This article below may be hard to read since it’s written in Australian – words like tonnes, extra and unnecessary vowels, Esses where we would use Zees (Zeds?) and so forth.
The logic is even harder to follow, but apparently the positive effects of whale poo can counteract the negative effects of the flatulence from the world’s dairy cows, thereby reversing Global Warming and saving the planet. Ergo: Eating whale is bad, but eating krill is good, so long as you crap in the ocean.
Of course, neither the whale crap or the cow fart study takes into account all the other things going on in this world of ours, volcanoes for example - Nearly 20 million tons of sulfur dioxide were injected into the stratosphere by Mt. Pinatubo's 1991 eruptions, and dispersal of this gas cloud around the world caused global temperatures to drop temporarily (1991 through 1993) by about 1°F (Or 0.5°C in Aussie ). Based on that, shouldn’t we expect a little cooling courtesy of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano on Iceland which is still spewing enough crud into the atmosphere to cause problems today.
Then again, what do I know? I always thought those Greenpeace folks were just a bunch of interfering assholes who deserved to have their boats rammed and sunk.
Whale poo key to healthy oceans
Andrew Darby
April 23, 2010 - 3:00AM
EVERY little bit helps. Research has revealed the potential value of whale poo in mitigating climate change through its recycling of iron.
Australian Antarctic scientists looking into ways to increase the amount of CO2-absorbing algae in oceans have traced the passage of iron through whale digestive systems and have found that whales take up iron when they consume shrimp-like krill.
Before commercial whaling began early last century, whales consumed about 190 million tonnes of krill per year, converting this into about 7600 tonnes of iron-rich faeces, which encouraged the growth of carbon-absorbing algae, according to Steve Nicol, of the Australian Antarctic Division.
''This monumental fertilising effort means the whales may have been responsible for recycling about 12 per cent of the current iron content in the surface layer of the Southern Ocean,'' Dr Nicol said.
''The baleen whales' faecal iron concentration is about 10 million times that of Antarctic seawater.''
He said about 24 per cent of the total iron in the Southern Ocean surface water is currently stored within krill body tissue.
''The most recent estimates of krill biomass in the Southern Ocean is 379 million tonnes, storing about 15,000 tonnes of iron.''
The research suggests increasing populations of baleen whales and krill would have a positive effect on the Southern Ocean ecosystem and improve the ocean's ability to absorb CO2.
This story was found at:
http://www.theage.com.au/environment/whale-watch/whale-poo-key-to-healthy-oceans-20100422-tfvc.html
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