chisholm: what most people don't realize is that the oceans are responsible for half of the photosynthesis on earth. prochlorococcus is just one of the surprises. we're gonna have many, many, many more -- we do have many discoveries like that every year in science telling us, "oh, boy we really don't understand how this system works." for me it's a constant reminder that we really don't understand these systems. if we continue to play with them and perturb them -- meaning the human impact on the global ecosystem in ways that are stressing the system -- without understanding how it works then i think that any hope for sustainable use of the earth's resources by humans is greatly diminished. and we're only just beginning to understand how the plankton communiti and the biological production in the ocean affects the carbon cycle affects oxygen product affes the nitrogen cycle anall this stuff. and, y know, it's an uncontrolled experiment, and we don't reay know the outcome. and, you know, at that level of ignorance to be messing around with the organisms that are responsible for the regulatio

chisholm: what most people don't realize is that the oceans are responsible for half of the photosynthesis impact on the global ecosystem in ways that are stressing the system -- without understanding how it works then i think that any hope for sustainable use of the earth's resources by humans is greatly diminished. and we're only just beginning to understand how the plankton communiti and the biological production in the ocean affects the carb cycle affects oxygen product affes the nitrogen cycle anall this stuff. and, y know, it's an uncontrolled experiment, and we don't really know the outcome. and, you know, at that level of ignorance to be messing around with the organisms that are responsible for the regulation and the modulation of the life-support system ofumanity is a big risk. anpeople say "yeah, yeah, yeah, we ought to study it for 20 more years." but i would say that no -- yeah, we should study it for 20 more years, but we ought to get our act together pretty soon because we're playing with fire, and that is not an exaggeration. narrator: in our experiment -- altering or destr