19
A NEW DISCOVERY DISCREDITS GLOBAL
WARMING THEORY
Roger Revelle was the
founder of the modern “greenhouse science.”
Before his death in 1991, he cautioned against supporting any measures to
prevent global warming because there were too many gaps in our understanding of
how the climate systems work.
The recent discovery of a marine microbe
that has a profound effect on climate illustrates the wisdom of Revelle’s caution. It was only 15 years ago that two
oceanographers, Sallie W. Chisholm and Robert J. Olsen, first discovered the
existence of these tiny microbes as they sampled sea water using a flow
cytometer with a laser beam. Sallie Chisholm named them prochlorococcus
[pro-chloro-coccus]. The significance of this discovery is just
beginning to sink in to the scientific community. Says a recent issue of the Scientific
American,
“Prochlorococcus has a major impact on climate because of
its sheer abundance, up to 20,000 cells per drop of sea water.” “The microbe’s
dominance of the seas shocked the oceanographic community. ‘It is hard to
believe we overlooked something so important for so long,’ says Richard T.
Barber of the Duke University Marine Laboratory.” (November 2003).
The December issue of the Scientific
American calls them “the ocean’s invisible forest,” “exerting an influence
on this planet every bit as profound as the forests on land.” “They are the
smallest and most numerous photosynthetic organism known and arguably the most
plentiful species on earth.”
The performance of this newly discovered
organism is nothing short of staggering.
It is now estimated that the oceans produce
80% of the world’s oxygen, and 50% of this oxygen is
produced by prochlorococcus. That adds up to 40% of
the world’s oxygen!
Prochlorococcus absorb carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere and convert the carbon into an organic form to feed the tiny
planktonic life of the oceans. In this process they sequest
as much carbon from the atmosphere as all the vegetation on earth.
Here
is one obvious reason why the predicted build up of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere has not happened. And why all the global warming predictions, based
on computer modelling, have had to be revised downward again and again. Despite
all the fossil fuel that is being converted into carbon dioxide by human
activity, the prochloroccus are at work to neutralize
these human impacts on the earth. They
are not the only microbes doing this. It is now estimated that microbic life in the soil and in the oceans make up two thirds of the
Earth’s biomass. And all of it works to keep the carbon cycle in balance.
Creating carbon sinks by planting more trees
may make us feel good about doing our bit to control global warming, but in
comparison with the prodigious contribution of all this microbic life, our bit
– including the Kyoto Protocol – may be compared to a mere breaking of wind in
a thunderstorm.
The Kyoto Protocol binds the signatory
nations to wind back carbon dioxide emissions to pre-determined levels. More
and more scientists, especially climatologists, are saying that
For example, Dr. Tom Wigley,
a senior scientist at the National Centre for Atmospheric Research (USA), found
that if the Kyoto Protocol were fully implemented by all signatories, it would reduce
temperatures by a mere 0.07 degrees Celsius by 2050, and O.13 degrees by
2l00. Such an amount is so small that
ground-based thermometers cannot reliably measure it.
Even the apologists for
Bjorn Lomborg (The
Skeptical Environmentalist) is opposed to the
Kyoto Protocol on the grounds that the same amount of money spent in the
developing world would give every child clean water to drink (saving more than 3
million lives a year), enough food to eat and a basic education. On
humanitarian grounds alone, it is hard to answer Lomborg’s
argument, especially when it cannot be shown that