Oceans turning acidic
Notice the next to the last paragraph. No, that can't be true. Every
Republican that doesn't have an advanced science degree KNOWS that
global warming and greenhouse gas emissions aren't related, and are a
natural phenomenon anyway!Expert Says Oceans Are Turning Acidic
By ANTHONY MITCHELL, Associated Press Writer Thursday, November 9, 2006 Printable Version
Email This Article (11-09) 10:43 PST NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- The world's oceans are becoming more acidic, which poses a threat to
sea life and Earth's fragile food chain, a climate expert said
Thursday. Oceans have already absorbed a third of the world's emissions of carbon
dioxide, one of the heat-trapping gases blamed for global warming,
leading to acidification that prevents vital sea life from forming
properly. "The oceans are rapidly changing," said professor Stefan Rahmstorf on
the sidelines of a U.N. conference on climate change that has drawn
delegates from more than 100 countries to Kenya. "Ocean acidification
is a major threat to marine organisms." Fish stocks and the world's coral reefs could also be hit while
acidification risks "fundamentally altering" the food chain, he said. In a study titled "The Future Oceans - Warming Up, Rising High,
Turning Sour," Rahmstorf and eight other scientists warned that the
world is witnessing, on a global scale, problems similar to the acid
rain phenomenon of the 1970s and 1980s. Rahmstorf, the head of Germany's Potsdam Institute for Research into
Climatic Effects, says more research is urgently needed to assess the
impact of ocean acidification. David Santillo, a senior scientist at Greenpeace's Research
Laboratories in Exeter, Britain, said it had come as a shock to
scientists that the oceans are turning acidic because of carbon dioxide
emissions. "The knock on effect for humans is that some of these marine resources
that we rely on may not be available in the future," the marine
biologist, who was not involved in Rahmstorf's study, told The
Associated Press by telephone. Rahmstorf also reiterated warnings of rising sea levels caused by
global warming, saying that in 70 years, temperature increases will
lead more frequent storms with 200 million people threatened by floods. Scientists blame the past century's one-degree rise in average global
temperatures at least in part for the accumulation of carbon dioxide,
methane and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere -
byproducts of power plants, automobiles and other fossil fuel burners. The 1997 Kyoto accord requires 35 industrialized countries to reduce
greenhouse-gas emissions by 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. The
Kyoto countries meeting in Nairobi are continuing talks on what kind of
emissions targets and timetables should follow 2012 |
