The food chain actually rings itself back to its first link upon reaching the decomp stage. All things naturally consume from the simplest form, i.e. plants to insect to rodent to animal and so on, but upon death a new opus takes place and manufactures food that replenishes the nutritional needs of earth hence back to plants. Plants of course require photosynthesis, or sun and water to maintain a healthy balance and continued life cycle. Plants are food for all herbivores of course, but most importantly they provide a detox of carbon dioxide turning it into our life giving oxygen. We’ve all been concerned about air pollution, but lately it has reached dangerous levels of toxicity to human health. In fact one in five cities a day will report orange level warnings during the early spring and humid summer months. Orange level is when people are warned to remain indoor for a number of hours and/or to avoid strenuous outdoor activities if they are elderly, sickly or infants.
Even the ocean has a food chain design plan that utilizes the byproducts of its specific chain. This activity of life/death provides the hundreds of species of the sea necessary dietary needs. The skeletal sediments on the sea floor that stabilizes the carbon deposits in our oceans has absorbed a large surplus of human-made CO2. A carbon imprint that creates acidic changes in the ocean that threatens marine life as we know it. The adverse effects of corrosion can interfere with the way marine life metabolize oxygen. The biggest fear is the negative impact on phytoplankton and zooplankton that reside at the very bottom of the oceanic food chain. A link lost at such a crucial stage in the life cycle will ultimately have a domino effect on everything else.
However there are some that suggest human imprint actually strengthens the generational links in the food chain. Whereby air quality weakens life finds a way to adapt physically and chemically to the changes. It will be many years before scientist will know the truth about whether our earth can adjust and strengthen the links to adapt or whether collapse is imminent. One thing we do know is man can make strides to restrict their carbon imprint and even in some cases reverse the abject affect pollution has had on many links along the chain. We can reduce green house gases at least to a sustainable ozone level. We can limit our waste through recycle products and we can rebuild forest, even coral in the ocean to bring a balance to ph conditions. As Anne Frank once wisely said, “how wonderful it is nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”
