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April 27, 2010

Report: Save the Whales and They'll Save Us from Global Warming

By Marc Sheppard

Need more proof that Global Warming is the problem to environmentalists’ solutions?  Take a whiff of this. 

Researchers from the Australian Antarctic Division have announced that increased whale excrement in our oceans could help fight global warming by encouraging the growth of carbon dioxide-consuming algae.  It seems the iron-rich droppings help spark blooms of phytoplankton, which in turn help regulate the oceans’ carbon sink capabilities.   

Researcher Steve Nicol claimed that a larger population of baleen whales in the Southern Ocean would do the trick, but admitted that just how much excrement it would take to have any significant impact remains unknown.   I suspect you’re way ahead of my response to that line, so I’ll save some typing.

But all manure is not created equal by greenie standards.  In fact, up until now, animal waste has been right up there with that of internal-combustion engines and coal-fired power plants on the environmentalists’ Feces List. 

Indeed, everyone from IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri to the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) insists that the feces and farts emanating from (primarily raised for food) cows and pigs exacerbate global warming by nature of their high methane content.

So just when is animal dung good for the planet and when is it bad?

Were I a cynic, I’d question the apparent relationship between the green position on man’s interaction with a creature and the virtues of that which issues from its hind quarters.  Consider this -- enviros would have us all refrain from consuming meat, and claim that the waste-products of the meat we eat are bad.  On the other hand, those same enviros implore us to stop killing whales, and their brown waste is suddenly green gold.

And talk about timing.  The whale-poo announcement comes just weeks prior to an International Whaling Commission meeting to consider new open-sea limit proposals that environmental groups believe would open the door to killing thousands of whales which have been protected for 25 years.   

Would someone please light a match?


 
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