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How whales help cool the Earth
bbc ^ | Jan. 19, 2021 | Sophie Yeo

Posted on 02/01/2021 9:47:34 AM PST by PROCON

The world's largest animals are unusually good at taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

Seeing a whale stranded on a beach often provokes a strong reaction. It can make people curious – beached whales can do strange things, like explode. It can also be upsetting to witness a creature so magnificent in water reduced to lifeless blubber on land. What rarely registers, however, is the lost opportunity for carbon sequestration.

Whales, particularly baleen and sperm whales, are among the largest creatures on Earth. Their bodies are enormous stores of carbon, and their presence in the ocean shapes the ecosystems around them.

From the depths of the ocean, these creatures are also helping to determine the temperature of the planet – and it's something that we've only recently started to appreciate.

"On land, humans directly influence the carbon stored in terrestrial ecosystems through logging and the burning of forests and grasslands," according to a 2010 scientific paper. "In the open ocean, the carbon cycle is assumed to be free of direct human influences."

But that assumption neglects the surprising impact of whaling.

(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...


TOPICS: Chit/Chat; Pets/Animals
KEYWORDS: climatechange; co2; globalwarming; whales
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Besides the article's outright absurdity, it's an anti-whaling screed.
1 posted on 02/01/2021 9:47:34 AM PST by PROCON
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To: PROCON

Carbon, carbon, carbon, carbon...is that ALL these idiots think about day and night?

Well, I guess they only think about carbon when they have exhausted themselves thinking about how to destroy the family, religion, statues, school names, books, conservatives, free speech, history, white people, freedom and liberty.


2 posted on 02/01/2021 9:50:14 AM PST by ProtectOurFreedom (Democracy Dies With Democrats)
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To: PROCON

If whales didn’t swish their tails there would be no ocean currents. You know, sort of like the butterfly wing flapping story. 😱😂🙌


3 posted on 02/01/2021 9:50:53 AM PST by rktman (Destroy America from within? Check! WTH? Enlisted USN 1967 to end up with this?)
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To: PROCON

CO2 is a necessary element to life, it is not a dangerous pollutant.


4 posted on 02/01/2021 9:51:31 AM PST by Lurkinanloomin (Natural Born Citizens Are Born Here of Citizen Parents)(Know Islam, No Peace - No Islam, Know Peace)
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To: PROCON

They cool the earth because they’re hep cats, baby.


5 posted on 02/01/2021 9:54:33 AM PST by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer”)
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To: PROCON

Whales going around with sunglasses and berets writing poetry that doesn’t rhyme and smoking grass.


6 posted on 02/01/2021 9:56:09 AM PST by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer”)
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To: Larry Lucido; SaveFerris; Gamecock; Rebelbase
I wonder if any marine biologists were interviewed for this article?


7 posted on 02/01/2021 9:59:20 AM PST by PROCON (Molon Labe)
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To: PROCON

a 5 year old was paid to write this?


8 posted on 02/01/2021 9:59:48 AM PST by Vendome (I've Gotta Be Me https://youtu.be/wH-pk2vZG2M)
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To: PROCON

Whales, particularly baleen and sperm whales, are among the largest creatures on Earth. Their bodies are enormous stores of carbon, and their presence in the ocean shapes the ecosystems around them.

Whoever wrote this has zero sense of the scale of the Earth. Unless the number of whales in the ocean is in the billions, their presence or absence has zero effect on the Earth. There are, by the way, about 25,000 Blue Whales on the planet.


9 posted on 02/01/2021 10:01:58 AM PST by Flick Lives (“Today we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the Information Purification Directives.”)
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To: Flick Lives
Whoever wrote this has zero sense of the scale of the Earth. Unless the number of whales in the ocean is in the billions, their presence or absence has zero effect on the Earth. There are, by the way, about 25,000 Blue Whales on the planet.

It seems they are innumerate hacks.

10 posted on 02/01/2021 10:06:02 AM PST by marktwain (President Trump and his supporters are the Resistance. His opponents are the Reactionaries. )
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To: PROCON

Whales can be a carbon sink but for only a tiny fraction of fixed carbon dioxide.

If you take a look at diatom blooms they can often be as large as Britain and Ireland combined. That’s much more biomass and fixed carbon dioxide than all the whales in the ocean.

On the other side whales are neat to watch, but they cannot alter the weather.


11 posted on 02/01/2021 10:06:10 AM PST by packagingguy
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To: PROCON

Beached whales can do strange things, like explode.


Sure, when you fill them up with TNT like they did back then in Oregon.

As much as we need fact-checking, we even more need content checking.


12 posted on 02/01/2021 10:06:59 AM PST by Quality_Not_Quantity ("...for the sake of His name." Psalm 23:3)
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To: PROCON

I guess they didn’t take into account the massive methane gas expulsion when these giants let out a fart, or the carbon dioxide expulsion when they surface and blow all that carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Morons.


13 posted on 02/01/2021 10:07:08 AM PST by P-Marlowe (Freep mail me if you want to be on my Fingerstyle Acoustic Guitar Ping List )
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To: P-Marlowe

we went out of new port beach on Saturday whale watching with about a half dozen other vessels and the sure as hell were spewing crap in the ocean and atmosphere


14 posted on 02/01/2021 10:15:08 AM PST by al baby (Hi Mom Hi Dad)
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To: PROCON

This just in....
Get your Whale CO2 Blocking Glasses.
Just $19.99 per pair
But Wait ✋
If you order your pair of Whale CO2 Blocking Glasses you’ll get a 2nd pair absolutely free.
Just add a small fee for handling....


15 posted on 02/01/2021 10:17:12 AM PST by Pez149 (Time to stop saying a theory is fact....)
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To: Pez149

Quickly grant some mega taxdollars for another fishfart study!


16 posted on 02/01/2021 10:24:27 AM PST by Clutch Martin (The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.)
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To: PROCON

A big tree stores more carbon.

The author has a juvenile mind.


17 posted on 02/01/2021 10:28:04 AM PST by Mariner (War Criminal #18)
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To: Mariner

Yes whales on the beach explode, after you fill them with dynamite.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=zaFO1xNL-IQ&feature=emb_logo


18 posted on 02/01/2021 10:46:50 AM PST by algore
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To: PROCON
Whales are gassy alive or dead.


19 posted on 02/01/2021 10:54:13 AM PST by Rebelbase (COVID misanthrope)
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

By the way, fat people are carbon sequestering units also. Dieting should be outlawed. Fat people should get get its reductions, or carbon credits for saving the planet. Fitness freaks need to pay for damaging the planet.


20 posted on 02/01/2021 11:00:47 AM PST by D Rider ( )
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