The Real Debt We Are Passing to the Next Generation

By Linda E. Small

What carbon dioxide is doing to the oceans, and why we must go to conservation, efficiency and renewable energy

Basic chemistry: put carbon dioxide in water and water becomes more acidic. When talking your favorite cola, that's fine. When talking the food chain and life in the ocean, that's bad. It's another unregulated experiment on your grandkids future. Oceans are 30% more acidic now than they were in pre-industrial times. If we do nothing, by the end of this century, oceans will be 150% more acidic. Why do we care?

Many of the critters in the ocean have shells. Corals, which are the basis for whole ocean ecosystems, are among those. The more acidic the ocean, the more difficult it is to build those shells. Weaken or eliminate the shells, and you lose the animals. Corals may hit the acid point of no return by 2050.

Taking out the small shelled animals at the bottom of the food chain is dangerous. Other affects of acidity may show up in larger fish. Studies show the clownfish made popular by the movie "Finding Nemo" can't use the chemical signals to find its home in acidic water. Worse, some clownfish are drawn to the scent of predators. Bye-bye, Nemo! Not as good a bedtime story for children.

Ocean acidification may affect whole fisheries. This doesn't seem a worthwhile risk as the population is expected to grow another 2 billion people by 2050. We'll need the food, yet we risk eliminating the ocean as a food source.

It's time to take carbon dioxide seriously. Yes, we breathe it out. It is life itself when plants use it to grow and thrive. Yet, since we are adding carbon dioxide to the oceans at a rate far greater than we've ever known, it is time to act. The measurements and effects of ocean acidification are simple to observe. By burning fossil fuels like coal and oil, plus chopping down forests at an unprecedented rate, humans have added 500 billion additional pounds of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere which nature previously kept out locked away. 30% of that carbon dioxide has been absorbed by the oceans. The oceans are huge, but that's a huge amount of carbon dioxide. Every hour the ocean absorbs around a million tons of carbon dioxide. It doesn't matter that no one intends to harm the oceans. It is acidifying now.

There are various versions of a story of a man of faith who was threatened by a flood. He refused multiple offers of help as the threat got worse and worse. His faith is strong, and "God will save me." When he dies in the flood and meets God the man wants to know why he died despite his strong faith. God tells the man that He sent multiple warnings and help but the man refused to take heed.

That parable fits us today. We have multiple warnings. We know that burning fossil fuels causes thousands of deaths a year due to particulate matter pollution. One in 6 women have in their bodies enough mercury from burning coal for power to risk their babies being born with lower IQs or impaired motor skills. We know that drilling for oil and gas causes periodic explosions that kill workers, spills that pollute water and kill wildlife. We know that mining for coal has created a legacy of polluted landscapes and miners killed quickly through mine accidents or slowly through black lung disease. Despite the loud denial by a few with enough money to buy a contrary message, we know that climate change from greenhouse gasses is making our climate less hospitable to people and animals. And now, as we're ignoring all of those warnings, here is one more. Ocean acidification is a red flag waving along with a loudspeaker saying stop putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere!

Does this mean we go back to the dark ages? No. If we start a serious effort to conserve energy and develop clean renewable energy, we can live well while ending the damage. Politically, this seems impossible to achieve today. Yet if we don't wake up, the adults of today will be responsible for irreversible damage to our children's world. It's time to do move to the 21st century technologies that will keep the earth livable for future generations, but we must start now. Tomorrow is too late.

Links: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/04/ocean-acidification/kolbert-text

http://www.nrdc.org/oceans/acidification/default.asp