The August issue of Scientific American had an article called "The Ocean's Invisible Forest" that deals with marine phytoplankton and how it might be possible to accelerate atmospheric carbon sequestration by fertilizing the oceans to promote phytoplankton blooms.

Although I think this is an important line of investigation, I question our presumption that we are capable of keeping the biosphere in balance. Instead, I think the biosphere will take care of itself, whether or not we are allowed to stay along for the ride.

In "A Natural End For Global Warming", I present an argument for why this whole problem may, in fact, solve itself.
9:08:34 PM    

Projections for when the world will reach peak oil production varies by only ten years with the optimists saying we will peak in about the year 2020 and the pessimists saying we will peak in about 2010 [here]. Hydrogen has long been touted as the obvious replacement for fossil fuels and the ultimate solution to the world's energy needs. However, the most cost effective source for hydrogen is fossil fuels. Even though hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, on the Earth, it is usually found bound to other elements. Wired has an article about the potential for using algae to split hydrogen from oxygen in water [here].

For hydrogen to be a viable fuel, a cost effective means of obtaining it is needed. Using algae to split water into its constituent parts really amounts to a portable way of storing energy coming from the sun. Energy is stored when H20 is split into H2 and O2. The energy is converted into work through combustion converting the H2 and O2 back into H2O and thus the cycle can be repeated. This is a sustainable energy source.

Fossil fuel has been the fuel of industrialization, but it is a rapidly dwindling resource. However, I don't believe the future is necessarily bleak. We already know that fossil fuels won't last. So, that just means we need to turn our substantial intellectual resources on to developing other renewable sources of energy. Fortunately, many of these have already been identified; it is just a matter of developing and deploying them.
12:14:07 PM