Sunday, January 4, 2015

God of small things: Ocean Drifters doco on plankton

Psalm 104 declares that

25 Yonder is the sea, great and wide,
    creeping things innumerable are there,
    living things both small and great.
26 There go the ships,
    and Leviathan that you formed to sport in it.

Today, we understand more of the small, in the form of plankton - both plant (phytoplankton) and animal (zooplankton). They form the bottom of the ocean food chain, store carbon in sediments when they die and provide us with oxygen.

Yet they are threatened as oceans warm and become more acidic all due to CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels and making of cement (both from the long dead bodies of plankton) and land clearance.
We pursue this path at our own peril!

The following is a brilliant ~15 minute documentary on plankton by Dr Richard Kirby, narrated by none other than Sir David Attenborough, Enjoy!