A bizarre plan to save humanity....'Mammoths'

[senona]

Zombie Mammoths To The Rescue


 

Scientists have a fix for one of the greatest threats facing our climate. It’s big, it’s hairy, and it’s been dead 10,000 years.

In a madcap scheme to slow the melt of arctic permafrost, researchers are trying to resurrect the woolly mammoth.

One really cannot make this stuff up.
Now researchers think cloning mammoths will save mankind.

Because the mammoth is one of the better-preserved bygone species, it’s a prime candidate for the first successful de-extinction. Scientists sequenced the mammoth genome in 2008, and researchers have since catalogued the slim set of genetic variants separating mammoths from elephants — cold-weather upgrades like more hair, more fat and a higher tolerance for sub-zero temperatures.

Last year, Harvard geneticist George Church and his colleagues successfully spliced mammoth genes into the cell of an Asian elephant. Church says de-extinction could be just a couple of years away.

In the meantime, scientists are left to speculate on the climate-saving potential of this prehistoric beast.

Of course, they had to make a point that it is all man's fault of warmer temperatures, not one mention of other natural causes such as volcanoes or anything else.

The Permafrost Problem


Climate change has several soft deadlines — tipping points at which human-caused warming could set off natural feedback loops that would make the planet dramatically hotter. Drought could decimate forests, causing trees to bleed their stores of carbon. Rising temperatures could also melt Arctic permafrost.

This is among the more sobering consequences of planetary warming. Once permafrost has thawed, microbes will devour the organic matter in the soil underneath — the leftovers of prehistoric plants. Metabolizing microbes would exhale gobs of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.

Methane has less staying power than carbon dioxide — it lingers in the atmosphere for decades as opposed to centuries — but it traps 80 times as much heat over a 20-year period. Methane from permafrost could produce up to 0.5º C of additional warming by 2100. Earth has already seen 1º C of warming over the last century. And just 1.5º of warming could trigger the melt of Arctic permafrost.

And according to the scientists, this is where the mammoths come in to save the day.

A Mammoth-Sized Solution


Herds of mammoths once ruled the Arctic. They nurtured grasslands and suppressed the growth of forests. After mammoths departed, grasslands turned into forests and tundra, where we now find all that permafrost.

Paradoxically, permafrost has an insulating effect, keeping the soil underneath warm relative to winter temperatures. Mammoths could dig through snow to find grass hiding beneath. After chomping down, they would leave manure behind, nurturing the growth of more grass.

Russian scientists have set up a reserve in Siberia for wild horses, ox and bison in an effort to recreate an Ice Age ecosystem. They found that during the winter, when it was -40º C outside, the ground that was covered in snow remained a balmy -5º C. Where animals had trampled down the snow, the ground was -30º C. Mammoths could be the heavy arsenal needed to avert the release of methane.

Um, dumb question here and pardon my ignorance please.
Why don't they just use existing animals as Russia has done, instead of recreating one from 10,000 years ago?
Or are they just wanting to play god again and 'see' if it is even possible to clone a mammoth?

Do we really want to go there? Cloning a 10,000 yr old extinct animal???
We all know once that is done, there will be no stopping future cloning of god knows what.

Also, if cow manure is being blamed as part of CO2 output (hence why Denmark wants to tax meat eaters), where would mammoth dung fit into the equation of putting out CO2?
Just saying....doesn't hurt to ask.

“In conservation biology it’s called a reintroduction — as wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone, beavers to Sweden, etc. They’re disruptive, but they’re supposed to be,” said Stewart Brand, author and co-founder of Revive and Restore, a project to bring back the woolly mammoth. “As keystone species and ecological engineers, they move the whole ecosystem toward greater bio-abundance and biodiversity.”

Brand said the subarctic was once the Serengeti of the north, home to a rich diversity of animals — musk ox, bison, Yakutian horses, woolly rhinocerous, cave lions and cave bears. He believes mammoths would improve the landscape and that they could endure global warming.

“Woolly mammoths survived many warming periods between the glacial ice ages,” said Brand. “There are also non-woolly mammoths such as the Columbian mammoth that inhabited much of North America. They also could return. The ecology of our continent misses the various elephants and would welcome them back.”

De-extinction offers mammoths a chance for redemption. It was climate change that drove the species to the brink of extinction. The end of the last ice age shrunk their habitat, and humans dealt the final blow by hunting them until none remained.

If fulfilled, these dreams of species revival could see mammoths come back from the dead to cool the planet, returning from extinction to save us from ourselves.

Okay class....any thoughts? Ideas?