The Acid Oceans

By now, we all realize that the burning of fossil fuels results in a long list of environmental, social, and political hazards.

Among the most serious is the relentless pumping of carbon into the atmosphere. Created in huge amounts by the generation of power, the gas carbon dioxide is changing our weather. Scientists' warnings about this date back to an 1896 paper by the Swedish chemist Svente Arrhenius.

Now scientists have documented another major result of the burning of fossil fuels: this one affecting the oceans. Researchers writing for the journal Science say that so much carbon dioxide has been dissolved in the oceans that it has, at least in places, increased the water's acidity. Carbon dioxide reacts with salt water to form carbonic acid.

One study found that over the last 200 years the oceans have absorbed 476 billion tons of carbon dioxide. Such alteration of the water's chemistry, say scientists, disrupts the delicate balance of the oceans' ecosystems.

In short, acids dissolve shells and skeletons -- which may be why coral is disappearing, as documented so sadly in The Empty Ocean, by Richard Ellis. And the chapter "What Is Killing the Coral Reefs?" explains that a substantial amount of life in the oceans owes its foundation to the world's coral reefs.

It's really a simple equation: Fewer coral reefs mean fewer fish.

In other words, the disappearance of the oceans' fish -- much mourned by New England's fishing families -- comes on the heels of society's insistence on burning fossil fuels to power big appliances and move enormous vehicles.

Source: EPA