Green Options

Technology can undoubtedly make the world a better place. Where, after all, would we be without the wheel, agriculture or email?

Still, there’s almost always a flipside to technological advances. The wheel improved not only travel, but warfare. Agriculture made food more reliable for humans … but also, eventually, helped give rise to confined animal feeding operations, the Gulf of Mexico’s Dead Zone and, for better or worse, the Hardee’s Thickburger. As for email? I have one word for you: Spam.

So when it comes to the fixes being offered for climate change, it’s wise to approach technology warily. Yes, in theory, we could erase our ever-growing greenhouse gas problem if we perfect carbon capture and storage … but that won’t eliminate the environmental degradation wrought by coal mining or the threat of peak oil. And, yes, more nuclear power might reduce our dependence on foreign oil … but it could only increase threats of sabotage or terrorism.

Even more troubling are the global warming “solutions” being offered by fans of geoengineering. This is the idea of seeding the oceans with iron to encourage plankton growth that absorbs carbon dioxide. Of course, too many nutrients in the ocean also cause algal blooms that suck up oxygen, making vast areas unlivable for marine species — again, think the Dead Zone. That’s why it was encouraging this week to hear one international organization come out against geoengineering experiments in the world’s oceans.

The International Maritime Convention (IMO), a United Nations agency with 167 member-states (including the U.S.) makes its primary focus maritime safety. This week, though, members of the IMO’s London Convention, a 1972 treaty on marine pollution, said they also have authority over geoengineering experiments at sea. Their “statement of concern” warned that, given our current knowledge of how ocean fertilization works, large-scale experiments of that nature “are currently not justified.”

Over my tenure as part of the Green Options network, I’ve brought you – more often than not – the gloomy side of global warming. Of course, I would say that there is no good side, but I’m trying to be a bit lenient here. As Green Options undergoes some changes, I’ll be writing primarily here at Planet Save.

And that works well right now, considering that Inez Fung, a professor of atmospheric sciences and co-director of the University of California, Berkeley, Institute of the Environment, has provided a link that has hitherto been ignored.

I’ve brought you stories on increased carbon emissions, our oceans not absorbing enough, rising levels, etc. The problem is, that there is a link between all of these that is scary, and we’ve just sort of missed it.

Until recently, our lovely Earth has had two major carbon sinks. First of all, being made up of 70% water was a definite bonus. It would absorb the carbon, draw it down, and lock it away from the atmosphere. But as the waters have warmed, and there has been a lack of mixing between the upper warmer layer and the lower colder layer, the oceans ability to absorb carbon decreases.

The second problem that many may not be aware of is photosynthesis. And by “be aware of”, I mean, probably forgot from your primary school days. We all know that forests are massive carbon sinks, and with being trimmed back like a bad mullet and suffering from increasing drought across the planet, the amount that is absorbed through photosynthesis is also diminishing.