8 ms·

California oceans rising in acidity at alarming rate, study finds

91 points by Elof 7y ago

Thorentis 7y ago
I wonder if instead of desalination plants, there exists "de-acidification" plants that can in turn use the acid for electricity generation or something like that? Whenever I see these articles, unfortunately my first thought is "we're too far gone, we can't turn around now" in terms of climate change. But! I think that instead of trying to reverse the situation (for instance, by convincing the largest carbon emitters like China to stop - which they won't), we should try to make use of the situation. Too much carbon being released? Free carbon! How can we use it to make something else / convert it to something else? Too much acid in the ocean? How can we extract it and use it for something? Rising temps? How can we make use of this to grow crops that need warmer environments, or use it for better solar generation, or use thermal power generation in these areas. Our best hope it to adapt to the new norm rather than fight a losing battle. I know it's fatalistic, but I think we will last longer as a species if we adopt this approach instead.
- changoplatanero 7y ago
  Unfortunately the "free carbon" is in the form of a very dilute gas that is very hard to do anything useful with.
- bamboozled 7y ago
  I think this is the right attitude really. What else is there ? It’s the same way I see politicians doing nothing helpful, people are just going to have to work around them to get the situation under control or at least make use of it.
  - lopmotr 7y ago
    No. Before investing money in solving a problem, you have to at least have some estimate of how severe the problem is, typically measured in dollars. We don't have that. Instead, we have people shouting "the end is neigh", which isn't actually a reason to take any action. I think the right approach is to do nothing about it until we have predictions. Then compare the cost of coping with the problem to the costs of preventions.
    - orange3xchicken 7y ago
      "Nobody does anything until it’s too late. We put the stoplight at the intersection after the kid is killed." (Michael Crichton, Prey) The issues associated with an acidified ocean are well known. The issues associated with an excess of carbon in the atmosphere are well known. The cost of coping with most of these issues has been compared to the cost of working to prevent or reduce their effect with respect to lives, quality of life, and dollars. I don't claim to be a climatologist, an economist, or a policy expert, but I can read a wikipedia page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribution_of_recent_climate_change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribution_of_recent_climate_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_global_warming_on_humans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_global_warming_on_h... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_global_warming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_global_warming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification
      - lopmotr 7y ago
        I had a look at all your references but didn't find any cost estimates or clear predictions of serious harm. One problem it mentioned was that already depleted shellfish stocks might not recover if we stop overfishing them. We're already doing more harm to those particular fish from fishing than ocean acidification is expected to, so that suggests something about the cost being comparable to the cost of fishing less. To use your analogy, put a stop light in the middle of the road, just in case a kid happens to run out at that point.
- powowow 7y ago
  I think our best hope is a multi-pronged approach that includes reusing the output (as you suggest), as well as reducing the output. This has a dramatically better chance of overall success than any single-pronged approach. As such, I heartily endorse your 'how do we make use of that?' attitude, but I also will never agree with your assertion that our best hope is to accept it as a new norm, or to accept it's a losing battle. It's just like how in business you want to get new customers, but you also want to reduce costs. Any company that chooses to care about only one of those things is doomed in the long-run.
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  Trouble is, rising acidity at alarming rates is still only a 0.21 decline in pH over a 100 year period. Whilst that might be more than enough to upset no end of shelled animals and other issues. A de-acidifcation plant faces the same issue as carbon capture and storage away from the huge emitters -- you're going to have to process a colossal volume to capture enough of the pollutant you're removing. While we're at it, how much overhead do we add to global power requirements for all these de-acidification plants, desalination plants and CCS contraptions? How about we stop pouring it in the top and just fucking decarbonise, and leave all those tar sands alone... :)
  - AstralStorm 7y ago
    It is not enough still. But processing such huge volumes with current technology is out of reach. Might be easier to devise a biotech solution, but messing with ecosystems is quite risky nonetheless. An example would be putting carbon fixing bacteria or algae in the water, additionally replacing the plankton that died due to change in pH. We have similar technology for cleaning up oil spills and some chemicals, so why not dilute carbonic acid as well.
- omegaworks 7y ago
  >Our best hope it to adapt to the new norm rather than fight a losing battle. The next stage in climate denialism is climate nihilism: thinking that it's too late now to do anything to directly confront the problem so why bother. All it does is protect and entrench existing extractive interests. We can accomplish amazing things (landing on the moon, overthrowing the nazis and winning WW2) when we align our society and focus the right incentives. Anything we do to adapt along the margins won't mitigate the next great mass of people opening the spigot on high carbon lifestyles. Political systems will buckle under the weight of human migration away from the vulnerable coasts[1] and once-fertile land now too chaotic to farm[2]. We need to fund and develop the next wave of low-carbon tech to make it good enough and cheap enough to satisfy people's needs now, not piddle around looking for ways to monetize the fall. 1. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12808-z https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12808-z 2. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-28/crazy-midwest-weather-spurs-hardest-year-ever-for-u-s-farmers https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-28/crazy-mid...
