How full is the glass?

The glass is a tiny bit more than half full.
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From http://thomasmertoncenter.org/calendar:
Talk by Fred Hampton Jr.
4/3/6 8:30 pm
free admission
University of Pittsburgh
David Lawrence Hall, Room 120,
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Fred Hampton: Martyr
http://www.thetalkingdrum.com/fred.html
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http://www.providence.edu/afro/students/panther/hamptonjr.html
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planktos.com
http://planktos.blogspot.com/
...massive experiment we have been conducting in...atmospheric enrichment...called fossil fuel burning...we are all "carbon" based life forms on this planet. All of that carbon comes from CO2 that is changed via the photosynthesis of plants which combine it with nutrients and minerals from the soil into what we animals find delicious and nutritious.
TODAY we see that the air has 50% more CO2 than it did a mere hundred years ago. Desert and dry land plants are very happy about this. They now obtain the CO2 they need at far less expense in terms of water loss. This preserves their water supply for many days, they grow larger, and they produce more foliage and more viable seeds. For the deserts and dry lands of earth this higher CO2 concentration in the air is a fantastic bounty and we see those deserts and dry lands of the Earth becoming greener over greater areas and for longer periods each year. We know that the best way to reduce the loss of topsoil and dust from blowing from the land is to better cover the land with vegetation. To be certain the dry lands and deserts still dry out and become dusty deserts but that dry dusty period becomes smaller and for a shorter time each year. This may be good news for deserts but there is a price to be paid...dramatically reduced dust over the worlds oceans...ocean plants, phytoplankton...live in an abundance of water but live in a desert with regard to the nutrients and minerals that plants on earth take from the soil...they get these from the land and the process of erosion that slowly wears down the earth and washes or blows it into the oceans. However some very critical mineral nutrients do not last long in the ocean ecosystem as being rather insoluble they dissolve slowly and sink quickly to the bottom. Chief in importance of these trace minerals required for photosynthesis and life on this planet is iron. Iron acts like a catalyst in photosynthesis with a very tiny amount being needed to empower a very great amount of photosynthesis...ocean plants obtain their iron...from the deserts of the earth where that abundant red dust is red because of the iron it contains. The dust that blows from the deserts feed the ocean plants the tiny amounts of iron they need to survive and flourish. When these dust storms pass episodically over the oceans they dip down here and there in a random fashion and deliver the precious iron to the waiting ocean plants...if additional iron arrives via a fortuitous dust storm they...bloom...Along with this dusty iron stimulated bloom comes a growth of the entire food chain as tiny krill and other zooplankton rise to the dinner table and feed on the temporary bounty...system that is now staggeringly out of balance due to rising CO2 in the atmosphere...is a feedback system...threatens to change this planet in ways the likes of which our earthbound and earth focused climate modelers have never dreamed, and it is happening faster than we know...evidence showing the dramatic greening of dry and desert regions and the reduction of dust that is blowing from these regions over and onto the worlds oceans...productivity of the world’s great oceans is now stunningly reduced. The major oceans like the Pacific, Atlantic, and Southern oceans are 10-30% lower in productivity of ocean plants than they were a mere 25 years ago. If this rate of decline continues the oceans will become the deserts of this planet long before we humans notice a little warming...amount of CO2 the now diminished oceans are already failing to remove from our atmosphere...As the oceans become deserts our atmosphere is losing the most powerful CO2 removal mechanism on the planet. This will result in a rise of atmospheric CO2 at a far greater rate than the earth bound atmospheric scientists have predicted. This is already apparent in the actual rates of rising CO2 concentration that are reported as being mysteriously faster than the models have predicted...But this is not a story of inevitable doom and gloom. We can do something about this...raising the concentration of iron in a patch of ocean by only a few additional tens of parts per trillion can stimulate an ocean bloom...with a very small effort relative to what we earthlings spend on countless luxuries we can replenish the dust that the oceans are dying for. In the bargain we will scrub the CO2 that we spew from our tailpipes and power plants from the air using the free sunlight energy, we will replenish the food chain of the ocean that all ocean life and those of us who eat fish from the sea depend on, and we be able to do this in an affordable safe manner. No small effort is required but the effort is not so large that we cannot succeed in a timely fashion. If we start now we may be able to save the oceans and ourselves.
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Foreign Policy Association
http://www.fpa.org/
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Network of Spiritual Progressives
http://www.tikkun.org
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faithfulsecurity.org
mediachannel.org
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National Low Income Housing Coalition
http://nlihc.org
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National Alliance to End Homelessness
http://www.endhomelessness.org
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Center for Budget and Policy Priorities:
http://www.cbpp.org
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http://www.centerforsustainablecommunity.org