Our Oceans are Under Attack

I wonder if this implies ice algae is more active at consuming co2 than sea algae or land plants, which would replace it when the ice disappears? I would have assumed the opposite, maybe wrongly.

 

David Attenborough - Humans are plague on Earth

Humans are a plague on the Earth that need to be controlled by limiting population growth, according to Sir David Attenborough.


The television presenter said that humans are threatening their own existence and that of other species by using up the world’s resources.


He said the only way to save the planet from famine and species extinction is to limit human population growth.


“We are a plague on the Earth. It’s coming home to roost over the next 50 years or so. It’s not just climate change; it’s sheer space, places to grow food for this enormous horde. Either we limit our population growth or the natural world will do it for us, and the natural world is doing it for us right now,” he told the Radio Times.


Sir David, who is a patron of the Population Matters, has spoken out before about the “frightening explosion in human numbers” and the need for investment in sex education and other voluntary means of limiting population in developing countries.


“We keep putting on programmes about famine in Ethiopia; that’s what’s happening. Too many people there. They can’t support themselves — and it’s not an inhuman thing to say. It’s the case. Until humanity manages to sort itself out and get a coordinated view about the planet it’s going to get worse and worse.”

 

The Prime Minister has defended the New Zealand dairy industry's record on climate change issues in the wake of a landmark agreement between the world's biggest two polluters.
John Key is a guest at the G20 meeting in Brisbane, where leaders of the world's largest economies have gathered.
Global warming has become a hot topic at the meeting, which follows closely from a major new climate agreement between China and the United States, announced at Apec last week.
In an interview on TVNZ's Q+A programme this morning, Mr Key said New Zealand could not set the agenda for global climate change talks.
And he dismissed claims the dairy industry was not playing its part in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Mr Key said methane and nitrous oxide from pastoral agriculture were major contributors to New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions.
"If the behaviour you're trying to change is something you have no answer for and the farmer can't control - the methane and nitrate emissions from the animal - then aren't you just really putting a tax on them for the sake of it?" Mr Key said this morning.
Methane emissions came largely from farting and burping sheep and cattle and from their waste. Nitrous oxide emissions came from urine, dung and nitrogen fertiliser.
The dairy industry was currently exempt from some obligations under the emissions trading scheme but Mr Key said dairy farmers were paying in other ways.
"I think we are making them pay indirectly. So they pay through their diesel charges or their other charges," he told Q+A.

Mr Key said rising food production was expected in years to come, so world leaders needed a "pragmatic" and technological solution to climate change.

"Now if you can't actually practically change something then obviously you need to find another way through, and that is technology, and a lot of money is being put [into] that. And this is a long-term issue."

Mr Key said clean, renewable energy sources provided a greater share of New Zealand's overall power use than in many other developed countries.

The Green Party said Mr Key's comments showed New Zealand was one of the world's "problem children" when it came to addressing climate change.

"John Key this morning repeatedly claimed New Zealand's increasing emissions were okay, and ruled out measures that would cut New Zealand's emissions," Greens co-leader Russel Norman said.

"A briefing from the Ministry for the Environment released last week states emissions have increased by a quarter since 1990, and are projected to rise substantially in the time to 2050," Dr Norman said.

"While some of his ministers are climate science deniers John Key claims he is not. But he's denying that New Zealand's increasing emissions are a problem," Dr Norman added.

"We need a plan to meet our targets, instead of a plan to increase emissions."

Dairy gaint Fonterra said agriculture was responsible for 47 per cent of New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions. The Ministry for Primary Industries said methane and nitrous oxide together accounted for almost half New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions.

 

Can you provide a reference to a scientific study supporting your assertion that the plastic trash collecting in the ocean's gyres is beneficial and not harmful? Or did you just pull that opinion out of your keister?

On the web page you referenced there are two other links of interest:

Ocean health in 'downward spiral' | PHYS.ORG

World's plastic devoured by ocean organism | PHYS.ORG

By the way, all these abundant mesopelagic fish found in the gyres (like the lanternfish or myctophids mentioned above) are rather small fish that are not easy to catch or desirable to eat.


Lanternfish | Wikipedia

 

My understanding is that the ice algae is not important for its ability to consume CO2, but rather because it is a major food source at the bottom of the food chain.

Ice alga | Wikipedia

 

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/ocean-plastic-is-home-to-a-surpisingly-large-variety-of-life

It also just makes logical sense. People look at plastic waste as well waste.
Animals here are using the waste and the bio mass is increasing. It is pure speculation how they stretch plastic as becoming destructive, they just do not know that it will lower fish numbers. The plastic has been there for many years and the fish population is thriving. The ocean is no longer a desert.