  - lopmotr 7y ago
    What migration? "up to 630 M people live on land below projected annual flood levels for 2100, and up to 340 M for mid-century, versus roughly 250 M at present" 250 million people already live in those annually flooded regions, so that's only another 400 million by the year 2100. You think political systems can't cope? China has 300 million migrant workers, most of whom re-migrate every year!! They're coping already. We just need a lot of trains.
    - pjc50 7y ago
      About three million Syrians have become refugees in Europe, and the xenophobic politics that resulted have caused a lot of problems. I'm not sure where the Bangladeshis are going to go; India isn't going to take them.
- tempestn 7y ago
  This project looks pretty compelling as a cost-effective way to both remove C02 from the atmosphere and de-acidify the ocean: https://projectvesta.org/ https://projectvesta.org/
  - AstralStorm 7y ago
    There's not enough olivine to even make a dent in CO2 levels. So this, while useful addition to arsenal against global warming, is nowhere near enough.
    - tempestn 7y ago
      On the page I linked to, they address the amount available, and it sounds like there's more than enough. Do you have other information? > Is There Enough Mineable Olivine? > Yes! > There is more than enough olivine for global scale CO2 removal for the foreseeable future. Olivine is the most abundant mineral in the upper mantle, making up over 50% of it. There large reserves all over the world found near the surface, in a formation called dunite, which consists of greater than 90% olivine. The current price is also attractive, at $25 a ton with the ability to go below $10 a ton with increased mining.
- comicjk 7y ago
  You aren't taking into account the energy cost of separating substances from each other (understandable, since this isn't widely taught outside of chemical engineering). You can't get electricity by separating dilute carbonic acid from water, or CO2 from air. It's like trying to take the salt out of soup after you've oversalted it. Much better to stop before adding too much.
- lopmotr 7y ago
  This kind of fantasy reminds me of people wanting giant escape slides and parachutes for the occupants of skyscrapers right after 9/11. Just because a journalist writes a shock-inducing story doesn't mean we need some extreme inventions to do anything about it. Like 9/11, it's not actually a big problem.
- pjc50 7y ago
  > Too much carbon being released? Free carbon! "Unlimited free mildly poisonous garbage" isn't really a great deal. The best approach to making use of it appears to be from US Naval Research: electrically driven extraction of CO2+H2 which can then be combined into fuel. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312163311_Development_of_an_electrolytic_cation_exchange_module_E-CEM_for_the_simultaneous_extraction_of_carbon_dioxide_and_hydrogen_gas_from_natural_seawater https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312163311_Developme... But that requires inputting more energy than you got from burning the fuel in the first place. So after California is fully converted to electric cars and the vast desert solar PV fields have a big surplus in the day, you could use that process to extract fuel from the ocean at prices somewhat higher than drilling it out of the ground.
ainiriand 7y ago
California oceans? Does it have more than one?
- warent 7y ago
  I think it's pretty common to refer to a single body of water in plural form. Probably because it's so massive or maybe just due to the nature of liquid. For example: sailing the waters; a ship got caught in the stormy seas; etc.
  - theli0nheart 7y ago
    Not in this case. You can pull that trick when the object is general, and it applies to more than just bodies of water. In this case, we’re talking about the Pacific Ocean, which is California’s ocean (of which there is only one ;) ).
  - spurgu 7y ago
    Bodies of water like lakes yes. Stormy seas would refer to the state of the sea (i.e. wavy, amount of unrest). An ocean is always an ocean and California is only connected to one of those. Coastal waters is clearly the correct term as they didn't do measurements across the whole Pacific (didn't read the source articles linked though), only around the coastline of California. So either "California coast" or rather "California coastal waters", since the article is talking about the watery part of the coast, not the "landy" part.
- zyang 7y ago
  You have to be more pacific.
- spurgu 7y ago
  Yeah the original title mentions "coastal waters" which is clearly the correct term, not sure why you're getting downvoted.
- WiseWeasel 7y ago
  Don’t forget the Salton Sea. Never forget.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
mrtweetyhack 7y ago
California has their own oceans? Wow
Gusen 7y ago
Schiff,Mueller,Nadler all rape & kill boys in Buffalo the night of 14Jan2019, as Trump did earlier that morning. Impeachment is obstruction vehicle for keeping power, all are working together, Pelosi too. All is proven entirely here, all admit collusion w/ President, 476+ boys die, see latest update Sorry, this post was removed by Reddit's spam filters. Reddit's automated bots frequently filter posts it thinks might be spam. \\14 January 2019 11:23pm: Jerrold Nadler steps up to take his turn during the Illuminati "rape party". Nadler rapes and kills three boys in under a minute, however, there was a problem. One of the boys was already dead, so he requests a new one. Jerrold Nadler then requests another ten boys. Donald Reeves: "That's a million dollar request". Nadler responds: "...you guys will cover it. I'm gonna keep Trump in power" (Trump raped and killed a dozen boys 6:30-7:00am that morning). By the time Nadler is finished, he had raped and killed 24 boys. Audio pulled from the video linked below: 14JanCh4_2300-0000.mp3 - Nadler starts at about 20:00 in. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Kuvv2Zmbw5Jw7onbRI2hCZ0M8FU66GuU/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Kuvv2Zmbw5Jw7onbRI2hCZ0M8FU... 14JanCh2_2304-2359.