(Photo of worms from Flickr and photographer Ben McLeod)
News Update: If someone criticizes the National Science Foundation for giving a grant to study earthworms, don’t believe it’s frivolous. Worms in forests may have a big impact on the ability of forest soil to store CO2 – but it’s not yet certain whether that impact is good or bad. Worms, which are not native to the U.S. and came with the first settlers, eat the leaves and dead plants on forest floors. But research into whether they release CO2 into the atmosphere or sequester it in the soil is conflicting. As a result their impact is not included in climate models, though it could be profound. Forest soil stores almost twice as much carbon as the trees themselves, according to the U.S. Forest Service. New research published in the Journal of Geophysical Research suggests the impact may be positive. The NSF grant will go to Purdue, Johns Hopkins and the Smithsonian Environment Research Center. (Source: ClimateWire)
1 comment:
Oh NO, Mr. Bill!
What if we find earth worms raise atmospheric CO2 to about 12 times what it is today?
Well, that won’t happen. But, if it did, we might (oh NO…) experience an Ice Age much like the Ordovician Ice Age. The Ordovician Ice Age happened about 460 million years ago, when CO2 was about 12 times higher than today. And, the Ordovician Ice Age was very, very similar to THE CURRENT ICE AGE!
So, yes. Not only is it a stupid, corrupt, utter waste of tax payer dollars to study the effect of earth worms on atmospheric CO2, it is utterly INSANE to waste any more money studying the impact of CO2 on climate. We KNOW the impact. We know it is very minimal and it is NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT!!!
Click here, review some science and free your mind from purely political, utterly hysterical, counter scientific propaganda!
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