Why You Should Care About Carbon Sinks

Note: I wrote this for a client but he rejected it for not being "popular enough". So I decided to post it here and on Cyber Isko.

Why You Should Care About Carbon Sinks

For many people, global warming is an alarming prospect but one which they do not fully understand. This means they leave it up to the scientists to interpret the data and then filter the conclusions the scientists reach to come up with their own interpretation. However, carbon sinks is not one of the more well known concepts related to global warming – although it should be because this could mean the salvation of the human race from the many effects of global warming.

Basically a carbon sink is any kind of reservoir (natural or man-made) that can absorb the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it for an undetermined period of time. Forests are the most viable form of carbon sink and the most desirable. Not only do forests change the carbon dioxide humans and animals emit as part of normal respiration into pure oxygen, but forests will absorb the surplus carbon dioxide. That, in a nutshell, is what a carbon sink does. The theory is that if the surplus carbon dioxide floating around in the atmosphere is absorbed by forests then global warming will slow down or at least be mitigated. We then gain more time to plant more forests and thus create more carbon sinks. The end result? The reversal of global warming.

One side effect of having too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is ocean acidification. Basically this means that the carbon dioxide is absorbed by the ocean which then turns the ocean into a more acidic body of liquid. This is not good because acidification of the ocean can result in many disastrous outcomes such as destruction of the fragile and delicate marine ecosystem because marine organisms like coral cannot replicate in an acidic ocean. If the marine ecosystem is harmed this way, it is possible that our supply of seafood will be cut off because the oceanic food chain that is dependent on smaller marine organisms will find their food supply terminated. The ocean’s food chain will collapse and its effect on us humans is that we can no longer get our food supply from the ocean because there are no more marine life to harvest. And yes, that includes fish too.

So that means our survival as humans on this planet is heavily dependent on carbon sinks. We can and must revive our forests and raise these to maturity. Not only that, but we must repopulate countries whose forests have been decimated by overharvesting and illegal cutting with new growth so that they too will be able to nurture carbon sinks. The idea is to keep putting up new growth and guarding them so that they reach maturity so that the carbon sinks will absorb all the surplus carbon dioxide. Presumably then the negative effects of global warming will slow down and we will be able to cope as humans on this planet we call home. So do the human race a favor and plant trees today.