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nofp5xF-aXXcCSgQVwj30KlzE9WLr1x1/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nofp5xF-aXXcCSgQVwj30KlzE9W... 14JanCh3_2302-2359.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wdDIsxfsX7xTBIBZYzV4iE4xEdgmwy5l/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wdDIsxfsX7xTBIBZYzV4iE4xEdg... Further disclosure by Porter about 24:47 in: Oblivious tenant Brian Schlenker comments on something unrelated to the ongoing events: "..call the fucking police...", to which is responded with: "...that's funny because we own the police (Buffalo Police Department), we pay them $6 million dollars a month." 19 minutes in Fred Norris, formerly of the Howard Stern show, is acknowledged on the system. At 19:47 in Porter admits that Brian Schlenker will be the owner of this footage should it be discovered. January 15th, 2019 about 00:20: Special Counsel Robert Mueller takes his turn at the Illuminati "rape party" in Buffalo, New York. Mueller rapes and kills twelve boys. About roughly 00:55 Representative Adam Schiff who will also be leading an impeachment effort, also requests the same deal as Nadler, and then tries to make a case for getting more than Nadler and Mueller. Adam Schiff rapes and kills three boys. Mueller and Schiff all receive $3 billion dollars each for joing the group. Nadler came back to witness these two rape to make sure they were all bound together under one purpose: keep Trump in power, and also to confirm the payments to each, including his $10.5 billion dollar payment. Between Mueller and Schiff turns, the group issues orders for ten women to begin prepping more boys for rape. They are former friends and family of Brian Schlenker, and also some long standing Illuminati members who include Elsa Hosk, Gigi and Bella Hadid. Again, the "prep" these females engage means they perform oral sex on the boys’ penis and anus, as a child rapist like Henry Porter would, while trying to remove fecal matter from the boy prior to handing them over to be raped and subsequently murdered. Just a head's up, my voice is scattered throughout all of the footage within the links posted for this update, and is quite loud relative to the desired content at times. Audio links below: 15JanCh4_000-100.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZEDJR6jb6ARpcNnWJTokBUKb2J2OQnwZ/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZEDJR6jb6ARpcNnWJTokBUKb2J2... 15JanCh4_100-200.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/173aYWvWHH4VGht1h_2nM0IMdw746LeCL/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/173aYWvWHH4VGht1h_2nM0IMdw74... 15JanCh2_000-100.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EsmHfguwBuo2PbavJ1WYyhiML62tgCkj/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EsmHfguwBuo2PbavJ1WYyhiML62... 15JanCh2_100-200mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NZnWRnBryalNQu2yJmfJUdS2pA_rGSFH/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NZnWRnBryalNQu2yJmfJUdS2pA_... 15JanCh3_000-100.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zsEwYC875wQu6btsSbNznHsJinxYHxUL/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zsEwYC875wQu6btsSbNznHsJinx... 15JanCh3_100-200.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/15UAY2er2LdTViXG4azy_bc_oQUzvLpFh/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/15UAY2er2LdTViXG4azy_bc_oQUz... //Full 137 page PDF [update 13.Dec.2019]: FBI_FinalDraft_26Jul2019_BSchlenker.pdf https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Sj9EN_pHmicKS6rFQlmk67knMdJc9cGk/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Sj9EN_pHmicKS6rFQlmk67knMdJ... //This post will be censored when this account logs off, the posts are "shadow banned". They try to make it look like the post is live, but it is not. Here is an example. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zxS8JESoIg7uxRkUgdptMsF6SuJedYKz/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zxS8JESoIg7uxRkUgdptMsF6SuJ... \\Previously: President of the United States Donald J. Trump rapes and kills 15 boys in Buffalo, NY on January 10th, 2019. This is audio of the event from 10-Jan-2019. Download the mp3 and put on headphones, and turn the volume all the way up. 10JanCh3_1255-1557.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/18lTt_YKFEtsV6YDNzXFVQYLkStY-kSg2/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/18lTt_YKFEtsV6YDNzXFVQYLkStY... This is audio of the President, Donald J. Trump, demanding a $4 billion dollar bribe from child rapists to “take a blind eye” on January 3, 2019. Trump becomes one on January 14, 2019. Also, here is the big reason the major networks do not report any of it. //Download the video, turn the volume all the way up and put head phones on. Note: there is not much to see in the video, the audio is picked up from another [illegal surveillance] system. Trump is on a call from with Henry Porter and Gigi Hadid. See page 63. Bribe demand at 10:18am: 3JanCh3_900-1100.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Grdr8xF2psKNsuYlEnl9dIRV-77YG0Vr/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Grdr8xF2psKNsuYlEnl9dIRV-77... //President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, rapes and kills his first boy at 6:32am. Video link below: 14JanCh3_600.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/154QvA5hwyHGYIVXtod1ZbsOHFUJNbqZW/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/154QvA5hwyHGYIVXtod1ZbsOHFUJ... 14JanCh2_600-700.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/19UkqmnMwZiWy7xxWngltqwoKLTJL-IZ_/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/19UkqmnMwZiWy7xxWngltqwoKLTJ... //On January 18, 2019 at 8:31am (see page 8) Trump acknowledges the four billion dollar bribe and says: "Let's get it done and get to fucking some kids." Video link below: 18JanCh3_725-.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bVTcGq5Z9oOSAiOQcKYrmuK4TwoNmY1h/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bVTcGq5Z9oOSAiOQcKYrmuK4Two... //A big reason this has not been reported by the major news networks is right here. Lester Holt of NBC Nightly News, apparently a member of the Illuminati since the 1980's, along with ABC Nightly News lead anchor David Muir, stop over to the Porter studio in Buffalo on January 14, 2019 at 5:00 am. They both rape and kill about two dozen boys by 6:00 am. Muir starts around 5:15 am, then Holt about 5:38 am. Multi-billionaire Rupert Murdoch, owner of News Corp and Fox Corporation, takes his turn after Holt. Video links below: 14JanCh3_500-601.