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Ocean Acidification: Another Symptom of Global Warming

 

I attended the 8^th Annual Roger Revelle Commemorative Lecture at the Smithsonian on March 5^th entitled “What Corals Are Dying To Tell Us About CO₂ and Ocean Acidification.” Ken Caldeira, the presenter, spoke to about 500 people in a packed auditorium about the current trends worldwide in coral reef health. He expressed concern that although popular media talks about the effect CO₂ has on the air, there isn’t much spoken about the effect CO₂ has on the oceans. And the oceans are not an indefinite sink for CO₂.

Carbon Dioxide deposits in the oceans and the molecules bind with the water molecules to create Carbonic Acid. If there is too much Carbonic Acid, it can change the pH of water and is corrosive to the shells and skeletons of marine organisms coated or composed of calcium carbonate, such as corals. The acid literally eats away at the organism.

 

Why is this important? As pollution increases in our global ecosystems, biodiversity is reduced and food chains can be disrupted. In the case of corals, they are the food source, breeding ground, and home for a whole system of organisms, the diversity of which is sometimes compared with rainforests. If the current deposition trend continues, oceans will loose not only corals, but the ecosystem that corals sustain as well.

 

Visible loss of coral has been recorded worldwide. Though CO₂ exacerbates the destruction of corals, it is not the only factor. Eutrophication, temperature changes, and human development have also taken their toll. It will take tens of thousands of years for the oceans to recover chemically to normal levels. The current situation of CO₂ deposition in the oceans can be compared with the meteorite theorized to have hit in the Yucatan 65 million years ago that caused a great amount of chemical change in the ocean (along with temperature change) and resulted in a biological impact from which the corals did not recover for 10 million years.

 

The solution offered by Dr. Caldeira was two-fold. More research must be done on the oceans, we currently know so little about the effects of long lasting events. And we must change our current energy production and consumption. The average American is responsible for producing 120 pounds of CO₂ per day, 40 pounds of which deposit in the oceans. This is five times the global average. Natural release of CO₂ is 50-70 times less than this. This is yet another reason we as a global community need to take energy production alternatives seriously and move away from our dependency on fossil fuels.

 

For more information on corals:

http://www.motherjones.com/news/featurex/2006/03/coral_reefs_faq.html

http://www.llnl.gov/str/Duffy.html

http://oceanacidification.wordpress.com/

Cooperation between Big Business and Environmental Groups

What do DuPont, National Resource Defense Council, and Lehmen Brothers have in common? Normally not too much…but now they make up 3 of the 14 member strong US Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), launched in January of this year. The Partnership was formed to address global warming and emissions where the Feds are not.

The US produces an estimated one quarter of the world’s greenhouse gases, but has failed to sign the Kyoto protocol, and has done little in the last 6 years, at the Federal level, to further regulate emissions.

The Partnership has produced a report “A Call for Action” that proposes an economically based plan to address emissions, especially carbon emissions. They have some comprehensive goals for emission reduction that include mandatory caps on emission, an aggressive approach not echoed in the White House.

The launch of this group is another encouraging step in a series of moves Big Business is making nation-wide to take climate change and global warming seriously, and propose to do something about it. Whether moves such as these are stunts to benefit some economic scheme or are legitimately concern for, and action to improve, the environment, is a question, but the results have the potential to benefit the planet.

Supreme Court Begins Global Warming Case

Last week I saw a motley crew of people in a long line in front of the Supreme Court. I wondered what could draw such a variety of citizens to one place of protest? I looked in the NY Times for a clue. “Ah”, I realized, “its the environment”.

A few months ago I wrote about the upcoming Supreme Court case concerning Global Warming and on the 28th and 29th of November the Court began their process to determine whether they are going to even hear this case. The plaintiffs are organized from Mass. and are looking to sue the government over its lack of responsibility in regulating emissions that add to, or cause, global warming.

The plaintiffs are questioning the meaning of the Clean Air Act and why carbon dioxide does not fall under emission regulations. They question why the EPA does not regulate more to control the U.S. contribution to global warming.

Judges are divided. One contends that there is no evidence that car emissions contribute to global warming. A few feel that there is enough evidence to give the group standing, including the argument that sea level rise is robbing some states of coastal real estate.

They real issue for me is, if the Court hears this case, are they making a ruling about the science of global warming and climate change? Please check out the article.

Buildings that eat SMOG

Building material that can reduce surrounding emissions within an 8 foot area?! How cool! There is a chemical called titanium dioxide that has been used in coatings for metal, concrete, and other building materials as a deodorizer, to keep things white, and as a general preserving agent. But, it has been found that titanium dioxide is also useful in reducing polluting agents in smog. It undergoes a chemical reaction that breaks down the molecular structure of smog when it is exposed to sunlight. This process is photocatalysis. 

If you apply a coating that contains titanium dioxide to a structure or surface, smog in the immediate area will be reduced. Some say as much as 60%. Scientists and engineers in Japan and Italy have been testing out the benefits of titanium dioxide, though the properties of this material have been explored since the 1980s. In Milan, coating containing titanium dioxide was used in order to keep a white church white and has been added to pavement on roads surrounding the city.

Titanium dioxide coating can be used on buildings, asphalt, sidewalks, and many other surfaces. Though the area of smog reduction impact is limited, it is nevertheless a critical area because it falls within the living/breathing spaces for humans in urban centers, and can directly help with car emissions on roads.

 

 

ever wonder how much carbon you produce?

I am so excited about this website: http://www.terrapass.com/

You can plug in information on your personal driving, flying, and household habits, numbers are calculated, and equivalent costs and information about how much carbon you have produced is given to you.

Then you have the option to buy a TerraPass that offsets your carbon production by investing in alternative energy facilities. So, you are not actually buying carbon credits and retiring them, like carbon credit trading, but you are investing in alternative energy projects that indirectly help to decrease overall carbon emissions over time.

This idea was developed by a university professor and his class in an effort to help offset our ecological footprint.

This is a cool idea, fun to do, informative, and allows the average kat to participate in the solution by offsetting the problem with economic investment. Even if you don’t have the cash to throw down, it is sobering to calculate your carbon emissions. Check it out!

With all of the air travel I have done, I should invest about $1,500…