Posted on 08/20/2008 11:03:49 AM PDT by cogitator
Human activities are cumulatively driving the health of the world's oceans down a rapid spiral, and only prompt and wholesale changes will slow or perhaps ultimately reverse the catastrophic problems they are facing.
Such is the prognosis of Jeremy Jackson, a professor of oceanography at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, in a bold new assessment of the oceans and their ecological health. Jackson believes that human impacts are laying the groundwork for mass extinctions in the oceans on par with vast ecological upheavals of the past.
...
"All of the different kinds of data and methods of analysis point in the same direction of drastic and increasingly rapid degradation of marine ecosystems," Jackson writes in the paper.
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To stop the degradation of the oceans, Jackson identifies overexploitation, pollution and climate change as the three main "drivers" that must be addressed.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...
I have a solution involving a professor with short lengths of rope around his ankles, some 45 lb. barbell weights, and the ocean. Human population decreases slightly, and the fish get fed.
A ping...of DOOMAGE!
We can completely replace petroleum by growing bioengineered saltwater algae on about 3% of the open ocean surface. Not only does algae convert CO2 into O2 creating a closed loop it removes pollution from the air and water. There will be an explosion of new ocean life because algae is the beginning of the ocean food chain.
I am a conservative...and, IMO, part of being conservative is being a good steward of the environment. There is so much we do not know about God's creation. We should be careful in our care for it.
NOTE: Before I get all the nasty replies...this does not mean that I support an expensive, economy killing green agenda...it just means we need to find the right balance.
I caught one of them endangered Jewfish last fall...must’ve been over near the bridge to Marco.
Small one...maybe 5 pounder...and U-G-L-Y.
They already printed the blueprint for the outcome (3 years ago):
[ScienceDaily (Mar. 1, 2005) — Washington, D.C. -– Volcanic eruptions in Siberia 251 million years ago may have started a cascade of events leading to high hydrogen sulfide levels in the oceans and atmosphere and precipitating the largest mass extinction in Earth’s history, according to a Penn State geoscientist.
That warming, however, could set off a series of events that led to mass extinction. During the end-Permian extinction 95 percent of all species on Earth became extinct, compared to only 75 percent during the K-T when a large asteroid apparently caused the dinosaurs to disappear.
Volcanic carbon dioxide would cause atmospheric warming that would, in turn, warm surface ocean water. Normally, the deep ocean gets its oxygen from the atmosphere at the poles. Cold water there soaks up oxygen from the air and because cold water is dense, it sinks and slowly moves equator-ward, taking oxygen with it. The warmer the water, the less oxygen can dissolve and the slower the water sinks and moves toward the equator.
“Warmer water slows the conveyer belt and brings less oxygen to the deep oceans,” says Kump.
The constant rain of organic debris produced by marine plants and animals, needs oxygen to decompose. With less oxygen, fewer organics are aerobically consumed.
“Today, there are not enough organics in the oceans to go anoxic,” says Kump. “But in the Permian, if the warming from the volcanic carbon dioxide decreased oceanic oxygen, especially if atmospheric oxygen levels were lower, the oceans would be depleted of oxygen.”
Once the oxygen is gone, the oceans become the realm of bacteria that obtain their oxygen from sulfur oxide compounds. These bacteria strip oxygen from the compounds and produce hydrogen sulfide. Hydrogen sulfide kills aerobic organisms.
Humans can smell hydrogen sulfide gas, the smell of rotten cabbage, in the parts per trillion range. In the deeps of the Black Sea today, hydrogen sulfide exists at about 200 parts per million. This is a toxic brew in which any aerobic, oxygen-needing organism would die. For the Black Sea, the hydrogen sulfide stays in the depths because our rich oxygen atmosphere mixes in the top layer of water and controls the diffusion of hydrogen sulfide upwards.
In the end-Permian, as the levels of atmospheric oxygen fell and the levels of hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide rose, the upper levels of the oceans could have become rich in hydrogen sulfide catastrophically. This would kill most the oceanic plants and animals. The hydrogen sulfide dispersing in the atmosphere would kill most terrestrial life.]
Seems like the planet has a way of protecting itself from all its rude parasites.
“The Rise of the Slime”
Sounds like what’s been going on in Washington DC for the last twenty years.
I don’t have time here to list the many ways in which I’ve been told that the Earth is going to die from some kind of human activity or another since I was born in 1956. Suffice it to say I’m still here, and I’m not eating Soylent Green.
I teach this to my students, too, as a way of innoculating them to news stories like this.
Of course, it is fun to imagine the end of the world, just as long as you get to survive.
Me thinks Old Agitator is really Al Gore.
You state that you have semi-retired. Please do us a favor and make it complete.
But cogitator said to me in his own words;
[I am the very model of a modern-day “librarian”. Haven’t you read my profile, Opie?
I’m very well acquainted too with matters mathematical,
I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical,
About binomial theorem I’m teeming with a lot o’ news-—
With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse...]
What will be will be and a bunch of Archie Bunkers, can’t do anything about it. (you thought I was going to say queerbaits, didn’t you?)
Below the link I've excerpted a relevant section.
"As noted by the GMFMC (1990) and the SAFMC (1990), fishing pressure on goliath grouper throughout the 1970s and 1980s impacted the abundance and density of the species in both the Gulf of Mexico and the South Atlantic; total U.S. commercial goliath grouper landings are presented in Table 2. Commercial landings in the Atlantic Ocean peaked in 1977 with 72,000 pounds (Table 3). In the Gulf of Mexico, commercial landings increased in the late 1970s, and continued to increase until their eventual decline in the mid- to late-1980s (Tables 4-6). Because of fishing pressure in the commercial and recreational sectors, the abundance and density of goliath grouper significantly decreased throughout its range. In many cases, the species was completely eradicated from areas such as North and South Carolina for over a decade."
"Porch et al. (2003) summarized interviews with fishermen and divers who had been active in southern Florida since the 1960s or earlier. Specifically, the nine interviewees were asked their perception on the reduction in goliath grouper populations from the time they first started fishing to the time of the harvest prohibition in 1990. The average percent reduction reported was 86 percent, with a standard deviation of approximately 13 percent (Porch et al., 2003)."
Surface ocean pH has declined about 0.1 pH units (globally) since accurate measurements commenced. That's "acidification", not "acidified".
Algae can be converted to biofuel.
Doesn't sound like a bad idea, if it can be made commercially viable.
You flatter me, sir. But at least I'm not fatter.
Same old BS, just a different year.
‘Acidified’ is a loaded term that implies that the water is turning acidic. If the liquid were in the lab, ‘pH lowered’ or ‘neutralized’ would be used.
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