Imagine A World Without Fish - No More Shrimp On The Barbie: With Ocean Acidification
by John Laumer, Philadelphia 
on 06. 9.08
Ocean acidification remains an issue that print & broadcast media have only begun to pay serious attention to. Marine scientists are intensely focused on it, however. A movie about ocean acidification, currently in production, is fusing the scientific and mainstream cultural views of environment - after the fashion of Inconvenient Truth. Sea Change, a new documentary about ocean acidification will debute in the fall of 2008. Check out the trailer (above).
Russ George, who has guested on TreeHugger recently regarding other effects of elevated atmospheric C02, comments about a recent up-tick in media coverage of ocean acidification research.
'While it is good to see this shocking news getting some attention, the worst-case potential is not fully reported... The studies being discussed focus on the role of acidification on adult ocean critters; but, where the impact really hits very much sooner and harder is in the larval forms of such things as Australian shrimps (for the barbie).'
Notably, in the face of the sustained, severe threat to marine life posed by ocean acidification, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), regards proposals to mitigate ocean acidification directly as a "threat" to biodiversity.
Other emerging threats include those from iron and urea fertilization; other geoengineering schemes, for example to include pumps to bring colder and deeper waters to the surface, noise which can disrupt marine mammal cycles and may also effect fish behavior disrupting vibration patterns in the water column6.Given that existing atmospheric carbon dioxide will continue to elevate ocean acidity, even if all ongoing emissions were stopped entirely, we have a long way to go to face the more significant "threat".
We are reminded by this of the Kübler-Ross model of humans coping with the threat of death [to the ocean in our analogy]. Perhaps the resistance to direct mitigation (anger bordering on outrage) will change once the USA takes a positive leadership role in reduction of carbon dioxide emissions.
Via::Ad Hoc Open-ended Informal Working Group of the General Assembly to study
issues related to the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity
beyond areas of national jurisdiction, United Nations, New York, 28 April – 2 May 2008 , Agenda Item 4: General remarks
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Hi,
Well, the recent things that have been happening are only but the begining of the consequences of mankind's errors.
Everyone is worried about the recent oil prices when the use of oil should have been deminished many years ago - I wonder what consequences may also bring the continuous oil prospection.
I was recently having a talk with a coleague who told me that the human being is an error; afterall we haven't spotted them anywhere else but here on Earth.
Well...it seems that we're taking care of that error, aren't we ?
Have a nice week,
José
Again the ugly truths about chemical and urea based fertilization raise their malformed head. Until we begin to understand that organics is not just about baby food and spinach salads, but the ONLY viable methodology for growing everything from crops to landscapes, we will continue to abuse every ecosystem these poisons come in contact with, and due to their water soluble nature, they come in contact with ALL the ecosystems eventually. The Haber-Bosch process (in which ammonium nitrate fertilizers are made) uses 4 gallons of refined petroleum for every 50 pound bag, and we haven't even shipped it yet. Meanwhile our landfills are gassing off at an increasing rate as more and more compostable materials are thrown away instead of contributing to landscape and crop production where it would actually help sequester carbon, instead of dumping more into the atmospheric cycle...
The mindset that allows one to deal with their various emissions by cutting a check needs to go the way of the dodo. We need to find new solutions from old places. We cannot continue with the same tools and expect new results. As Einstein said..
"The problems we face today cannot be
solved by the minds that created them."
So let's let some new minds at it. Or let's get some new minds of our own...
I'm doing outreach for the documentary and have to say that, the more I learn about the issue of ocean acidification, the more frightened I become. Luckily the film has some humor because this thing is dark, dark, dark. Very glad TreeHugger's covering it.
Also glad that the European Union is leading the way, setting up a task force to come to grips with ocean acidfication, the European Project of Ocean Acidification (EPOCA) .
In fact, today's the roll-out day, appropriately enough in Nice (http://epoca-project.eu/).