygen, not just about oxygen above sea level.
Ocean management and available oxygen are keys to water recycling and ecosystem rehabilitation.

f.y.i.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1637951/pdf/envhper00304-0022-color.pdf

The greatest problem with our health system is that the profession is not treating the cause of an illness, but the symptoms. That never leads to a cure. So we have chronic diseases, which give the medical profession and pharmaceutical companies great profits and will continue because of it.

The term chronic disease applies to a group of diseases that tend to be long lasting and have persistent effects.

Chronic diseases have a range of potential impacts on a person's individual circumstances, including quality of life and broader social and economic effects. Chronic diseases are the leading causes of fatal burden of disease (the amount of life lost due to people dying early) in most age and sex groups [1] and are the leading cause of illness, disability and death in Australia, accounting for 90% of all deaths in 2011 [2].

Information presented below on the prevalence of selected chronic diseases comes from different data sources. This means there may be some differences in the time periods of reporting and methods of measurement used in relation to specific chronic diseases.
http://www.aep-bahrain.com/apartments-for-sale-in-bahrain/