h a l f b a k e r yClearly this is a metaphor for something.
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The oceans are getting acidified by too much CO2. This
inhibits calcification (structure of most organisms) in the
food
chain.
Biology is highly adaptive, and just takes time (millions of
generations).
By dumping excess CO2 (from a nearby power plant) into a
bay (chosen by unfortunate
lottery?) we can "look into the
inevitable future". But in this case, nature does all of the
heavy work. We just dump the CO2 & watch.
Unlike the few closed tank experiments, this lets us study a
whole local ecosystem, and how it reacts, not just in one
step, but over the course of many adjusted steps. (Death,
jellyfish, turtles, who knows before it's stable?)
While we study the effects, evolution kicks in and we might
be creating the right genes for future survival. We're giving
them more time to adapt.
It's the equivalent of, "If winter's coming, let's freeze one
town to see how they adapt before we all have to." Except
in this case, nature does all the work. We just dump the
CO2 & watch.
[link]
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Yeah, but the reason they do closed tank experiments is
because one bay isn't really just one bay, is it? It's the sea
that bay opens into, and the ocean upon which lies that
sea,
and the continent across that ocean, and the globe across
which that continent reclines... |
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...not to mention the delta which flows into that bay, and
the river from which it is formed, and the watershed that
runs into that river, and the rain that falls upon that
watershed, and the air stream which brings that rain, and
the globe around which it flows... |
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[Alterother] Yes: "Tug on anything at all and you'll
find it connected to everything else in the
universe." |
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But, a study on a whole bay (even with some I/O) is
much more of an interconnected system than just
one tank in a lab. And, the rest of the universe will
be impacted sooner or later, so we should study the
localized effects. |
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I would first build a massive building around the bay
and add as many species of ocean life as possible in an
attempt to better replicate how the earth will
respond. [+] |
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Perhaps you need to do this to Stavangerfjord. Create a great recycled plastic barrier between the waters some way into the fjord and the North Sea, and otherwisely condition the waters thusly divided. |
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It will always get stuck on the question of where to do it.
Show me a body of water whose ecology isn't in some way
uniquely valuable to the global environment andor
environmental science and I'll show you a marine scientist
who hasn't found it yet. If you look hard enough--and
somebody always does--there's something special and
unique about everywhere. |
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Oops. I forgot some fjords have coral reefs at abyssal depths (well very deep, anyway). |
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OK, so unite all the discarded plastic bags of the world into one giant aquarium bag at one of the mid-ocean gyre centres, then? Do we generate enough waste to make something like that? |
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