Strontium Builds Strong Bones

Naturally occurring rubidium is only weakly radioactive and unregulated, but manmade strontium-90 is practically a worst case scenario. Strontium-90 first acquired its bad reputation back in the 1950's when it, along with certain caesium and iodine isotopes, were identified in the fallout from nuclear weapons testing. Strontium-90 is also a decay product from nuclear reactors. The worst accidents involving strontium-90 both occurred in the former Soviet Union: Chernobyl in 1986 and the Kyshtym nuclear disaster in 1957. link

Strontium-90 decays relatively quickly (it's a beta-emitter) and is taken up in bones. Strontium "rhymes" with calcium and very much resembles it. Strontium is bone-seeking and can supplant and replace natural calcium. Calcium is the backbone of life and modern civilization: think skeletons & concrete. Ca²⁺ and Sr²⁺ are both small & hard and can interchange within living structure as oxides and polyoxoanions, e.g. phosphates.

But regular strontium, which is not essential to life, may partially redeem itself. Naturally occurring strontium is not radioactive and strontium therapy shows promise for the treatment of osteoporosis, though its use is controversial. link

Lastly, if the name strontium sounds weird it's because it was named after a Scottish town Strontian (Srón an t-Sithein) where it was first found. Van der Krogt tells the story of its naming here.

This is Calcium's Finest Hour

AGW is not just about burning hydrocarbons, making CO₂, and pumping it up the atmosphere. Natural mechanisms exist for getting CO₂ out of the atmosphere and back into the lithosphere. Trees, which tie the earth and sky, do this quite well. But more important is the formation of calcium carbonate, CaCO₃.

When rocks weather, calcium is released into lakes and rivers. This happens slowly at sea shores but also in mountains and calcium eventually makes its way to the sea. There is a pre-existing supply in the oceans: Calcium is the third most abundant metal in sea water, behind sodium and magnesium.

Sea creatures make sea shells and coral from dissolved calcium. In addition, phytoplankton take up CO₂ as well before being consumed. Part of the global carbon cycle involves the perpetual rain of dead sea creatures to the sea floor where the carbon is eventually consumed by tectonic subduction. These processes offset CO₂ released by humans. The question is, how fast:

The natural pH of the ocean is determined by a need to balance the deposition and burial of CaCO₃ on the sea floor against the influx of Ca²⁺ and CO₂³⁻ into the ocean from dissolving rocks on land, called weathering. These processes stabilize the pH of the ocean, by a mechanism called CaCO₃ compensation...The point of bringing it up again is to note that if the CO₂ concentration of the atmosphere changes more slowly than this, as it always has throughout the Vostok record, the pH of the ocean will be relatively unaffected because CaCO₃ compensation can keep up. The [present] fossil fuel acidification is much faster than natural changes, and so the acid spike will be more intense than the earth has seen in at least 800,000 years. link

Never was so much owed by so many to so little.