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i7NKepeyG_FfdQRrM7KsnFOZOOX3o7UL/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i7NKepeyG_FfdQRrM7KsnFOZOOX... 14JanCh2_530-600.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NZzgN5ilI7ToroU5cfqMaL4o2u1RwidV/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NZzgN5ilI7ToroU5cfqMaL4o2u1... Adding to the reason this is not picked up by the media, CBS & Viacom owner Sumner Redstone and Leslie Moonves rape boys following the President. 14JanCh3_700.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/10XDw6x3ldnnQiq7oIjpdYVENyXaB4aI0/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/10XDw6x3ldnnQiq7oIjpdYVENyXa... 14JanCh2_700-800.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NS_e6AzEZ05wnfljkGMETGU5CWYKfRDp/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NS_e6AzEZ05wnfljkGMETGU5CWY... //This is the tip of the iberg. //137 page PDF [updated 13.Dec.2019]: FBI_FinalDraft_26Jul2019_BSchlenker.pdf https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Sj9EN_pHmicKS6rFQlmk67knMdJc9cGk/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Sj9EN_pHmicKS6rFQlmk67knMdJ...
williesleg 7y ago
Obviously, as the ships from China have been spewing their emissions directly into the oceans, it's natural for acidity to rise. Ever wonder where the smoke stacks are? They're underwater, the exhaust goes directly into the sea. Smart, eh?
mrfusion 7y ago
What’s the counter point to this?
- JohnJamesRambo 7y ago
  How can there be a counterpoint to a scientific measurement? It either is or isn’t more acidic.
  - Allower 7y ago
    Has it been replicated? Who took the measurement? What are their potential conflicts of interest? What is the proof of validation for their tools and instruments? What assumptions did they make? What methods did they use? How sound was their reasoning? Don't be a science dogmatist
  - comicjk 7y ago
    There could be sampling issues, since you can't measure the whole ocean at once. The CO2 in the atmosphere is linked to the carbonic acid in the ocean, though, and both indicators point in the same direction.
- sevencolors 7y ago
  Conspiracy fantasies
  - shard972 7y ago
    Yep, it's either the truth or conspiracy fantasies, no other positions... This is why people don't take climate change as serious as they should
- booboolayla 7y ago
  First would be that there's no such thing as "California oceans". Second would be that, just like with CO2, the fact that "it's rising!!$#!" does not mean much without a quantification of how much will that actually affect anything ("a sand beach rose by one billion grains of sand" would be an example of the trick used.) Third would be open access to data and methodology, which is most likely lacking.
RickJWagner 7y ago
It's worth noting that the oceans are actually alkaline, not acidic. But it makes for less alarming headlines to say "Oceans becoming less alkaline", doesn't it? I really, really wish things were presented dispassionately and accurately. Things like this smack of propaganda.
- trophycase 7y ago
  becoming less alkaline = acidifying one just takes fewer words
mirimir 7y ago
Seriously, WTF is a study from a US agency doing behind a paywall? That ought to be illegal! So here.[0] 0) Osborne et al. (2019) Decadal variability in twentieth-century ocean acidification in the California Current Ecosystem. https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-019-0499-z https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-019-0499-z
sinabsolved 7y ago
How long does it take for oceans to diffuse their soluble content?
bsaul 7y ago
Problem with climate related news is that it has such a bad record on wrong prediction that i’m having a hard time believing anything that’s written in regular newspaper. it’s just working too well at freaking people out, even the most scientific minds. For example, I can’t remember the first time i read about ‘ arctic ice completely disappearing in the next ten years‘, or the polar bear going extinct..
- wolfd 7y ago
  While some headlines may be overly aggressive, many (anecdotally) of the very serious consequences of climate change are predicted to happen on the order of 50/100 years from now. There are a couple reasons this sucks: - some people seem to not care about that far in the future - people seem to be pretty bad at detecting change in their environment over longer time scales A memorable example of the second one: https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2014/02/05/257046530/big-fish-stories-getting-littler https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2014/02/05/257046530/b...
lurquer 7y ago
The underlying study is dubious... https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-019-0499-z https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-019-0499-z They took 0.5 meters of sediment. They examined shells in the sediment, and using a very convoluted and new measurement technique, they found that 'larger' shells were at the bottom (without very much statistical certainty.) And, the study admits that other factors -- such as water temperature -- could effect the size/shell thickness... to what degree is ignored. They then radiodated this 0.5 meter column of sludge, and after making assumptions about this and that and nuclear bomb testing and a host of other assumptions, they determined that the bottom of the 0.5 meter column was from 100 years ago, and the top more recent. (And, of course, they assume the sedimentation was perfectly uniform during the century because... reasons.) And, then you have a graph, showing a decrease in some factor of shells (using a new measuring system) over a span of 100 years (give or take 100 years)... they then claim the decrease is due to CO2, and Voila, the paper is sucked up by Nature. I'm not criticizing the work. I'm sure the researchers would be the first to admit their conclusion is based on a host of assumptions and guesswork. But, what I do find amusing is that a speculative study involving 0.5 meters of mud can get HN readers to begin proposing massive 'de-acidification' plants and fretting about the end of the world.
egberts1 7y ago
California oceans? Hard pass.

