Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 08/14/2008 3:28:30 PM PDT by Zakeet
Human activities are cumulatively driving the health of the world's oceans down a rapid spiral, and only prompt and wholesale changes will slow or perhaps ultimately reverse the catastrophic problems they are facing.
Such is the prognosis of Jeremy Jackson, a professor of oceanography at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, in a bold new assessment of the oceans and their ecological health. Publishing his study in the online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Jackson believes that human impacts are laying the groundwork for mass extinctions in the oceans on par with vast ecological upheavals of the past.
He cites the synergistic effects of habitat destruction, overfishing, ocean warming, increased acidification and massive nutrient runoff as culprits in a grand transformation of once complex ocean ecosystems. Areas that had featured intricate marine food webs with large animals are being converted into simplistic ecosystems dominated by microbes, toxic algal blooms, jellyfish and disease.
Jackson, director of the Scripps Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation, has tagged the ongoing transformation as "the rise of slime." The new paper, "Ecological extinction and evolution in the brave new ocean," is a result of Jackson's presentation last December at a biodiversity and extinction colloquium convened by the National Academy of Sciences.
"The purpose of the talk and the paper is to make clear just how dire the situation is and how rapidly things are getting worse," said Jackson. "It's a lot like the issue of climate change that we had ignored for so long. If anything, the situation in the oceans could be worse because we are so close to the precipice in many ways."
(Excerpt) Read more at scrippsnews.ucsd.edu ...
I AM THE SLIME by Frank Zappa
I am gross and perverted
Im obsessed n deranged
I have existed for years
But very little had changed
I am the tool of the government
And industry too
For I am destined to rule
And regulate you
I may be vile and pernicious
But you cant look away
I make you think Im delicious
With the stuff that I say
I am the best you can get
Have you guessed me yet?
I am the slime oozin out
From your tv set
You will obey me while I lead you
And eat the garbage that I feed you
Until the day that we dont need you
Dont got for help...no one will heed you
Your mind is totally controlled
It has been stuffed into my mold
And you will do as you are told
Until the rights to you are sold
Thats right, folks..
Dont touch that dial
Well, I am the slime from your video
Oozin along on your livinroom floor
I am the slime from your video
Cant stop the slime, people, lookit me go
But that's just me.
Sounds to me like the problem will take care of itself in a few years. If we are all dead then who will be causing any more “global warming” or “climate change”?
I thought we all came from "slime".
So it must be a good thing.
Right?
...hello?...
INTREP
The ultimate solution would be to just be rid the earth of mankind to restore the earth.
Seems a bit extreme though. Although it has been discussed by environmentalists.
We may be using the ocean for algae based bio-fuels at some point.
There are two approaches to everything. The eco-nuts always insist that we must make do with less, lower our expectations and prosperity, abandon technology and stop having fun.
Sensible ecologists and technologists always look to our having more, leading better and more prosperous lives, devising technological solutions to problems, spending less and having an optimistic future.
Importantly, only this latter group have ever proven themselves right. The eco-nuts are invariably wrong, but importantly, to them it doesn’t matter, because they don’t really care about the ecology. It is just an excuse for them to get what they really want, which is money and power over other people.
And with that power, they want to force us to have less and suffer more. This is because they equate prosperity and success with moral failure in others, but not themselves. They do not enjoy a good meal knowing that others enjoy their meals as well. And they do not enjoy a soft mattress knowing that others also sleep well. It is a sickness of the soul.
But that being said, the future is bright, because innovation and technology have tremendous prospects for making our lives better and giving us more prosperity, while at the same time saving us money and making life better for all.
New technologies are showing signs of making water desalinization much better, using only a quarter of the energy it does right now. This means that people on the coast would no longer need to get their fresh water in competition with those who live inland. So everybody gets more, and cheaper.
All of that algae and slime can be converted to biofuels!
Dems never see a way to make lemonade, they just want us all to suck on lemons!
everyone knows that widespread use of tobacco wiped out life on earth 150 yrs. ago. move over nitwit, let some other nitwit have a chance. Y2K
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