Wharf..
Look at this from another perspective.
How do you know if CO2 generation (both man-made and from natural events) is rising? You measure the increases in observable levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, right?? Then you deduce that the excess is the amount that man has contributed over what nature has been able to historically sequester.
But if levels of phytoplankton and other major CO2 consumers HAVE DECREASED, would that not ALSO cause an increase in CO2 levels??
fisherycrisis.com
And what if, due to man's overfishing of the oceans, we've upset the nutrient balance, literally "mining" it of its minerals by consuming its marine life and depositing the decomposed "remains" (y'all know what I'm referring to here) on land and not on the bottom of the ocean (where some future upwelling would lift the nutrients to the surface to re-enter the food chain cycle??
Would this not cause the same kind of long-term loss of nutrients as we find occurs in established and managed forests where cutting timber depletes the soil of minerals from decomposing wood, eventually depriving the young trees the nutrients required to replace the previous growth (and certainly not to the same size)??
Furthermore, we know from historical experience, and data from paleo-climatological research, that "nature" is seldom in a state of balance and equilibrium, like perceptions of "truth", is a constantly moving target.
The bottom line here is that we need to figure out what the REAL CAUSE AND EFFECT IS and what we can IMMEDIATELY do about it.
What if our efforts to stop excess production of CO2 are not sufficient to mitigate the decline in oceanic phytoplankton?
What do we do then?? Try and plug up the volcanoes? Stop breathing and flatulating??
No WR.. we need to look at, and understand why the earth's NATURAL BALANCING MECHANISMS are out of whack and how we might be able to mitigate and/or augment them.
Neither you, nor any other scientist, can make the assertion that eliminating man-derived sources of CO2 will bring the levels back into previous levels of equilibrium (if they even existed).
HOWEVER, I think I can say, with some measure of certainty, that augmenting, enhancing, and sustaining the EXISTING natural mechanisms of sequestering CO2 has a FAR better chance of alleviating CO2 levels in the near future.
The question is whether there is a downside of "artificially" fertilizing the oceans in order to enhance phytoplankton levels and restoring them to previous levels.
Hawk |