91 points by Elof 7y ago

I wonder if instead of desalination plants, there exists "de-acidification" plants that can in turn use the acid for electricity generation or something like that? Whenever I see these articles, unfortunately my first thought is "we're too far gone, we can't turn around now" in terms of climate change. But! I think that instead of trying to reverse the situation (for instance, by convincing the largest carbon emitters like China to stop - which they won't), we should try to make use of the situation. Too much carbon being released? Free carbon! How can we use it to make something else / convert it to something else? Too much acid in the ocean? How can we extract it and use it for something? Rising temps? How can we make use of this to grow crops that need warmer environments, or use it for better solar generation, or use thermal power generation in these areas. Our best hope it to adapt to the new norm rather than fight a losing battle. I know it's fatalistic, but I think we will last longer as a species if we adopt this approach instead.

changoplatanero 7y ago
Unfortunately the "free carbon" is in the form of a very dilute gas that is very hard to do anything useful with.
bamboozled 7y ago
I think this is the right attitude really. What else is there ? It’s the same way I see politicians doing nothing helpful, people are just going to have to work around them to get the situation under control or at least make use of it.
- lopmotr 7y ago
  No. Before investing money in solving a problem, you have to at least have some estimate of how severe the problem is, typically measured in dollars. We don't have that. Instead, we have people shouting "the end is neigh", which isn't actually a reason to take any action. I think the right approach is to do nothing about it until we have predictions. Then compare the cost of coping with the problem to the costs of preventions.
  - orange3xchicken 7y ago
    "Nobody does anything until it’s too late. We put the stoplight at the intersection after the kid is killed." (Michael Crichton, Prey) The issues associated with an acidified ocean are well known. The issues associated with an excess of carbon in the atmosphere are well known. The cost of coping with most of these issues has been compared to the cost of working to prevent or reduce their effect with respect to lives, quality of life, and dollars. I don't claim to be a climatologist, an economist, or a policy expert, but I can read a wikipedia page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribution_of_recent_climate_change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribution_of_recent_climate_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_global_warming_on_humans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_global_warming_on_h... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_global_warming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_global_warming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification
    - lopmotr 7y ago
      I had a look at all your references but didn't find any cost estimates or clear predictions of serious harm. One problem it mentioned was that already depleted shellfish stocks might not recover if we stop overfishing them. We're already doing more harm to those particular fish from fishing than ocean acidification is expected to, so that suggests something about the cost being comparable to the cost of fishing less. To use your analogy, put a stop light in the middle of the road, just in case a kid happens to run out at that point.
powowow 7y ago
I think our best hope is a multi-pronged approach that includes reusing the output (as you suggest), as well as reducing the output. This has a dramatically better chance of overall success than any single-pronged approach. As such, I heartily endorse your 'how do we make use of that?' attitude, but I also will never agree with your assertion that our best hope is to accept it as a new norm, or to accept it's a losing battle. It's just like how in business you want to get new customers, but you also want to reduce costs. Any company that chooses to care about only one of those things is doomed in the long-run.
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
Trouble is, rising acidity at alarming rates is still only a 0.21 decline in pH over a 100 year period. Whilst that might be more than enough to upset no end of shelled animals and other issues. A de-acidifcation plant faces the same issue as carbon capture and storage away from the huge emitters -- you're going to have to process a colossal volume to capture enough of the pollutant you're removing. While we're at it, how much overhead do we add to global power requirements for all these de-acidification plants, desalination plants and CCS contraptions? How about we stop pouring it in the top and just fucking decarbonise, and leave all those tar sands alone... :)
- AstralStorm 7y ago
  It is not enough still. But processing such huge volumes with current technology is out of reach. Might be easier to devise a biotech solution, but messing with ecosystems is quite risky nonetheless. An example would be putting carbon fixing bacteria or algae in the water, additionally replacing the plankton that died due to change in pH. We have similar technology for cleaning up oil spills and some chemicals, so why not dilute carbonic acid as well.
omegaworks 7y ago
>Our best hope it to adapt to the new norm rather than fight a losing battle. The next stage in climate denialism is climate nihilism: thinking that it's too late now to do anything to directly confront the problem so why bother. All it does is protect and entrench existing extractive interests. We can accomplish amazing things (landing on the moon, overthrowing the nazis and winning WW2) when we align our society and focus the right incentives. Anything we do to adapt along the margins won't mitigate the next great mass of people opening the spigot on high carbon lifestyles. Political systems will buckle under the weight of human migration away from the vulnerable coasts[1] and once-fertile land now too chaotic to farm[2]. We need to fund and develop the next wave of low-carbon tech to make it good enough and cheap enough to satisfy people's needs now, not piddle around looking for ways to monetize the fall. 1. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12808-z https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12808-z 2. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-28/crazy-midwest-weather-spurs-hardest-year-ever-for-u-s-farmers https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-28/crazy-mid...
- lopmotr 7y ago
  What migration? "up to 630 M people live on land below projected annual flood levels for 2100, and up to 340 M for mid-century, versus roughly 250 M at present" 250 million people already live in those annually flooded regions, so that's only another 400 million by the year 2100. You think political systems can't cope? China has 300 million migrant workers, most of whom re-migrate every year!! They're coping already. We just need a lot of trains.
  - pjc50 7y ago
    About three million Syrians have become refugees in Europe, and the xenophobic politics that resulted have caused a lot of problems. I'm not sure where the Bangladeshis are going to go; India isn't going to take them.
tempestn 7y ago
This project looks pretty compelling as a cost-effective way to both remove C02 from the atmosphere and de-acidify the ocean: https://projectvesta.org/ https://projectvesta.org/
- AstralStorm 7y ago
  There's not enough olivine to even make a dent in CO2 levels. So this, while useful addition to arsenal against global warming, is nowhere near enough.
  - tempestn 7y ago
    On the page I linked to, they address the amount available, and it sounds like there's more than enough. Do you have other information? > Is There Enough Mineable Olivine? > Yes! > There is more than enough olivine for global scale CO2 removal for the foreseeable future. Olivine is the most abundant mineral in the upper mantle, making up over 50% of it. There large reserves all over the world found near the surface, in a formation called dunite, which consists of greater than 90% olivine. The current price is also attractive, at $25 a ton with the ability to go below $10 a ton with increased mining.
comicjk 7y ago
You aren't taking into account the energy cost of separating substances from each other (understandable, since this isn't widely taught outside of chemical engineering). You can't get electricity by separating dilute carbonic acid from water, or CO2 from air. It's like trying to take the salt out of soup after you've oversalted it. Much better to stop before adding too much.
lopmotr 7y ago
This kind of fantasy reminds me of people wanting giant escape slides and parachutes for the occupants of skyscrapers right after 9/11. Just because a journalist writes a shock-inducing story doesn't mean we need some extreme inventions to do anything about it. Like 9/11, it's not actually a big problem.
pjc50 7y ago
> Too much carbon being released? Free carbon! "Unlimited free mildly poisonous garbage" isn't really a great deal. The best approach to making use of it appears to be from US Naval Research: electrically driven extraction of CO2+H2 which can then be combined into fuel. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312163311_Development_of_an_electrolytic_cation_exchange_module_E-CEM_for_the_simultaneous_extraction_of_carbon_dioxide_and_hydrogen_gas_from_natural_seawater https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312163311_Developme... But that requires inputting more energy than you got from burning the fuel in the first place. So after California is fully converted to electric cars and the vast desert solar PV fields have a big surplus in the day, you could use that process to extract fuel from the ocean at prices somewhat higher than drilling it out of the ground.

