Ocean Acidification Conference: Acidity Up 30% Since Industrial Revolution - Producing Toxic Assets For The World

Trillions To Save Financial System Nary a Pittance To Save Living Ecosystems
(Ocean Ecorestoration Requires Mere Billions To Save This Small Blue Planet)

The present global financial crisis is proving that society is willing to take incredible actions for the common good, or at least for the benefit of our banking and credit systems. As we see trillions being allocated to forestall economic upheaval, the sums required to actually save and restore ecosystems on this small blue planet are not even found in the rounding errors.

While our financial world needs saving on one hand, that effort may dangerously distract us from the far more critical and root level planetary demands of the most deadly crisis here on Earth, fossil CO2.  Indeed, the staggering financial efforts might well be seen in history, if there is anyone left to write that history, as being a major contributor to the destruction of the living ecosystems and ourselves. We cannot afford to fix just one broken part of our world.

The deadly crisis we face is the lethal and short term effect of fossil CO2; but it might not be in the way you think.  Sure, everyone knows anthropogenic CO2 is causing global warming; but, that is by definition a glacially slow process. What we ignore as we plod in step with the glaciers is the far more rapid and dangerous chemical role of CO2 in the surface ocean. Living on a small Blue Planet as we do, one might have thought this blue chemistry would be our major focus.

Simply put, the CO2 we've fumed into the air over the past century is more than sufficient to change the oceans to acid.  H2O + CO2 = H2CO3 (carbonic acid), among the first principals of chemistry, is well underway and rapidly progressing. Regardless of whether we emit more CO2, which we are sure to do, the chemical dose already administered will, in a matter of a 3 or 4 decades if we fail to act now, acidify the oceans sufficiently to re-boot the planetary ecosystem and bring back the slimy beginning of life on “earth”, the bacterial sea.

There is no penny to spare, there is no political game playing time and attention to waste, and there is no hope for higher life on this small blue planet if we do not begin to substantially reverse the acidification of the oceans through ocean eco-restoration over the course of the next 20 years. We have no more than this century to complete the task.

The rounding errors from bailing out our financial world would be more than sufficient to restore the ocean world that makes up 70% of this Blue Planet. As we restore the ocean plants, the planktos, they will compete with simple chemistry, and like trees on land use the power of photosynthesis to turn deadly CO2 into ocean life instead of ocean death. Ocean acidification is resolvable through eco-restoration with a few (mere) billions of dollars per year to restore lost plankton blooms that have been destroyed by high and rising CO2.

Let’s save our credit institutions for today but more importantly, and for a tiny fraction of that cost, lets save our planetary ecosystem for tomorrow. If we don’t then surely our intelligent race is destined to be just one of the millions of lines of failed life on this small blue planet.

Image credit::High CO2 World website.

Selected Preceding Coverage Of Ocean Acidification
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Never Mind Future Temperature Increases: CO2 Emissions Deserve ...
NOAA Report Finds Half of U.S. Corals Are in Poor or Fair ...
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Al Gore Warns of Crises Facing World's Oceans
Some (Phytoplankton) Like it Acidic