More plankton, more food for bigger things.

They will talk of toxins, they will look for the bad, meanwhile the fish numbers are discovered to be much much higher than thought. More food, more fish. Life adapts. When favorable growth conditions exist, biomass increases.

 

As I suspected, selective quoting from the research plus a bit of fabrication for good measure. The study you quote only studied diatoms which are attaching to bits of floating plastic, and they found that certain species of diatoms were apparently adapting well to living attached to plastic, even breaking the plastic down.

But you selectively ignored what else they said in the article:

Furthermore, I was unable to find anywhere where the article says that "biomass is increasing", or that there is "more food, more fish."

We know that "life adapts". That's Evolution 101. We also know that life can die out in a harmful environment. That's Evolution 102.

As I quoted earlier from the Wikipedia article on Laternfish:

If you think that eating plastic is benign, please feel free to eat a cup of plastic chips in place of your Cornflakes each morning.

 

Tracking Fishy Behavior, From Space | The Atlantic

 

The world's rivers, lakes, and oceans are suffering the severe consequences of modern industrial mercury pollution, according to a new UN report, which also warns the health of the entire planet and its inhabitants face a perilous future if serious action is not soon taken.

Hundreds of tons of mercury from sources such as coal-fired power plants, gold mining and other industrial processes have seaped into the world's water systems over the past century, dramatically increasing health and environmental risks for people all over the world, according to the Global Mercury Assessment 2013 released Thursday by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

“Millions of people around the globe are exposed to mercury on a daily basis, in artisanal mining and elsewhere," said Juliane Kippenberg, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. "There is a dire need for stronger prevention and treatment of mercury poisoning.”

Mercury, which accumulates in fish and climbs up the food chain, poses the greatest risk of nerve damage to pregnant women, women of childrearing age and young children, according to the AP.

Over the past 100 years, mercury in the top 100 meters of the world's oceans has doubled, according to the study. Waters deeper than that have seen mercury concentrations increase by 25 percent, and rivers and lakes contain an estimated 260 metric tons of mercury that was previously held in soils.

Lugris notes that because mercury pollution that occurs today will have long-lasting health impacts for years to come, it is "imperative that we act now to reduce future emissions and releases to the maximum extent possible in order to stop adding more to the global environment."

The Guardian reports that the health effects of mercury poisoning include "brain damage and the loss of IQ points in unborn children, injuries to kidneys and heart, and results in tens of billions of dollars in healthcare costs every year in the US alone."

 

I see on my flight ticket I just brought shows how much carbon emission is used for each person in a 1 hour trip.

NON STOP BANGKOK TO UDON THANI

FLIGHT(S) CALCULATED AVERAGE CO2 EMISSIONS IS 50.60 KG/PERSON

SOURCE: ICAO CARBON EMISSIONS CALCULATOR

http://www.icao.int/environmental-protection/CarbonOffset/Pages/default.aspx
http://www.icao.int/environmental-p...ethodology ICAO Carbon Calculator_v7-2014.pdf

 

For reference, burning a gallon (3.8l) of gasoline (no ethanol) produces 19.64lbs (8.9kg) of CO2, and burning a gallon of diesel produces 22.38lbs (10.1kg) of CO2.

http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=307&t=11

 

G20 commits to fight climate change; Russia isolated over Ukraine | Chicago Tribune

 

Its a shame the USA do not spend as much on the Green House Climate fund as they do with their nuclear weapon funds or the other war machines.
Its not only time they will destroy our children's future with pollution but also at any day with a nuclear war.

Due to the aging of the current force and plans to replace each leg of the nuclear triad – land and submarine-based missiles and bomber delivered nuclear weapons - costs for the nuclear mission are expected to grow substantially to approximately $500 billion over the next 20 years

 

The report also indicates that $1 trillion is a conservative estimate for the total cost over the next three decades. Defense procurement programs often go as much as 50 percent over budget, and estimates do not consider the cost of dismantling weapons systems or paying out benefits to retired military personnel.

 

The fact that around 842 million people worldwide continue to go hungry. Each year, 3.1 million children die of starvation - an average of one child every ten seconds. In total, seven million people die each year of hunger.

Ending world poverty

To end extreme poverty worldwide in 20 years, Sachs calculated that the total cost per year would be about $175 billion. This represents less than one percent of the combined income of the richest countries in the world.
In fact, this cost is 0.7% of the total income of the 30 countries who comprised the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)