The Oceans are dying - take a deep breath

[kach22i]

Sea Sick - CBC Sunday Night News, Video
http://www.cbc.ca/sunday/2009/05/051709_1.html

If you have ever kept a fish tank and had to regulate the PH balance you will understand what is happening to our oceans right now.

Like that old Sci-Fi movie called Soylent Green, the plankton are dying, and along with it the ocean and every other breath of oxygen we take.

This is science, not political.

 

[twich54]

Serious stuff for sure, we learned alot about this recently on an Alaskan cruise.

 

[wink]

I'll bet the Blue Whales won't like that very much since they eat 4 million plankton a day.

 

[mcmd]

Because life tends to thrive in the most unlikely of places, I'm not sure the alarmism is warranted. Assuming arguendo that it is, might rising CO2 levels be the reason why China has 100 nuclear reactors on order?

And if so, shouldn't we follow suit?

 

[twich54]

And if so, shouldn't we follow suit?

Your state is preparing as we write for a third reactor to come on line @ the Salem facility.

Requlations, studys, and various other NRC requirements are ungodly exspensive.

 

[mcmd]

Your state is preparing as we write for a third reactor to come on line @ the Salem facility.

I was unaware of this... Good, 'cause we could sure use the power!

 

[risabet]

Because life tends to thrive in the most unlikely of places, I'm not sure the alarmism is warranted. Assuming arguendo that it is, might rising CO2 levels be the reason why China has 100 nuclear reactors on order?

And if so, shouldn't we follow suit?

Yea, we definitely should. New reactor technology is being developed such as the High-Temperature Reactor, Modular Helium reactors, etc. But all of these are years away. Until the waste issues of current technology is decided definitively, we should tread lightly though nuclear is definitely something we need to develop. We may be in the age of Peak Oil already.

 

[FISH_MAN]

the oceans are hardly understood its to bad that we choose to fight amongst ourselves while we could spend that energy learning how to harness the unbelievable power of mother nature.hopefully by the time we have realized our error we will not have already begun down the path of permanent extinction.

 

[risabet]

. . . begun down the path of permanent extinction.

Extinction is the fate of every species. Our problems are that we are aware of our potential extinction, can cause our own demise and that of many other species as well. On a more positive note, the Earth will continue along happily without us and rather quickly (geologically speaking) erase any sign of our presence on the planet.

 

[FISH_MAN]

Extinction is the fate of every species

this may not be entirely true. If we can live long enough to colonize other planets we may be able to avoid this perhaps even branching out to other systems that certainly exist in space.

 

[Craig]

...the Earth will continue along happily without us and rather quickly (geologically speaking) erase any sign of our presence on the planet.

Recommended watching: "Life After People" on the History Channel.

Speaking of this phenomena. There is a fascinating TV documentary series on the "History Channel" called "Life After People". It is about what happens to particular areas of Earth if humans were to suddenly vanish from the planet.

Apparently, the earth will slowly and eventually revert back to it's own natural state but some strange things will happen along the way. In some cases one would never know humans ever existed. Of course, once a species is extinct it's never coming back.

The next episode is on tonight at 10:00 PM Eastern Time. I think it's on weekly. You can find previous episodes on iTunes.

 

[risabet]

Recommended watching: "Life After People" on the History Channel.

Speaking of this phenomena. There is a fascinating TV documentary series on the "History Channel" called "Life After People". It is about what happens to particular areas of Earth if humans were to suddenly vanish from the planet.

Apparently, the earth will slowly and eventually revert back to it's own natural state but some strange things will happen along the way. In some cases one would never know humans ever existed. Of course, once a species is extinct it's never coming back.

The next episode is on tonight at 10:00 PM Eastern Time. I think it's on weekly. You can find previous episodes on iTunes.

Exceptionally good television, the whole family watches it.

 

[kach22i]

I caught the last five minutes of an ABC climate crisis program last night. It looked at two paths our planet could go (the life of Lucy), the current path and an alternate energy path.

The current path is not nice at all, guess I hope to die before the "big change" takes effect.

 

[mcmd]

The current path is not nice at all, guess I hope to die before the "big change" takes effect.

...and eventually our sun goes supernova and there goes mother earth, no matter what we do! :devil:

 

[kach22i]

...and eventually our sun goes supernova and there goes mother earth, no matter what we do! :devil:

Don't worry, we will all be dead by then - party now like it's 1999.

 

[mcmd]

Don't worry, we will all be dead by then - party now like it's 1999.

AGREED! :rocker:

 

[risabet]

this may not be entirely true. If we can live long enough to colonize other planets we may be able to avoid this perhaps even branching out to other systems that certainly exist in space.

The thought of humans spreading across the galaxy and universe is somewhat frightening

 

[Pcar928fan]

If you saw a program on ABC then it MUST be completely true and unbiased! HA!

I am not saying we should not conserve where we can or change habits where possible or look for alternative energy sources. I am just saying that after watching a program on the history of the planet the other day (it was 2 hours) people are merely a blip on the planetary time scale and have such a small impact that our arrogance and delusional self righteousness are laughable!

The earth has been completely covered in ice TWICE, there have been at least SIX impacts of such size that could and did cause the extinction of nearly every living thing on the planet and guess what... The continents are still moving and there are still plenty of BIG things floating around waiting to impact us again.

Not to mention the potential for a near earth super-nova emitting a HUGE gamma ray bust that WOULD IN FACT kill everything if directed towards us...

 

[twich54]

I believe today is World Ocean day.....something like that, anyways, awareness of and concern for our planets oceans IS important.

 

[aussersein]

False Vacuum

For my money, the doomsday scenario that most dramatically brings the cold indifference of the universe into stark relief is a vacuum metastability event. Check it out on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_vacuum

All of this planet's problems would be solved very quickly.

Clay