Regarding the recent 40% decline in pankton
Submitted by pjo on Thu, 03/01/2012 - 21:05Regarding the recent 40% decline in plankton:
While the earth is over 3.5 million years old, the current ecology of the planet is not and it takes far less than 50 years for us to cause a species to go extinct. While I see the possible link to temperature I'm not convinced it is the only cause. We are having a shocking effect on our planet and it makes perfect sense to me that the smallest creatures with the shortest life cycles would be affected MOST dramatically.
We have caused so many species to become extinct that I have no doubt that our pollution, whether its changing the temperature or directly poisoning the plankton, has a dire effect on them.
Just for example, cars cause an amazing amount of pollution, directly and indirectly, so it doesn't surprise me that the plankton decline would coincide with the popularity explosion of the automobile or the industrial and "tech" industries.