ainiriand 7y ago

California oceans? Does it have more than one?

warent 7y ago
I think it's pretty common to refer to a single body of water in plural form. Probably because it's so massive or maybe just due to the nature of liquid. For example: sailing the waters; a ship got caught in the stormy seas; etc.
- theli0nheart 7y ago
  Not in this case. You can pull that trick when the object is general, and it applies to more than just bodies of water. In this case, we’re talking about the Pacific Ocean, which is California’s ocean (of which there is only one ;) ).
- spurgu 7y ago
  Bodies of water like lakes yes. Stormy seas would refer to the state of the sea (i.e. wavy, amount of unrest). An ocean is always an ocean and California is only connected to one of those. Coastal waters is clearly the correct term as they didn't do measurements across the whole Pacific (didn't read the source articles linked though), only around the coastline of California. So either "California coast" or rather "California coastal waters", since the article is talking about the watery part of the coast, not the "landy" part.
zyang 7y ago
You have to be more pacific.
spurgu 7y ago
Yeah the original title mentions "coastal waters" which is clearly the correct term, not sure why you're getting downvoted.
WiseWeasel 7y ago
Don’t forget the Salton Sea. Never forget.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

mrtweetyhack 7y ago

California has their own oceans? Wow

Gusen 7y ago

Schiff,Mueller,Nadler all rape & kill boys in Buffalo the night of 14Jan2019, as Trump did earlier that morning. Impeachment is obstruction vehicle for keeping power, all are working together, Pelosi too. All is proven entirely here, all admit collusion w/ President, 476+ boys die, see latest update Sorry, this post was removed by Reddit's spam filters. Reddit's automated bots frequently filter posts it thinks might be spam. \\14 January 2019 11:23pm: Jerrold Nadler steps up to take his turn during the Illuminati "rape party". Nadler rapes and kills three boys in under a minute, however, there was a problem. One of the boys was already dead, so he requests a new one. Jerrold Nadler then requests another ten boys. Donald Reeves: "That's a million dollar request". Nadler responds: "...you guys will cover it. I'm gonna keep Trump in power" (Trump raped and killed a dozen boys 6:30-7:00am that morning). By the time Nadler is finished, he had raped and killed 24 boys. Audio pulled from the video linked below: 14JanCh4_2300-0000.mp3 - Nadler starts at about 20:00 in. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Kuvv2Zmbw5Jw7onbRI2hCZ0M8FU66GuU/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Kuvv2Zmbw5Jw7onbRI2hCZ0M8FU... 14JanCh2_2304-2359.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nofp5xF-aXXcCSgQVwj30KlzE9WLr1x1/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nofp5xF-aXXcCSgQVwj30KlzE9W... 14JanCh3_2302-2359.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wdDIsxfsX7xTBIBZYzV4iE4xEdgmwy5l/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wdDIsxfsX7xTBIBZYzV4iE4xEdg... Further disclosure by Porter about 24:47 in: Oblivious tenant Brian Schlenker comments on something unrelated to the ongoing events: "..call the fucking police...", to which is responded with: "...that's funny because we own the police (Buffalo Police Department), we pay them $6 million dollars a month." 19 minutes in Fred Norris, formerly of the Howard Stern show, is acknowledged on the system. At 19:47 in Porter admits that Brian Schlenker will be the owner of this footage should it be discovered. January 15th, 2019 about 00:20: Special Counsel Robert Mueller takes his turn at the Illuminati "rape party" in Buffalo, New York. Mueller rapes and kills twelve boys. About roughly 00:55 Representative Adam Schiff who will also be leading an impeachment effort, also requests the same deal as Nadler, and then tries to make a case for getting more than Nadler and Mueller. Adam Schiff rapes and kills three boys. Mueller and Schiff all receive $3 billion dollars each for joing the group. Nadler came back to witness these two rape to make sure they were all bound together under one purpose: keep Trump in power, and also to confirm the payments to each, including his $10.5 billion dollar payment. Between Mueller and Schiff turns, the group issues orders for ten women to begin prepping more boys for rape. They are former friends and family of Brian Schlenker, and also some long standing Illuminati members who include Elsa Hosk, Gigi and Bella Hadid. Again, the "prep" these females engage means they perform oral sex on the boys’ penis and anus, as a child rapist like Henry Porter would, while trying to remove fecal matter from the boy prior to handing them over to be raped and subsequently murdered. Just a head's up, my voice is scattered throughout all of the footage within the links posted for this update, and is quite loud relative to the desired content at times. Audio links below: 15JanCh4_000-100.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZEDJR6jb6ARpcNnWJTokBUKb2J2OQnwZ/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZEDJR6jb6ARpcNnWJTokBUKb2J2... 15JanCh4_100-200.