THE PLANKTON PANIC

Oh Dear! One has to laugh. There was a HUGE panic among Greenie scientists last year about North Sea plankton. This was one headline: "North Sea Facing Collapse Of Its Ecosystem. Fish Stocks And Sea Bird Numbers Plummet As Soaring Water Temperatures Kill Off Vital Plankton".

The latest article, however, is a lot more cautious -- as well it should be. Generally speaking, warmer temperatures are associated with more species diversity and greater plant growth (including greater algal growth) -- which in turn boosts populations of everything that eats plants or eats plant eaters. Warming of a sea should therefore be associated with a change in the mix of fish species but with more fish overall. And during the mediaeval warm period, the North Sea was said to be teeming with herring -- a very much sought-after fish. So the latest headline is simply: "Plankton respond to warmer seas".

And it is not now even certain that there has been any change in the plankton population. Just one excerpt from what the various scientific commenters had to say:

"Thorsten Blenckner, at the University of Uppsala, said that setting these results in a global context must be approached cautiously. "First, plankton were sampled from a fixed depth of approximately 10 meters," Blenckner, who was not involved in the study, told The Scientist. "However, the warmer upper layer might change more as a consequence of climate change, leading to differences in the way plankton distribute themselves in the water column."

"Second, fishing practices over the duration of the study period have changed markedly, which might have altered the species composition anyway, even without climatic effects." Still, Blenckner said, "the study certainly suggests a tendency towards phenological change, but more work must be done to determine how widespread the effects are."

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

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