What would we do without whale modelers?
A century of whaling may have released more than 100 million tonnes - or a large forest's worth - of carbon into the atmosphere, scientists say.
Whales store carbon within their huge bodies and when they are killed, much of this carbon can be released.
US scientists revealed their estimate of carbon released by whaling at a major ocean sciences meeting in the US.
Dr Andrew ["the calculations I've done are really just the start!"] Pershing from the University of Maine described whales as the "forests of the ocean".
Dr. Pershing and his colleagues from the Gulf of Maine Research Institute calculated the annual carbon-storing capacity of whales as they grew.
"Whales, like any animal or plant on the planet, are made out of a lot of carbon," he said.
"And when you kill and remove a whale from the ocean, that's removing carbon from this storage system and possibly sending it into the atmosphere."
He pointed out that, particularly in the early days of whaling, the animals were a source of lamp oil, which was burned, releasing the carbon directly into the air.
"And this marine system is unique because when whales die [naturally], their bodies sink, so they take that carbon down to the bottom of the ocean.
"If they die where it's deep enough, it will be [stored] out of the atmosphere perhaps for hundreds of years."
Or, we could just grind them into feed for fur farms and market the coats as carbon offsets.
(h/t Sean)
Just imagine the carbon released when every guilty white socialist commits suicide for the sake of Gaia. She will be letting out one long therapeutic belch.
I've got to quit laughing at this stuff and take it seriously. Another box of kleenex gone.
And to make it more interesting for me I found in my husband's tree the first mate on the Essex.
BELCH? No. Methinks the noise coming from Mother Nature will emanate from the other end!
If this is another ploy to get the Japs to stop killing whales (NOT killing according to the Japs ... called "research") then may I suggest a more effective route. If North America threatened to stop buying Japanese CARS because of their whaling the Jap navy would sink their own whaling fleet.
I also wonder how many TONS of CO2 will be given off when GORE decomposes. It might be a good idea to drop him into the Marianas Trench NOW and save us all.
if he is truly interested in whale populations, as his lawyer (apologies to hst), i would suggest he spend more time closing the loopholes in the japanese "research" clause as opposed to writing up applications for grants and then producing his take on nostradamus.
to pursue his interests - he might try releasing a documentary entitled "swimming with the right whales" or as an alternative "do the right thing."
We hunters are fully aware of the carbon released when we shoot a deer,elk or moose, and being the environmentally conscious people that we are, restrict our hunting activities to only a couple of months a year.
I have not gone hunting since last October, and neither has anyone else I know. I wonder if we should be given some sort of environmental award.
Wow- they're starting to pull them out of the rejected pile...
I think I've got the solution to a couple of pesky problems. What we have to do is pay a bunch of scienticians to identify and sequester the older whales. These whales will then be fed nuclear waste, until they die. The dead whales will then gently glide to the bottom of the ocean and never ever decompose.Problems solved.Heck,we could even feed them other undesirable stuff like PCB's,freon,ladies from the View,people with hyphenated names,the possibilities are endless.
Did they calculate the amount of carbon captured when a human being grows up and then is buried six feet under thereby storing the carbon in the ground or in a lead-lined coffin? This argues for an aggressive expansion of the human population. Baby bonuses all round!
Damn. Sorry,I didn't think that last great idea through to the end. All the dead overfed whales would undoubtedly cause the oceans to rise. Back to the drawing board.
OMG
The BBC is run by kindergarten kids.
Must ... protect ... BBC ... pension... plaaaaaargh
Junk science at its finest.
They are "scienticians" indeed.
MORE IMPORTANTLY: Kevin and the boys just got us our 13th medal!
Not sequestering my carbon when I die. Going for the cremate and hope I smoke like a burning tire.
It's OK we aren't burning all those trees to render the whales. Nature loves balance. When they don't sink to the bottom Gaia uses dynamite.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbidGgVDdaI
I think when Kate has to explicitly specify that the article is not The Onion, really nothing more needs to be said.
Not only is it impossible to do satire on our modern Lefties, its getting difficult to even mock them much beyond pointing and laughing.
I think if The Onion just shamelessly stole the entire article from the BBC and posted it, not so many people would notice.
Chopping down a tree and storing it's carbon as a 2X4 in the wall of your house would do the same thing.
So, is drowning gophers a good thing or a bad thing?
I have a few comments:
1) Limey journalists are very credulous. We should
begin shipping them Canadian beer so they can
rot their brains (further) with good stuff
instead of the warm dishwater they habitually
drink. Then perhaps they could distinguish
between scientists doing research and
"scientists" coming up with creative grant
proposals.
