Today I am gonna put aside the dying and the doom and instead bring to you a little hope.

I found this image a few days ago:

[link to en.wikipedia.org]

At first I thought that was one of the faces of our enemy, the bacteria and archaea that spew out hydrogen sulfide. But as it turns out, that image is of the species Beggiatoa. More info on that species here:

[link to en.wikipedia.org]

Quote: "Some species have the ability of chemolitho-autotrophic growth by means of sulfide oxidation for energy and with carbon dioxide as a source of carbon for biosynthesis. In this metabolism internal stored nitrate is the electron acceptor and reduced to ammonia."

Sulfide oxidation: 2H2S + O2 => 2S + 2H2O

So some members of this species essentially EAT hydrogen sulfide, oxidize it for energy, turning two molecules of H2S and one molecule of oxygen into 2 molecules of elemental sulfur and two molecules of water.

That image was taken in 2008, off the coast of South Carolina, by a deep sea vehicle. I see why they are looking so closely at these seeps and vents and the like: any real solution has to involve some form of life, probably a bacteria like this that evolved long before our own oxygen-using kind of life ever appeared.

Here's some info on those oceanic cold seeps:

[link to en.wikipedia.org]

Quote: "The first type of organism to take advantage of this deep-sea energy source is bacteria.[2] Aggregating into bacterial mats at cold seeps, these bacteria metabolize methane and hydrogen sulfide (another gas that emerges from seeps) for energy.[2] This process of obtaining energy from chemicals is known as chemosynthesis.[2]"

It took as long as 30 million years for the Earth to recover from the Permian-Triassic extinction event. Maybe if we HELP these H2S-eating and methane-eating bacteria get going and do their thing then perhaps we can cut that amount of time down considerably.