Comments on: Udall: Green is the new red, white, and blue http://talkradionews.com/2009/03/udall-green-is-the-new-red-white-and-blue/ The Talk Radio News Service is the only information news service dedicated to serving the talk radio community. Sun, 21 Mar 2010 08:28:16 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: russ http://talkradionews.com/2009/03/udall-green-is-the-new-red-white-and-blue/comment-page-1/#comment-42684 russ Sun, 08 Mar 2009 23:12:16 +0000 http://talkradionews.com/?p=23761#comment-42684 While the Senate Committee on Energy and Environment rightfully works toward emission reduction strategies the real problem is not tomorrows CO2 but yesterdays CO2. We must turn our attention to the 1000+ gigatonne carbon bomb, two centuries of our accumulating CO2, still mostly in the air as it takes centuries for airborne CO2 to equilibrate with the rest of the planet. Today only 500 gigatonnes of yesterdays CO2 has reached the oceans and Revelle’s Rule tells science that 80% of CO2 ends up there. The rest of that deadly already airborne carbon bomb will continue to explode with devastating effects in the ocean for more than a century even if we were to stop the emission of all new CO2 today. No amount of switching to alternative energies, recycling, bicycling, or “clean coal” will tend to the first carbon bomb. Sure lets reduce the size of the second bomb but first things first. Here's how! ONLY through ocean replenishment and restoration we can enlist as allies the most powerful force of nature on earth - the ocean plants, the bloomin’ plankton. But the high and rising CO2 in the air is not only responsible for ocean acidification, more troublesome it has fed green plants on land making them greener, bushier, and helped them live longer making what we call "good ground cover." Ground cover improvements have reduced the amount of dust blowing in the winds by 1/3 in just a few decades. For the oceans dust in the wind brings vital mineral micro-nutrients to the oceans, that terrestrial Yin is just as important as rain, the Yang, that blows from sea to land nurturing plant life. Since earth and ocean observing satellites went aloft 30 years ago we've measured vast decimation of ocean plant life, 10% and more is gone from the Southern Ocean, 17% from the N. Atlantic, 26% from the N. Pacific, and 50% from the tropical seas. Just yesterday, those few decades ago, the ocean pastures grew more verdant consuming 4-5 billion tonnes more CO2 each year than today. So today, as stewards of this blue planet, we must replenish ocean micro-nutrients to restore the ocean pastures. If we manage, and we surely can, to bring the ocean plankton blooms back to levels seen only 30 years ago those plants will annually convert billions of tonnes of CO2 into ocean life instead of acid ocean death. Those verdant restored ocean pastures will deliver 7 times the CO2 reductions called for by the Kyoto Protocol. To begin, and we must without delay, the work requires only tens of millions, to succeed in a matter of a decade requires only a few billions. In the bargain the restored oceans will feed everything from tiny krill to the great whales and everything and everybody in between - fish, seabirds, penguins, seals and us. Replenish and restore the oceans without delay. Read more at www.planktos-science.com While the Senate Committee on Energy and Environment rightfully works toward emission reduction strategies the real problem is not tomorrows CO2 but yesterdays CO2. We must turn our attention to the 1000+ gigatonne carbon bomb, two centuries of our accumulating CO2, still mostly in the air as it takes centuries for airborne CO2 to equilibrate with the rest of the planet.

Today only 500 gigatonnes of yesterdays CO2 has reached the oceans and Revelle’s Rule tells science that 80% of CO2 ends up there. The rest of that deadly already airborne carbon bomb will continue to explode with devastating effects in the ocean for more than a century even if we were to stop the emission of all new CO2 today. No amount of switching to alternative energies, recycling, bicycling, or “clean coal” will tend to the first carbon bomb. Sure lets reduce the size of the second bomb but first things first. Here’s how!

ONLY through ocean replenishment and restoration we can enlist as allies the most powerful force of nature on earth – the ocean plants, the bloomin’ plankton. But the high and rising CO2 in the air is not only responsible for ocean acidification, more troublesome it has fed green plants on land making them greener, bushier, and helped them live longer making what we call “good ground cover.” Ground cover improvements have reduced the amount of dust blowing in the winds by 1/3 in just a few decades. For the oceans dust in the wind brings vital mineral micro-nutrients to the oceans, that terrestrial Yin is just as important as rain, the Yang, that blows from sea to land nurturing plant life. Since earth and ocean observing satellites went aloft 30 years ago we’ve measured vast decimation of ocean plant life, 10% and more is gone from the Southern Ocean, 17% from the N. Atlantic, 26% from the N. Pacific, and 50% from the tropical seas. Just yesterday, those few decades ago, the ocean pastures grew more verdant consuming 4-5 billion tonnes more CO2 each year than today.

So today, as stewards of this blue planet, we must replenish ocean micro-nutrients to restore the ocean pastures. If we manage, and we surely can, to bring the ocean plankton blooms back to levels seen only 30 years ago those plants will annually convert billions of tonnes of CO2 into ocean life instead of acid ocean death. Those verdant restored ocean pastures will deliver 7 times the CO2 reductions called for by the Kyoto Protocol. To begin, and we must without delay, the work requires only tens of millions, to succeed in a matter of a decade requires only a few billions. In the bargain the restored oceans will feed everything from tiny krill to the great whales and everything and everybody in between – fish, seabirds, penguins, seals and us.

Replenish and restore the oceans without delay. Read more at http://www.planktos-science.com

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