Smithsonian.com

Two scientists have come up with a novel way to fight global warming: enormous pipes that would pump cold, nutrient-rich water from the bottom of the ocean to the top, stimulating algae growth and absorbing carbon dioxide.

James Lovelock, a reknowned scientist famous for his Gaia hypothesis, and Chris Rapley, director of London’s Science Museum, are the authors of the proposal, which was outlined in their letter to the editor in the current issue of Nature.

Lovelock and Rapley’s vision is of anywhere from 10,000 to 100,000 pipes, 33 feet across and 330 feet long, bobbing up and down in the ocean. Valves inside the pipes would create water circulation, bringing more water to the top of the ocean. The ultimate goal would be that the water circulation would help algae grow, which would then absorb CO2 from the atmosphere. The increased algae would also produce a chemical that fosters formation of sunlight-reflecting clouds.

Critics say that the circulating water system might actually introduce more CO2 into the atmosphere: the deep water rising the surface might “exhale” it before absorbing it back. It’s also unknown what effects the pipes would have on marine life.

Currently, Lovelock and Rapley are working on prototypes and say “we can do a small-scale trial and discover any problems, giving us opportunity to back off if need be.”

The overfishing of tuna caused a flurry of stories this summer, from United States officials pointing fingers at Europe for surpassing annual International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) fishing quotas to Japan considering substitutes like deer and horse for the sushi staple.

But the European Commission recently banned the fishing of endangered bluefin tuna in the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean for the rest of the year. The ban affects Cyprus, Greece, Malta, Portugal and Spain. Italy and France (deemed one of the main culprits by WWF) have already closed down tuna fisheries for 2007. One of the main causes of diminishing tuna stocks is the under-reporting of catches, according to the EU.

It’s not as though the United States doesn’t contribute to the low numbers. Carl Safina, president of the Blue Ocean Institute, and other tuna experts fess up to our faults, according to the New York Times. Safina is reportedly calling for an Atlantic-wide, five-year ban and the closing of bluefin spawning areas in the Gulf of Mexico.

In a step in the right direction, San Diego-based American Albacore Fishing Association became the world’s first sustainable tuna fishery this month. Certified by the Marine Stewardship Council, the fishery adheres to methods that avoid overfishing and the bycatch of seabirds, sea turtles and other fish. The WWF reports that consumers will be able to buy the MSC-certified tuna in stores nationwide later this year.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted a 7 to 23-inch rise in sea level by the end of the century in its first of four climate change reports back in February. But this rising of the seas is hard to perceive–that is, if you’re not a Tuvaluan.

Tuvalu, a group of nine coral atolls located in the South Pacific halfway between Hawaii and Australia, could easily disappear. According to one study, the island group, standing at less than two meters above sea level, could be underwater in the next 30 to 50 years.

Meanwhile, seawater is seeping into the underground water table, causing problems for farmers and threatening the drinking supply. The government appealed to New Zealand and Australia in 2000 to take in the 11,000 or so Tuvaluans should there be need for an evacuation. And just weeks ago at a global warming symposium in Seoul, Korea, Tuvalu Deputy Prime Minister Tavau Teii urged the world to do more to combat global warming.

The continuing increase in temperatures has been seen across the globe, but perhaps nowhere so visually as in the Arctic.

As permafrost melts, it’s revealing valuable fossils from mammoths and other prehistoric animals, worth tens of thousands of dollars, and often sold to museums. Finding and selling the remains can be a much-needed cash flow in impoverished Arctic villages, like this one in Siberia.

But the thawing permafrost doesn’t only give up valuable mammoth tusks and skulls: it also exposes mammoth stools to the air, releasing a stink not smelled for millennia. And the stink isn’t even the bad part: as microbes in the feces warm up and become active again, the ancient dung releases carbon dioxide and methane, contributing even further to global warming.

A new genetic study has shown that the Pacific Gray whale, thought to have recovered from commercial whaling, is actually starving due to a deadly combo of warming oceans and overfishing.

Stanford’s Stephen Palumbi, the study’s lead researcher, told New Scientist that global warming could have caused the whales’ natural prey to migrate outside their range (as a number of studies have suggested) or that commercial fishing may have gotten so bad that there just isn’t enough to feed the massive creatures.

Either way, there are numerous reports of whales arriving at Mexico breeding grounds looking like skin and bones, with vertebrae and ribs sticking out where there ought to be layers of blubber.

And as if the whales weren’t having enough problems trying to cope with global warming and overfishing, there’s always the off-chance they’ll be shot by someone with a machine gun.