Plankton, base of ocean food web, in big decline

[Sporkman]

Plankton, base of ocean food web, in big decline

By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein, Ap Science Writer – Wed Jul 28, 1:01 pm ET

WASHINGTON – Despite their tiny size, plant plankton found in the world's oceans are crucial to much of life on Earth. They are the foundation of the bountiful marine food web, produce half the world's oxygen and suck up harmful carbon dioxide.

And they are declining sharply.

Worldwide phytoplankton levels are down 40 percent since the 1950s, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100728/ap_on_sc/us_sci_declining_plankton

[Lucradia]

Little less than half actually. Land produces 3,000 more units of 10^10 kg of oxygen.

See article about the cycle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_cycle

And we have already known what happens when these tiny guys aren't around, at least since the 1970s... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_zone_%28ecology%29

[Nick_Jinn]

Yes, Between deforestation and poisoning the oceans, we are doing more to cause global warming that fossil fuels alone are....if the earth was fully forested and the oceans healthy, we could adsorb the increase in green house gases.....without the forests and oxygen producers in the sea....not all plankton mind you....we take a bigger hit from the burning of fossil fuels.

[Lucradia]

Yes, Between deforestation and poisoning the oceans, we are doing more to cause global warming that fossil fuels alone are....if the earth was fully forested and the oceans healthy, we could adsorb the increase in green house gases.....without the forests and oxygen producers in the sea....not all plankton mind you....we take a bigger hit from the burning of fossil fuels.

There are a few ways to cause global warming to stop. Some of them are, but not limited to:

- Spraying Sulfur into the atmosphere via a suspended hose (this has been discussed, and is possibly undergoing serious consideration in the U.S government.

- Volcanoes; when Mt. St. Helens blew its top, the united states land mass cooled about 2-5 degrees until a year or two ago.

The first one I mentioned can be controlled more, and can be turned on for a steady amount of time.

[handy]

The excellent documentary "Addicted to Plastic", shows (amongst other things) the huge effect that our collective lifestyles are having on the life that relies on the oceans.

[ctyc]

Well were screwed... Very disturbing stuff thanks.

[RiceMonster]

Perhaps the Krabby Patty forumla will be safe now?

http://www.unitedspongebob.com/planktonbio.jpg

[PuddingKnife]

This essay is important to read and reflects the mentalities that allow people to pass this kind of information as merely a symptom of our cultures progress:

http://www.ishmael.org/Education/Writings/The_New_Renaissance.cfm

[Nick_Jinn]

This essay is important to read and reflects the mentalities that allow people to pass this kind of information as merely a symptom of our cultures progress:

http://www.ishmael.org/Education/Writings/The_New_Renaissance.cfm


Like genocide is merely a symptom of becoming a strong and powerful nation.

[utnubuuser]

Stopping oil and plastic is not easy, but you can do it. - simply refuse it. Basically the same idea as switching to an free/libre OS, - it might not be easy at first, but you can do it,

Revelations 8:8
The second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned into blood,

I'm no bible-thumper, but the parallels are disturbing...

[wewantutopia]

This essay is important to read and reflects the mentalities that allow people to pass this kind of information as merely a symptom of our cultures progress:

http://www.ishmael.org/Education/Writings/The_New_Renaissance.cfm




+100,000,000,000 etc. to Daniel Quinn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Nick_Jinn]

Stopping oil and plastic is not easy, but you can do it. - simply refuse it. Basically the same idea as switching to an free/libre OS, - it might not be easy at first, but you can do it,


I would love to jump on the bandwagon for alternative transportation and alternative products....corn plastic and hybrid electric vehicles......biofuels are GREAT if you are recycling oil, but kind of a trade off if you are using poor countries food supply and making it a more valuable commodity (resulting in poverty and starvation).

Being a poor student, it can be hard to make the change without some extra money.


When I was a bit younger I used to be a squatter living in the forest of the UCSC camp grounds, and ride my bike everywhere or the bus which was natural gas. I was probably living a lot greener back then.

[Lucradia]

Stopping crude oil and polycarbonate is not easy, but you can do it. - simply refuse it. Basically the same idea as switching to an free/libre OS, - it might not be easy at first, but you can do it,

Fixed for you. Plexiglass is also plastic if you say polycarbonate.

Snapple may have glass bottles in the United States, by the way, but everywhere else has plastic Snapple bottles, sad to say.

[smellyman]

The huge garbage patch in the pacific ocean.



over 7 million tons of plastic
spanning an area twice the size of texas
destroying our oceans
and harming our food chains

LINK - youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnUjTHB1lvM)

[spoons]

The huge garbage patch in the pacific ocean.




LINK - youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnUjTHB1lvM)

Can't someone just... scoop it up?

[Sporkman]

Can't someone just... scoop it up?

...using spoons?

[spoons]

...using spoons?

Giant spoons.

[Lucifer The Dark]

These Environazis never stop trying do they, the world IS NOT going to end because of us, anything we do or anything have done in the past.

It's a CON!! plain & simple.

[V for Vincent]

These Environazis never stop trying do they, the world IS NOT going to end because of us, anything we do or anything have done in the past.