2) I do hope that "Dr." Pershing is not a
descendant of the redoubtable "Black Jack" Pershing.
3) As another reader notes, the BBC story can
be used as an argument for increasing the human population,
which is surely against Labour policy.
4) From the point of view of biomass, mammals
are incredibly unimportant (from any figures that
I've seen). Most organisms are bacteria,
cyanobacteria, or archaea, in almost any habitat,
to such an extent that their
aggregate mass is larger than the aggregate
mass of any other class of living organism.
5) If one treats carbon as a toxic chemical,
given that we, seals, trees, polar bears,
and fuzzy little rabbits are all made out
of it, and carbon dioxide which we exhale
and which green plants need, we enter a
wonderland in which any weirdness is possible.
I would suggest, though, that funding be sought for a project in which
BBC "journalists" and the bearded jackasses
which they call "scientists" are all compacted
into diamond, thus sequestering their carbon
likely until the sun goes nova. It would be
expensive but it would be worth it.
Grant
[......Wow- they're starting to pull them out of the rejected pile...]
I shall just file this with the moose/cow farts...
Same.....different pile........
"out of the atmosphere perhaps for hundreds of years"
I don't think so Tim.
Did he forget about the food chain?
Decomposing whales create protein for single celled creatures, moving up to plankton, to small fish, up to bigger fish, then eaten by a seagull that then craps all over the esteemed Dr. Pershing's head and theory, leaving both to rot under the light of day.
It's the circle of life, time for you to get off.
Is the only problem with dumping raw sewage in the ocean, that they are not releasing it deep enough?
Does anyone need empirical evidence that the whales will not take hundreds of years to decompose and release the carbon?
How many bodies were seen when the Titanic was discovered?
Answer: none.
Dr. Pershing's theory does not meet reality.
To paraphrase Maria Muldaur, it ain't the meat, its the ocean.
They really don't want to kill Tillikum do they...sadest excuse to date. I feel embarrassed for real scientists everywhere.
Is it just me or have these enviroscamsters left behind their preaching to the choir certitude and are now starting to sound like imitation lawyers. Every little eco-propaganda gem they now utter seems to be qualified and defended with a bunch of weasel words to give them an out in the slight chance some nonbeliever gets on their case.
Speaking of AGWhoreming, my recent interest in acquiring any Apple product has evaporated now that I am aware of Job's "Directors Choice" mentality.
If Sea World offs Tillikum will they get credit for creating a carbon sink?
Syncro
Or saving seals?
Syncro
Al the frozen fish
[.....How many bodies were seen when the Titanic was discovered?
Answer: none.]
Yeah that occurred to me....likely because THE BODIES FLOATED and despite the cold water didn't sink. Ships recovered bodies for burial in Nova Scotia.
These researchers are creative but not very thorough----dead whales wash up all the time. Dead fish, dead whales, dead polar bears, dead idiots.....
I would like to point out to the enviro-nazis that if it weren't for the discovery of oil virtually all whales would have been wiped out by the early 1900s. Prior to colonel drake's drill bit hitting rock oil in what for the time were economically significant quantities, the primary source of quality lighting oil was produced from whales. Refining kerosene from crude ended that industry and saved the whales.
The extraction and refining of oil and natural gas into the nearly countless applications it has today is the single greatest industrial achievement of humankind. The envirosocialists should recognize and appreciate that before they declare their use to be verboten.
Syncro - quite possible - I heard that certain farmers are getting paid not to plant things or ranchers being paid not to raise certain animals. Insanity - we live in an Onion world.
@Sasquatch, I do not think everybody lost on the Titanic ended up doing the Leonardo DiCaprio ending.
Any body that ends up in Davey Jones locker decomposes, even the floaters eventually sink as the gases of aerobic decomposition leave the bodies and they become waterlogged, one with the ocean. Examination of other wrecks of ships and airplanes at deep depths do show anaerobic decomposition. I think the Professor is theorizing the size of a whale will just decrease the decomposition rate.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, fish feeder to fish food.
Maybe it's a twofer. Rationality and productivity sacrificed at the alter of stupidity.
Syncro
So whaling has put 100 million tons of CO2 in the atmosphere in the last 100 years. Well, according to Al Gore,
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/02/27/quotes-of-the-day-281/
humans put 90 million tons into the atmosphere every 24 hours. The moral of the story is of course that killing whales is a veritable p*ss hole in a snow bank compared to what we humans do. Go ahead, kill as many whales as you like. I hear they're good with tartar sauce.
