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Politics : The Environmentalist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Land Shark who wrote (29311)	6/18/2010 11:37:04 AM
From: Hawkmoon	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 36917

There is MASS extinction going on NOW (largely ignored by the MSM). Mass extinction is nothing new. Species have been dying off for eons as their environment changes (both Anthropogenic AND NATURAL causes). Many species are short-term mutations which prove unsuccessful and die off. Therefore, we may count the extinction, but do we count the origin of that species in making the calculation? Mankind has certainly exacerbated extinctions via destruction of habitat, and deforestation, but nature caused the extinction of millions of species long before the advent of humanity. And someday, the combination of both human and natural forces will result in our extinction (Metorite strike.. or Gamma Ray Burst from Deep Space). From that astronomical "big picture" sense, humanity is at the whim of it's environment, but so is the rest of life. I want sustainability. So do I. That's why I've advocated for some time that we need to assist in managing the resources we've depleted. The oceans are a prime example of that. We've depleted the marine food chain, and we've done nothing to augment it. It's theorized that our agricultural soil conservation efforts have deprived the oceans of vital wind-born iron thereby inhibiting phytoplankton growth. Without iron all the nutrient rich portions of the ocean will remain devoid of flora due to Chlorosis. We've already seen phytoplankton growth decline by 20-30% over the past three decades, therefore it only makes sense that atmospheric CO2 levels have increased. Oceanic flora are literally the "lungs" of the planet to a much greater degree than the rain forests. And such a decrease in oceanic flora results in diminishing zooplankton, which results in decreases in the entire marine food chain. Yet, the GW community and scientific community continue to refer to iron fertilization research as "dumping". Strangely, this seems to jibe with their unsubstantiated, but prevalent, belief that CO2 is a poison and therefore must be regulated through Carbon Taxes. I'm not much for using technological "quick fixes". I believe we must use EXISTING natural processes to restore any balance that may have been disrupted. The BP disaster is a prime example. Until they can get that well plugged, the focus must be on collecting and filtering as much contaminated water as possible. But the primary means of restoring the ecosystem will be by augmenting microbial digestion of those hydrocarbons. However, microbes deplete oxygen, therefore we must also augment the oxygen levels in those areas where the oil plumes are gathering. Hawk