It's a CON!! plain & simple.

I'm normally not one to provoke, but people like you disgust me. "Environazis"? Do you seriously believe that pumping poison into the air and dumping it into the oceans is innocuous? That we just happen to be in a mass extinction? I don't believe the world is going to end. I won't make predictions about the effects of global warming, and I'm for nuclear research. But if we don't adapt, we will make the world a far worse place to live in. Worse for everyone, because a large, healthy ecosystem has tremendous economic value. The main reason ecosystems across the world are in decline, is because small groups are making short term gains at the detriment of society at large. I'm sure you won't take my word for it, but the gross product of ecosystem services by far surpasses the gross global product.

I'd recommend you check out the concept: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecosystem_services

[PuddingKnife]

I'm normally not one to provoke, but people like you disgust me. "Environazis"? Do you seriously believe that pumping poison into the air and dumping it into the oceans is innocuous? That we just happen to be in a mass extinction? I don't believe the world is going to end. I won't make predictions about the effects of global warming, and I'm for nuclear research. But if we don't adapt, we will make the world a far worse place to live in. Worse for everyone, because a large, healthy ecosystem has tremendous economic value. The main reason ecosystems across the world are in decline, is because small groups are making short term gains at the detriment of society at large. I'm sure you won't take my word for it, but the gross product of ecosystem services by far surpasses the gross global product.

I'd recommend you check out the concept: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecosystem_services

I think that the Earth is king of all stabilizers. It is naive to imagine that humans can pump poisons into it without any kind of reaction. However, I dont believe that the Earth is in any kind of danger from humanity.
I think humanity is in danger from itself. We can change our environment to the point that ecosystems change or die, which eventually will affect us and other living organisms. But long after the last human takes their last breath, the Earth will still be there, and be fine.

[Nick_Jinn]

We are losing species at an incredible rate. Its not just humans who are suffering. Life requires a delicate balance. We could go the way of mars like the vast majority of other planets have.....or we could wipe out most life and it could take billions of years to get to where we are now.....and we only have so many billions to reach out and populate new planets before the Sun engulfs our planet.....so yeah, there are consequnces to ruining the environment.

[forrestcupp]

Perhaps the Krabby Patty forumla will be safe now?

http://www.unitedspongebob.com/planktonbio.jpg

Lol. Darn it. You beat me to it. Great minds think alike. ;)

[handy]

There exist 5 HUGE garbage patches in our oceans: north & south Pacific & Atlantic, the 5th is in the centre of the Indian. These exist due to the effect of gravity on these large expanses of water. It causes them to have a lower level in these 5 places, which causes 5 huge slow moving whirlpools to exist. These whirlpools in turn accumulate plastic (80% of plastics do NOT float).

One of the properties of all but a few plastics is that chemicals bond with it on contact. So the plastics in our oceans & waterways accumulate the chemicals of our industry which inevitably ends up on our waterways either due to irresponsible laws that allow it, due to run-off from our non-organic agricultural practices, spills of chemicals, oil what have you & the leaching of chemicals from rubbish dumps, house foundations treated for termites & many other sources.

Many plastic beads (the way they are created & transported in tanks & the like to the manufacturers of plastic products) end up in the ocean also. These along with so many pieces of our plastic waste are eaten by fish, birds & other life which is of course having the effect of dramatically poisoning the food chain.

People who are studying some of these effects are finding that cancers, other diseases & birth defects have become much more prevalent in birds & fish, the cause being traced to the ever increasing toxicity of our oceans.

The surface water has 6 times more plastic than plankton.

[RiceMonster]

Lol. Darn it. You beat me to it. Great minds think alike. ;)

I was wondering if anyone would get it! :D

[Dustin2128]

Short of directed orbital bombardment, nothing we can do currently will permanently damage the planet. If we wiped ourselves out by changing the climate so that it's unsuitable for us, everything will be equalized again with huge dinosaur era-like plant growth due to carbon. If we burned every drop/gram of fossil fuels on this planet, it'd become like Pandora. Pandora was a healthy planet, but humans couldn't leave the base without gas masks.

[smellyman]

Short of directed orbital bombardment, nothing we can do currently will permanently damage the planet. If we wiped ourselves out by changing the climate so that it's unsuitable for us, everything will be equalized again with huge dinosaur era-like plant growth due to carbon. If we burned every drop/gram of fossil fuels on this planet, it'd become like Pandora. Pandora was a healthy planet, but humans couldn't leave the base without gas masks.

I guess what your saying is true, but do we want to make it unlivable for the next million years?

[Dustin2128]

I guess what your saying is true, but do we want to make it unlivable for the next million years?
No, I'm saying that we shouldn't do it. We can have a healthy planet with out that. My point was the planet can live on past any damage we cause, without us.

[handy]

No, I'm just saying that we shouldn't do this crap for the planet's sake, we should do it for our sake.