Damn it bob c, now I'm hungry.
Has any of these dick brains thought of the consequences of not enough co2?
All You Ever Wanted To Know About CO2 But Were Afraid To Ask
It is important to note that if any one of the nutrients required for photosynthesis is in short supply, that single shortage will be the limiting factor for the photosynthesis rate. Typical aquariums are deficient in both CO2 and iron (Fe) with respect to optimum levels. Various "trace element" products are available to the hobbyist to meet iron and other trace element requirements. CO2 injection can be used to boost the concentration of CO2 in the aquarium.
http://aquaticconcepts.thekrib.com/Co2/co2_faq.htm#T00
Not to mention greenhouses, Gunney99. Just ask your local gro-op entrepreneur.
http://www.greenhousemegastore.com/CO2-Generators/products/1025/
DOCTOR Pershing? If nothing else, this bit of drek is a fine illustration of how little a PhD means these days.
From the point of view of the biosphere, the principal quality of a forest is that it turns water, sunlight and carbon dioxide into sugar/starch/cellulose and oxygen, while the principal quality of a whale is that it turns oxygen and sugar into carbon dioxide. So from the get-go, calling whales the "forests of the ocean" is unutterably stupid and ascientific.
Even were one to accept this argument, these morons have not addressed the fact that the amount of "carbon" that a whale "sequesters" is miniscule compared to the amount of "carbon" that it makes from oxygen over its life-cycle. In other words, from a point of view of not adding more horrible, horrible carbon to the atmosphere, we would be much better off if there were no whales at all. If animal-origin carbon is indeed a problem, then the obvious solution is extinction.
By the way, that goes for every last animal species on Earth - a point driven home by the lunatic British women who have been sterilizing themselves, sacrificing their ovaries to Gaia.
Although presumably the exterminationist Greeniacs will make an exception for aerobic bacteria, as without them, their precious trees will have no source of CO2, and brainless monocellular organisms don't drive SUVs. Except in Hollywood.
This man reminds me of a hypochondriac who searches his body constantly for signs of peril. Every ache, every skin blemish, every belch heralds death. No development is harmless. In the case of AGW believers, every activity of man brings our demise closer. No act is innocent. We must all just freeze in place at once and do nothing more for all eternity. Then, maybe, just maybe, we will somehow survive.
So who will get the Danny Glover award for being the first moronic celeb to claim the Chile earthquake was caused by AGW?
Sean Penn is my bet
"A century of whaling may have released more than 100 million tonnes - or a large forest's worth - of carbon into the atmosphere"
Quack quack quack, if it quacks like a duc chances are it's more junk science
Just as plausible:
Whales poop and pee in our nice clean oceans and a century without whaling would have produced islands of rotting whale poop - just sayin'
DaninVan : Also as encouraged by a Ministry Of Agriculture Ontario factsheet.
http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/facts/00-077.htm
Just for the record, when things die, they release their carbon. If burned (or eaten) it is released as CO2. If allowed to decay and rot, a good fraction is released as methane (CH4), which has about 70 times the global warming potential.
Kill the old whales. Burn the old growth forests.
I had no idea that whales were magic creatures who, when their time on this world was over, hitch a ride with the elves to Valinor, taking their carbon with them.
"The BBC is run by kindergarten kids."
Nope, they are "in" on the carbon trading thingy, to the tume of $8.2 BILLION through their pension fund. So, they stand to profit from all those hot air credits being created right out of thin air. Thickening it, I suppose. That will be the next problem - thinning the air, because ith's become tho thick.
Whales also exhale CO2 while alive, rather unlike trees.
So the hockey stick was really a harpoon?
A "Save The Whales" shill hitches his wagon to the dead AGW horse and the BBC whips it with the science lash.
All seems in order here.
Have you ever eaten baby beluga whale meat? The skin is quite disgusting to the unrefined palate, but the meat has a taste like fine steak. So whale carbon can efficiently be turned into human carbon, as our friends and allies the Japanese, are doing. They should sink the Sea Shepherd to the bottom of the ocean to offset their carbon. See the South Park episode on the subject. It's a riot.
Whales being removed from the ocean without being replaced means that the oceans get lighter. Therefore, a consensus of scientists tell us, when the ocean gets lighter the earth gets lighter, and being lighter starts to float upward and away from the sun (like a balloon). This causes global cooling, which causes global warming.