Ocean Acidification: Much Worse Than We Thought

It’s not only worse — it’s happening much faster than anyone had originally predicted.  This article — Sea Change:  The Pacific’s Perilous Turn, by Craig Welch — is long and depressing, but it’s well worth bookmarking.  I hope you’ll read it and forward it to any like-minded acquaintances you can think of.

Craig Welch calls ocean acidification “the lesser known twin of climate change.”

The prognosis is grim.  But being unaware of it won’t help.

As with climate change, the only way to mitigate the devastation of ocean acidification is for Homo Sapiens to wean itself off of fossil fuels yesterday.  Unlike climate change, ocean acidification doesn’t sound very urgent to the billions of people who don’t live near a coastline.  A scientist from NOAA said:

“If you go 100 miles from the coast, most people say, ‘Why do I care about ocean acidification?’  Convincing a farmer in Iowa or a teacher in Kansas to care about ocean acidification is our challenge.”

A former Republican state senator from Alaska said:

“Acidification is very real: There isn’t any doubt it’s happening.  It’s obvious. And it’s going to be devastating.”

Anyway, the article is chock full of these cheerful fun facts.  But these are things we need to know.  This article is the first in a series being published by the Seattle Times on ocean acidification.  At the end of the article you can find links to subsequent articles.

Enjoy.