Doing things for our sake, & not taking into consideration (usually due to ignorance) that we are a small part of countless numbers of interrelated systems; a small part, which due to both our population size with its ignorant & careless greed, that is having an enormous effect on the entire biosphere. To the point where some project that at our current rate, we will have caused 50% of the fauna on earth to become extinct by the middle of this century, this in itself will have many, many effects that are beyond the experts ability to foresee due to both the aforementioned number & complexity of the interrelated systems that hold the web of life together on this planet.

Human history doesn't really have too much to be proud of thus far, though we do have the opportunity to turn many of the damaging things we do around. This starts with personal choices. Our only real hope is the growing number of people that are as they learn more, acting in a more responsible fashion & demanding the appropriate political responses. As the numbers grow the politics must react to the growing will for change.

[Dustin2128]

Doing things for our sake, & not taking into consideration (usually due to ignorance) that we are a small part of countless numbers of interrelated systems; a small part, which due to both our population size with its ignorant & careless greed, that is having an enormous effect on the entire biosphere. To the point where some project that at our current rate, we will have caused 50% of the fauna on earth to become extinct by the middle of this century, this in itself will have many, many effects that are beyond the experts ability to foresee due to both the aforementioned number & complexity of the interrelated systems that hold the web of life together on this planet.

Human history doesn't really have too much to be proud of thus far, though we do have the opportunity to turn many of the damaging things we do around. This starts with personal choices. Our only real hope is the growing number of people that are as they learn more, acting in a more responsible fashion & demanding the appropriate political responses. As the numbers grow the politics must react to the growing will for change.
I meant taking care of the planet for our sake- if we don't, the planet will live on, but we won't.
I also was talking about how such change is exactly what we need to avoid, we really shouldn't go changing this planet to a jungle world, even if it would be more diverse long-term, because it would be detrimental to the current diversity of species and established food web. Maintaining should be the ultimate ecological goal. Unless you want to see what the world looks like after our interglacial period comes to an end naturally. But in my mind, mass extinction, even natural mass extinction=bad.
/me needs to work on clarifying his ideas

[Nick_Jinn]

Whether you do it for yourself or for the squirrels, lets at least decide to do it. Its kind of important after all.

Our polices could affect us in meaningful or devastating ways in our very lifetime, not just hundreds or thousands of years down the road. This stuff matters.

[forrestcupp]

I guess what your saying is true, but do we want to make it unlivable for the next million years?

I'm only going to live for 80-100 years. To me, there's not much difference between "unlivable for 100 years" and "unlivable for the next million years." ;)

[JDShu]

No, I'm saying that we shouldn't do it. We can have a healthy planet with out that. My point was the planet can live on past any damage we cause, without us.

I've tried to make this point before. The ultimate goal is our survival and comfort. Of course this means that we need to take care of the planet because its all we have. We want to take care of the other living things on this planet because they're either central to our survival, or well.. we just like them and enjoy their presence.

[handy]

I've tried to make this point before. The ultimate goal is our survival and comfort. Of course this means that we need to take care of the planet because its all we have. We want to take care of the other living things on this planet because they're either central to our survival, or well.. we just like them and enjoy their presence.

It is most unfortunate that so many people can't see that all of life is connected & reliant on each other.

If we don't look after all of life on earth, we are not looking after the earth & are then just basically piling excrement in our own nest in a criminally irresponsible fashion.

Which is of course what we have been & are doing as exemplified by the massive number of species extinctions (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v403/n6772/full/403843a0.html) & the death & diseases suffered due to toxicity & clearing that is being experienced by members of most if not all species of flora & fauna.

The oceans & other waterways are in diabolically bad health (http://www.ted.com/talks/jeremy_jackson.html?utm_source=newsletter_weekly_2 010-05-05&utm_campaign=newsletter_weekly&utm_medium=email), as is the atmosphere (I'm not even going to start down that path). We are seriously extending deserts (http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/06/17/desertification.report/index.html) which could effect millions of people's lives, forcing them to move in the future. The ice caps are diminishing in many parts of the world, nearly half of the world population relies on the water coming out of the Himalayas. There is a water crisis (http://www.worldwatercouncil.org/index.php?id=25) now.

All of this is ultimately the result of humanities gross irresponsibility. Admittedly much damage has been done when we were ignorant of the effects of our actions, often when the populations were lower & the world was a much larger place.

People often take the position that all of this is not our fault it is natural. People that say that have done bugger all research on the topics & just choose to believe what makes them more comfortable, relieving them from any need to take some responsibility & therefore change some of their behaviour. They often are effected by their peer group as well.

Another position I often see is where people give up. They take the position that we can't do anything to change it so lets just get everything we can out of our own life whilst we can & let the future generations take care of themselves.

This last position, again shows ignorance of the facts due to either immaturity, laziness or just being plain self centred, which is a hugely common problem. Though I have more respect for the self centred person that admits that they are & doesn't try to hide it, at least they are being honest.

Anyone who truly wants to be a part of the solution will find ways very quickly indeed, particularly if they have an internet connection. The solution must come from the grass-roots, as industry on the whole doesn't like any changes that bring down the quarterly profits. Due to this governments are moving far too slowly.

[Nick_Jinn]

Ive worked with Earth First and also helped set up for many of the major protests in the US since 1999. I try to stay active and do what I can.