Just not in the ways that the headlines scream…
Natural sinks still sopping up carbon
Ecosystems haven’t maxed out ability to absorb fossil fuel emissions
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/340710/title/Natural_sinks_still_sopping_up_carbon
I have seen a lot of research on coral bleaching and other signs of coral destruction and one thread that seems to be quite in common is their proximity to human activity. Meaning that reefs that are far away from human activity tend to be essentially un-impacted by ‘global warming’. Some like to claim that these reefs are on the razor edge of death and are kicked over by a small nudge of human activity. I like to think that they are quite robust and can easily deal with adverse condition, however that capability is overwhelmed by human activity. Humans dump an amazing amount and variety of nasty things into our water ways and almost all that shit winds up in the oceans. We barely understand ocean currents (at the lowest level they are as predictable (or shall I say, as unpredictable) as the weather), so if someone happens to dive on a site with dying coral on a day where the water happens to be crystal clear, that diver might think that the crystal clear water was the norm and isn’t aware that those conditions might be quite rare.
I recall watching a very interesting show on these giant starfish off of Australia on the great barrier reef. These things are massive and have (as adults) virtually no predators and are systematical stripping the coral off the coast. Long term studies have revealed that the cause is actually agriculture inland, sometimes 10s to 100s of miles inland. The agriculture results in runoff which results in plankton blooms at just the exact right time to allow the starfish babies to grow through their vulnerable period to get large enough to be (pretty much) immune from predators. So, human activity is resulting in the destruction of the reef, but it ain’t global warming! The activity is also very difficult to alter (even more difficult than altering our usage of fossil fuels; a man has got to eat!).
Humans have also largely stripped the globe of forest, thus releasing a huge amount of carbon stored therein (few people seem to realize that England used to be heavily forested, of course that was thousands of years ago). Human impact is sure changing things, but it is far from the simple burning of fossil fuels. While it might help a wee bit to cut back or even eliminate the burning of fossil fuels, that alone won’t do a damn thing about saving the biodiversity of our planet.
As a btw, I read recently that East of the Mississippi is actually being reforested in comparison to the last couple of centuries. It seems that so much more food can be produced on such little land that huge tracts of agricultural land has been reverting to forest (through the natural succession, so don’t go around looking for forests of 300 year old oaks, we got another 250 years to wait). What we need is a sustained way to produce even more food with even less land so even more land can be returned to nature. I hope to contribute to that via my aquaculture efforts (and might even chip in with biofuels if I can make the time), yet even with those humungous changes to our society, we will still be raping and pillaging the ecosystem and will still cause destruction of our planet.
So, until someone finds a way to make a buck (a lot of bucks) by saving the planet, the planet, she ain’t gonna be saved!