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/173aYWvWHH4VGht1h_2nM0IMdw746LeCL/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/173aYWvWHH4VGht1h_2nM0IMdw74... 15JanCh2_000-100.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EsmHfguwBuo2PbavJ1WYyhiML62tgCkj/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EsmHfguwBuo2PbavJ1WYyhiML62... 15JanCh2_100-200mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NZnWRnBryalNQu2yJmfJUdS2pA_rGSFH/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NZnWRnBryalNQu2yJmfJUdS2pA_... 15JanCh3_000-100.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zsEwYC875wQu6btsSbNznHsJinxYHxUL/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zsEwYC875wQu6btsSbNznHsJinx... 15JanCh3_100-200.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/15UAY2er2LdTViXG4azy_bc_oQUzvLpFh/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/15UAY2er2LdTViXG4azy_bc_oQUz... //Full 137 page PDF [update 13.Dec.2019]: FBI_FinalDraft_26Jul2019_BSchlenker.pdf https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Sj9EN_pHmicKS6rFQlmk67knMdJc9cGk/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Sj9EN_pHmicKS6rFQlmk67knMdJ... //This post will be censored when this account logs off, the posts are "shadow banned". They try to make it look like the post is live, but it is not. Here is an example. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zxS8JESoIg7uxRkUgdptMsF6SuJedYKz/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zxS8JESoIg7uxRkUgdptMsF6SuJ... \\Previously: President of the United States Donald J. Trump rapes and kills 15 boys in Buffalo, NY on January 10th, 2019. This is audio of the event from 10-Jan-2019. Download the mp3 and put on headphones, and turn the volume all the way up. 10JanCh3_1255-1557.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/18lTt_YKFEtsV6YDNzXFVQYLkStY-kSg2/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/18lTt_YKFEtsV6YDNzXFVQYLkStY... This is audio of the President, Donald J. Trump, demanding a $4 billion dollar bribe from child rapists to “take a blind eye” on January 3, 2019. Trump becomes one on January 14, 2019. Also, here is the big reason the major networks do not report any of it. //Download the video, turn the volume all the way up and put head phones on. Note: there is not much to see in the video, the audio is picked up from another [illegal surveillance] system. Trump is on a call from with Henry Porter and Gigi Hadid. See page 63. Bribe demand at 10:18am: 3JanCh3_900-1100.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Grdr8xF2psKNsuYlEnl9dIRV-77YG0Vr/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Grdr8xF2psKNsuYlEnl9dIRV-77... //President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, rapes and kills his first boy at 6:32am. Video link below: 14JanCh3_600.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/154QvA5hwyHGYIVXtod1ZbsOHFUJNbqZW/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/154QvA5hwyHGYIVXtod1ZbsOHFUJ... 14JanCh2_600-700.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/19UkqmnMwZiWy7xxWngltqwoKLTJL-IZ_/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/19UkqmnMwZiWy7xxWngltqwoKLTJ... //On January 18, 2019 at 8:31am (see page 8) Trump acknowledges the four billion dollar bribe and says: "Let's get it done and get to fucking some kids." Video link below: 18JanCh3_725-.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bVTcGq5Z9oOSAiOQcKYrmuK4TwoNmY1h/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bVTcGq5Z9oOSAiOQcKYrmuK4Two... //A big reason this has not been reported by the major news networks is right here. Lester Holt of NBC Nightly News, apparently a member of the Illuminati since the 1980's, along with ABC Nightly News lead anchor David Muir, stop over to the Porter studio in Buffalo on January 14, 2019 at 5:00 am. They both rape and kill about two dozen boys by 6:00 am. Muir starts around 5:15 am, then Holt about 5:38 am. Multi-billionaire Rupert Murdoch, owner of News Corp and Fox Corporation, takes his turn after Holt. Video links below: 14JanCh3_500-601.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i7NKepeyG_FfdQRrM7KsnFOZOOX3o7UL/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i7NKepeyG_FfdQRrM7KsnFOZOOX... 14JanCh2_530-600.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NZzgN5ilI7ToroU5cfqMaL4o2u1RwidV/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NZzgN5ilI7ToroU5cfqMaL4o2u1... Adding to the reason this is not picked up by the media, CBS & Viacom owner Sumner Redstone and Leslie Moonves rape boys following the President. 14JanCh3_700.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/10XDw6x3ldnnQiq7oIjpdYVENyXaB4aI0/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/10XDw6x3ldnnQiq7oIjpdYVENyXa... 14JanCh2_700-800.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NS_e6AzEZ05wnfljkGMETGU5CWYKfRDp/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NS_e6AzEZ05wnfljkGMETGU5CWY... //This is the tip of the iberg. //137 page PDF [updated 13.Dec.2019]: FBI_FinalDraft_26Jul2019_BSchlenker.pdf https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Sj9EN_pHmicKS6rFQlmk67knMdJc9cGk/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Sj9EN_pHmicKS6rFQlmk67knMdJ...

