Climate change is here, it's scarier than we thought, we're causing it, and (especially in combination with other large-scale environmental and social problems) it's going to demand radical innovation and major reforms.
It's not like it just started WR.. It's been going on for centuries, or even Tens of thousands of years (since the end of the last ice age).
If we're dealing with reoccuring paleo-climatiological changes, they we really don't what kind of radical changes we're going to have to make, now do we?
Scientists have long been warning that the world must cut back on greenhouse-gas emissions by as much as 70 percent, as soon as possible, if we're to have a fighting chance of stabilizing the climate.
Well, I guess that means we'll have to start by killing off several billion methane and CO2 belching people (and their flatulant cattle herds)... Because Methane is 6 to 10 times as potent a green house gas as C02, and we're farting out oodles of it every day...
And who's going to stabilize the volcanoes??.. or the methane hydrates that could be releasing from the ocean floors without our knowledge due to tectonic activities??
It might just be that the climatic "stability" that everyone talks about didn't take into account 6 Billion human beings, and their associated herd animals and pets.
Thus, it might be that nature is going to find a NEW equilibrium despite all the environmental good intentions you exhibit.
Thus, I think we should be exploring deliberate terra forming.. There is already technology out there for creating C02 traps in the ocean, using Ferrous dust. It appears that the oceans are becoming increasing iron deficient (for whatever reason, including over-fishing). And without that iron, phytoplankton have a hard time growing.
A quick chemical review: iron is only sparingly soluble in seawater, due to the formation of insoluble compounds with hydroxide ion (OH-), which is prevalent at the normal pH range of the surface ocean (approximately pH 8). But iron is also pervasive in the global environment (and ships and wires and numerous other equipment are made of steel, which obviously contains iron), so accurately determining iron concentrations in seawater required scrupulously clean laboratory work. Although Dr. John Martin became famous for proposing that iron acts as a limiting nutrient in oceanic waters, and also for theorizing that iron supply to the oceans could be related to climate change in Earth history, it was the accurate determination of the markedly low iron concentrations in seawater that allowed him to make these connections.
Initial experiments onboard research vessels demonstrated that adding iron to seawater would enhance phytoplankton growth. But the real proof that iron was a limiting nutrient in the ocean required an in situ experiment: adding iron to seawater to see if phytoplankton growth in the ocean was enhanced. Two experiments near the Galapagos Islands in 1993 and 1995 demonstrated that phytoplankton growth was enhanced and also that the process could effect the concentration of dissolved carbon dioxide (CO2) in seawater, which could in turn lead to a reduction of CO2 in the atmosphere — the possible key to climate change
disc.gsfc.nasa.gov
tracer.env.uea.ac.uk
Btw WR.. this "blooming" technology is relatively cheap.. (far cheaper than the economic consequences of Kyoto which doesn't even cover the major Asian polluters), and it's great for alleviating over-fishing of our oceans. The oceans, or more specifically, plankton and algae have always played a far greater role in moderating global CO2 levels than the forests and prairies, let alone the Rain Forest...
And you're a scientist, right? You know that when there is more C02 in the air, it encourages plant growth... But if the nutrients that this plant life have become depleted (for whatever reason) you can have all the C02 you want, but plants will not respond.
So IF, and JUST IF, John Martin was correct that depleting iron levels in the ocean might be responsible for its diminishing ability to compensate for higher atmospheric C02 levels, then the solution is pretty clear.. restore those iron levels to whatever the historical levels theoretically should have been and get the oceans to capture that excess CO2 and trap it.
But since no one has monitored historical oceanic iron levels, or historical phytoplankton levels, no one knows what the levels should be...
But the one thing about the solution.. if mother nature ain't providing the iron, then we're not likely to do anything that causes long-lasting consequences.. It's like a vitamin deficiency.. If you add too much, then change the formula until you get it right. The worst thing that happens is you "over-fertilize" and that can be resolved by not modering the amounts of iron augmentation.
There's my proposal for global warming (and rising fish prices). And I hope John Martin receives a Nobel Price (posthumously) for his research.
Hawk |
