For example, one of those ongoing projects is the study of the relationship between the dusts of the Sahara Desert and the Amazon. To briefly sketch it out, the Sahara Desert is a substantial source of phosphorus, due to its history as once home to a massive ancient lake bed teeming with life. That phosphorus travels across the Atlantic as dust, which eventually reaches the Amazon and is deposited by rain down into the soil, the same rains which steadily deplete the Amazon's phosphorus supply through flooding and erosion, supply which is not locked up by existing plant life anyway.
There's concern about both changing transatlantic wind currents and changing rain patterns in the Sahara itself, as part of climate change, which is attributed to a decline in the transportation of Saharan dust, which poses a problem for the stocks and flows circulation of phosphorous to be sure. A larger problem for a rainforest that is already under increasing threat locally from a changing climate and intensifying deforestation, not to mention global threats. Though the rainforest's contribution of oxygen to the atmosphere was exaggerated (lungs of the earth figuration) the region still plays a huge part as a carbon sink, and of course the carbon set free by the forest's demise, and the loss of biodiversity besides, would be catastrophic. And there are doubtless other equally intricate and fascinating ecological relationships to tease out there.
Again, all of this complexity leads us to a much simpler conclusion. We are living in an infinitely complex (as far as the available energy of our perceiving faculties is concerned) relation of ecological systems, local and global, which took millions of years (and more) to come into being in its present form in countless interconnected processes of succession. There is no putting back together what we have taken apart, or reversing the forces we've set in motion. It appears we can concentrate just enough energy and develop just enough mastery to better gawk at what we're busy taking part in unraveling, however worthwhile attempts at mitigation are, for at the very least we can try to soothe our bereaved souls.
Humpty Dumpty comes to mind. And putting back together egg shell is hopeless enough, but this?