williesleg 7y ago

Obviously, as the ships from China have been spewing their emissions directly into the oceans, it's natural for acidity to rise. Ever wonder where the smoke stacks are? They're underwater, the exhaust goes directly into the sea. Smart, eh?

mrfusion 7y ago

What’s the counter point to this?

JohnJamesRambo 7y ago
How can there be a counterpoint to a scientific measurement? It either is or isn’t more acidic.
- Allower 7y ago
  Has it been replicated? Who took the measurement? What are their potential conflicts of interest? What is the proof of validation for their tools and instruments? What assumptions did they make? What methods did they use? How sound was their reasoning? Don't be a science dogmatist
- comicjk 7y ago
  There could be sampling issues, since you can't measure the whole ocean at once. The CO2 in the atmosphere is linked to the carbonic acid in the ocean, though, and both indicators point in the same direction.
sevencolors 7y ago
Conspiracy fantasies
- shard972 7y ago
  Yep, it's either the truth or conspiracy fantasies, no other positions... This is why people don't take climate change as serious as they should
booboolayla 7y ago
First would be that there's no such thing as "California oceans". Second would be that, just like with CO2, the fact that "it's rising!!$#!" does not mean much without a quantification of how much will that actually affect anything ("a sand beach rose by one billion grains of sand" would be an example of the trick used.) Third would be open access to data and methodology, which is most likely lacking.

RickJWagner 7y ago

It's worth noting that the oceans are actually alkaline, not acidic. But it makes for less alarming headlines to say "Oceans becoming less alkaline", doesn't it? I really, really wish things were presented dispassionately and accurately. Things like this smack of propaganda.

trophycase 7y ago
becoming less alkaline = acidifying one just takes fewer words

mirimir 7y ago

Seriously, WTF is a study from a US agency doing behind a paywall? That ought to be illegal! So here.[0] 0) Osborne et al. (2019) Decadal variability in twentieth-century ocean acidification in the California Current Ecosystem. https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-019-0499-z https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-019-0499-z

sinabsolved 7y ago

How long does it take for oceans to diffuse their soluble content?

bsaul 7y ago

Problem with climate related news is that it has such a bad record on wrong prediction that i’m having a hard time believing anything that’s written in regular newspaper. it’s just working too well at freaking people out, even the most scientific minds. For example, I can’t remember the first time i read about ‘ arctic ice completely disappearing in the next ten years‘, or the polar bear going extinct..

wolfd 7y ago
While some headlines may be overly aggressive, many (anecdotally) of the very serious consequences of climate change are predicted to happen on the order of 50/100 years from now. There are a couple reasons this sucks: - some people seem to not care about that far in the future - people seem to be pretty bad at detecting change in their environment over longer time scales A memorable example of the second one: https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2014/02/05/257046530/big-fish-stories-getting-littler https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2014/02/05/257046530/b...

lurquer 7y ago

The underlying study is dubious... https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-019-0499-z https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-019-0499-z They took 0.5 meters of sediment. They examined shells in the sediment, and using a very convoluted and new measurement technique, they found that 'larger' shells were at the bottom (without very much statistical certainty.) And, the study admits that other factors -- such as water temperature -- could effect the size/shell thickness... to what degree is ignored. They then radiodated this 0.5 meter column of sludge, and after making assumptions about this and that and nuclear bomb testing and a host of other assumptions, they determined that the bottom of the 0.5 meter column was from 100 years ago, and the top more recent. (And, of course, they assume the sedimentation was perfectly uniform during the century because... reasons.) And, then you have a graph, showing a decrease in some factor of shells (using a new measuring system) over a span of 100 years (give or take 100 years)... they then claim the decrease is due to CO2, and Voila, the paper is sucked up by Nature. I'm not criticizing the work. I'm sure the researchers would be the first to admit their conclusion is based on a host of assumptions and guesswork. But, what I do find amusing is that a speculative study involving 0.5 meters of mud can get HN readers to begin proposing massive 'de-acidification' plants and fretting about the end of the world.

egberts1 7y ago

California oceans? Hard pass.