Bush plan to reduce global warming could devastate sea life

[deanerk]

I am a salt water reef aquarium enthusiast and I found a link to this story (http://www.scienceblog.com/community/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2062) at a forum on reefing and a very interesting discussion was started about it. A lot of the forum members are very conservation minded and were quite upset about this.

Just thought I'd throw it out here for other perspectives.

From the article:
"A Bush Administration proposal to mitigate the effects of global warming by capturing carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and injecting it into the deep sea could have disastrous effects on sea life, according to a University of Rhode Island researcher. Brad Seibel, assistant professor of marine biology at URI, said that while the Administration's plan is still in the experimental stage, enough is already known about the biology of marine organisms to say with certainty that the plan will harm the marine environment in significant ways."

[DanishDynamite]

Bush doesn't give two hoots about Global Warming, Aquarium owners or the environment in general. He's an oil-man, for Ed's sake! And a politician. Given that any deleterious effects won't be significant within his term or terms, he couldn't care less.

[Grammatron]

Originally posted by DanishDynamite
Bush doesn't give two hoots about Global Warming, Aquarium owners or the environment in general. He's an oil-man, for Ed's sake! And a politician. Given that any deleterious effects won't be significant within his term or terms, he couldn't care less.

Actually, more than likely none of this would be implemented for another 8-10 years and even then whoever is in office would be able to veto it.

[deanerk]

Why 8-10 years? And if it's to be 'implemented' in 8-10 years, won't we need to start funding the project now?

[BTox]

Originally posted by DanishDynamite
Bush doesn't give two hoots about Global Warming, Aquarium owners or the environment in general. He's an oil-man, for Ed's sake! And a politician. Given that any deleterious effects won't be significant within his term or terms, he couldn't care less.

Ah yes, the tired old stereotypes.. Republican's want to destroy the environment. :rolleyes:

[deanerk]

Didn't take long to make this a partisan issue, did it? So the finger pointing begins...

[DanishDynamite]

Originally posted by BTox


Ah yes, the tired old stereotypes.. Republican's want to destroy the environment. :rolleyes: "Sad old stereotypes" indeed. You are a prime example.

[BTox]

Originally posted by DanishDynamite
"Sad old stereotypes" indeed. You are a prime example.

Excellent... stage two, personal attack. Par for the course!

[DanishDynamite]

Originally posted by BTox


Excellent... stage two, personal attack. Par for the course! Nothing personal. Just stereotyping.

[Chaos]

Just because it´s a stereotype, it doesn´t mean it isn´t true.

[BTox]

Originally posted by Chaos
Just because it´s a stereotype, it doesn´t mean it isn´t true.

Righto. Most stereotypes are true, aren't they?

Well, enough of this foolishness. Back to lab... I'm working on a new personal care product that has the wonderful benefit of killing every fish in the waste water stream..

[DanishDynamite]

Originally posted by BTox


Righto. Most stereotypes are true, aren't they?

Well, enough of this foolishness. Back to lab... I'm working on a new personal care product that has the wonderful benefit of killing every fish in the waste water stream.. Happy tinkering.

[deanerk]

Sorry to bring this topic to this forum. Guess I expected a little intelligent conversation about the issue. Silly me.

[DanishDynamite]

Originally posted by deanerk
Sorry to bring this topic to this forum. Guess I expected a little intelligent conversation about the issue. Silly me. Sad, but true.

If you were looking for an intelligent discussion of the scientific background for said proposal, you should have posted in the Science forum. :)

[BTox]

Indeed. A much more intelligent and thoughtful crowd hangs out there. ;)

[Tricky]

I doubt if the CO2 injection plan would work, but I'm willing to take a look at it. There are, in fact, vast areas of the ocean which are more or less deserts, without enough nutrients to support much sea life. If the CO2 were injected into deep, low mixing zones, it might have minimal impact, or at least less impact than having it out in the atmosphere, and it might not. As Grammatron pointed out, we've got time to do some research before a decision is made.

But we know that anything we do has an environmental impact. We need to avoid egregious assaults on the environment, but at the same time recognize that the "cure" also may have unforseen problems.
***
Now as to the "evil Republicans" and the partisanship of this issue, I think it can be said with lots of justification that G. W. Bush has been one of the worst things that has ever happened to the environment. Ronald Reagan (and James Watt, the Interior Secretary) were just as bad if not worse.

But this is not to condemn all Republicans. Heck, Richard Nixon created the EPA and gave it a fair amount of power. In contrast, Clinton was no friend of the environment. In his last few days, he created a lot of environmental initiatives, which Bush immediately threw out, but if he had really cared, he wouldn't have waited until the last few days.

[American]

"... and republicans will take away Medicare and Social Security from senior citizens."


We are very tired of you people. But you still wonder why you've been losing.

[BTox]

Originally posted by American
"... and republicans will take away Medicare and Social Security from senior citizens."



Surely that one is true. Everyone knows Republicans hate seniors almost as much as the environment. The chances of this congress passing and Bush signing a Medicare reform bill are slim to none...

[peptoabysmal]

Originally posted by deanerk
Sorry to bring this topic to this forum. Guess I expected a little intelligent conversation about the issue. Silly me.

You started this topic with Bush ... blah ... blah ... blah. What did you expect, other than another partisan battle? Haven't you seen the latest issue of Time? You love him or hate him, there is no middle ground, according to Time.

I remember reading in a journal some time ago about a method of embedding CO2 in some kind of salts and dumping that into the ocean, where it would remain relatively stable in that form and even promote reef growth. Anyone else remember reading that one? The way it was explained, it seemed like a very good plan.