Monday, April 26, 2010

The Other Problem with Carbon Dioxide

Climate science deniers do everything they can to muddy the waters on the current state of climate science. From pretending that hacked e-mails from East Anglia constitute a scandal worthy to put the word "gate" as a suffix to just plain making stuff up. Strangley there is rarely a mention of ocean acidification, arguably one of the farthest reaching consequences of the pollution we are spilling into the atmosphere.

One of the major problems with all the excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is that the oceans, which serve as a carbon sink, are becoming increasingly acidic. In fact they have become 30% more acidic over the past 250 years after being relatively stable for the previous 20 million! So reports the NRDC (Natural Resource Defense Council) in an alarming article on the current and future state of our oceans and their delicate ecosystems.  They caution that:  A more acidic ocean could wipe out species, disrupt the food web and impact fishing, tourism and any other human endeavor that relies on the sea.

Go over and read the whole piece and then try to remain indifferent about the lack of any progress on doing something concrete about climate change. It should be a no-brainer but maybe the no-brainer is us.

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