About Global Warming 2

A new commentary every Wednesday - September 2, 2015

About Global Warming - Part II: Ocean Acidification

It 's nice to discover that I am part of a world-wide conspiracy meant to control all of society by a one-world government.

Yes, an awful lot of egg-heads and a befuddled few of we conservatives have become convinced that spewing an increasing amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is creating a greenhouse effect, resulting in the melting of glaciers all of the world and dissolving the polar ice caps. The inevitable encroachment of seawater is already threatening low lying island groups in the Pacific. (As we said in our prior essay, "that increase in water has to go somewhere.") *

Of all of the things I have said and written in my 88 years, nothing has triggered greater negative response. Some of this is coming from well-meaning friends and acquaintances who have taken the trouble of showering me with "research," mostly theory and supposition meant to disabuse Luddites like me of this "Liberal" propaganda. You see, detractors insist that the oceans have risen even before Noah built his arc; we've had the increase and eventual melting of glaciers during several successive ice ages that occur every fifty-thousand to one-hundred-thousand years or so; a cyclic thing. you see.

The sky is not falling.

By one of those odd synchronicities, this very Monday evening, PBS aired a program on what the continual increase of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere has to do with the continual rising amount of acidity in all of our oceans, and the great harm that is being caused to all life there—leading inexorably to possible extinction of it.

In the 15 year period, 1995-2010 alone, acidity has increased by six percent in the upper 100 meters of the Pacific Ocean from Hawaii to Alaska, according to the Global Ocean Data Analysis and the World Ocean Atlas.

Here's the long explanation: "Ocean acidification is the ongoing decrease in the pH of the Earth's oceans, caused by the uptake of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. To achieve chemical equilibrium, some of it acts with the water to form carbonic acid. Some of these extra carbonic acid molecules react with a water molecule to give a bicarbonate ion and a hydronium ion, thus increasing ocean acidity (H+ ion concentration). This represents a 30% increase of an acidic pH level since the beginning of the industrial revolution.

You swimming pool owners have some appreciation of this every time you pay for another bucket of soda ash. (Sodium carbonate; chemically alkaline).

Amazingly, pH levels in the oceans have been measured intensively since the early 1990's, by such entities as the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego (Bunch of Commies).

Research on this anomaly started a couple of decades ago off the coast of Australia. Coral reefs are dying in alarming numbers, all over the world. Coral beds are living organisms, made principally of calcium, an alkaline earth metal. Too much acid adds up to not enough calcium. Without it, things like coral and humans die.

Among commercial fishermen, coral reefs are known to be magnets for fish. The smallest fish are hatched and protected there. They are an important part of a food chain that begins with plankton and sustains sea life, all way up to whales.

No coral, far less fish. Equally affected are crustaceans of all kinds. Oystermen began to recognize the increasing fragility of oyster shells for some time. Entire oyster farms in east coast bays of the U.S., where harvesting is strictly controlled, are being devastated. (I can live quite well without lobsters, octopus, oysters and shrimp, thank you).

Satire aside, the burning of fossil fuels is not only causing global warming but is having a huge impact on a vitally important food source.

* See the link to Archives below to read Part One, on "Global Warming."

-Phil Richardson, Observer of the human condition and storyteller. "He goes doddering on into his old age, making a public nuisance of himself" - Joseph L. Menchen.

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