The (carbon) science of Whales.

Via NotaSheep and from BBC

"A century of whaling may have released more than 100 million tonnes - or a large forest's worth - of carbon into the atmosphere, scientists say.

Whales store carbon within their huge bodies and when they are killed, much of this carbon can be released."

Presumably, according to the scientists quoted by the BBC, whales would live for ever if they weren't hunted, otherwise they would never die naturally and "release the body-trapped carbon into the atmosphere"?

Nope, they've got that one covered too

"If they die where it's deep enough, it will be [stored] out of the atmosphere perhaps for hundreds of years."

Maybe they didn't notice events like this.

Mr Eugenides has something to say about "saving the whale" but, you see, that might not be the point because they always wrap up their objectives in pretty ideas. This scientist let the cat out of his metaphorical bag and ...

... suggested that a similar system of carbon credits could be applied to whales 

and

"The idea would be to do a full accounting of how much carbon you could store in a fully populated stock of fish or whales, and allow countries to sell their fish quota as carbon credits," he explained.

They are soooooo determined to keep carbon trading alive, there must be a lot of money tied up in it, fortunes to be made and lost, especially at a time when some national currencies are a bit dodgy.

....