In 2007, I was talking with Mike Sheppard, leader of the US National Petroleum Council Carbon Capture and Sequestration subgroup regarding the conclusion of his report to the US government. I was very skeptical that humanity would be capable of the effort needed to avoid the catastrophic consequences of not acting in carbon sequestration. Here is his report, and now to follow is the just issued report on the ominous danger of inaction. The only thing I can do is just to give one more bit of advertisement to the voices who want to save us all.
Rogers, A.D. & Laffoley, D.d’A. 2011. International Earth system expert workshop on ocean stresses and impacts. Summary report. IPSO Oxford, 18 pp. Conclusion:
The participants concluded that not only are we already experiencing severe declines in many species to the point of commercial extinction in some cases, and an unparalleled rate of regional extinctions of habitat types (eg mangroves and seagrass meadows), but we now face losing marine species and entire marine ecosystems, such as coral reefs, within a single generation. Unless action is taken now, the consequences of our activities are at a high risk of causing, through the combined effects of climate change, overexploitation, pollution and habitat loss, the next globally significant extinction event in the ocean. It is notable that the occurrence of multiple high intensity stressors has been a prerequisite for all the five global extinction events of the past 600 million years (Barnosky et al., 2009)
As Mike just reminded me again, climate engineering (mitigating global warming by, for example, increasing the earth's reflection) can't solve the problem of ocean acidization. It's born of CO2, not of heat. That's the problem to address, and there is no time left.
Wake up.
Bertrand du Castel
Rogers, A.D. & Laffoley, D.d’A. 2011. International Earth system expert workshop on ocean stresses and impacts. Summary report. IPSO Oxford, 18 pp. Conclusion:
The participants concluded that not only are we already experiencing severe declines in many species to the point of commercial extinction in some cases, and an unparalleled rate of regional extinctions of habitat types (eg mangroves and seagrass meadows), but we now face losing marine species and entire marine ecosystems, such as coral reefs, within a single generation. Unless action is taken now, the consequences of our activities are at a high risk of causing, through the combined effects of climate change, overexploitation, pollution and habitat loss, the next globally significant extinction event in the ocean. It is notable that the occurrence of multiple high intensity stressors has been a prerequisite for all the five global extinction events of the past 600 million years (Barnosky et al., 2009)
As Mike just reminded me again, climate engineering (mitigating global warming by, for example, increasing the earth's reflection) can't solve the problem of ocean acidization. It's born of CO2, not of heat. That's the problem to address, and there is no time left.
Wake up.
Bertrand du Castel
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