7 ms·

Snails Are Dissolving in Pacific Ocean

106 points by vinchuco 13y ago

Omniusaspirer 13y ago
"Outside the laboratory, however, just a handful of studies have linked falling pH levels to damaged shells." This is odd considering those in the aquarium hobby have known this as common knowledge for a long time now. Maintaining reef tanks has made it extremely apparent to me just how badly we're harming our oceans even with small changes in chemistry. I hope articles such as this can help make the general public more aware of the dangers.
- danieltillett 13y ago
  You make a real good point. There is something about getting your hands into something that convinces you of reality. Maybe what we need to do is try to encourage more people to take up marine aquariums as a hobby.
- the_ancient 13y ago
  The question is not "are we doing damage" The quesiton is how to fix it... Fix it with out destroying the economy and leading to billions of human life losses. At this point many extreme climate change activists want to send the world back to the 1700's level of technology which while would save the planet, bring about the end of the human race as we know it
  - Gravityloss 13y ago
    Destroying the oceans could destroy humanity completely.
  - Intermernet 13y ago
    "At this point many extreme climate change activists want to send the world back to the 1700's level of technology" Really, who? I can't see the people in the 18th century using PV (or much electricity at all for that matter). I think the real problem is that people somehow believe "the economy" is more important than the environment. Destroying "the economy" would have little to no effect at all on about two thirds of the world's population. Fixing (and preserving) the environment will have an enormous benefit to the entire world population, with the exception of the very small number of people who currently profit from treating the environment as an infinite resource, or a static back-drop to our own civilization.
    - Alphasite_ 13y ago
      How on earth can you make such absurd statements without the smallest shred of evidence? I'm not interested in arguing with you, but unsubstantiated claims are worse than useless.
      - Intermernet 13y ago
        Which claim would you like me to substantiate? I'm not sure which of my statements you regard as "absurd".
    - twoodfin 13y ago
      Destroying "the economy" would have little to no effect at all on about two thirds of the world's population. I don't think you have a good grasp of how interdependent almost all modern national economies are today, regardless of their current size or per capita GDP. There is an almost inconceivably huge difference in aggregate quality of life (especially for the poorest!) between a 2100 that saw a century with 3.5% global annual real "gross world product" growth and one where growth averaged 2.5%. Some back of the envelope calculation tells me it's a choice between a global economy worth ~$620T and one that's worth ~$1460T. You can pay for a lot of amelioration when your economy is that big, and still have a bunch left over to make people's lives so much better than they'd have in an economy less than half as productive. Obviously there is a potentially serious downside to emissions growth that goes along with that economic growth. But the consequences of even moderately throttling the world economy to deal with it have huge costs that can't be waved away.
      - Intermernet 13y ago
        You're conflating the amount of money involved with the number of people involved. This rarely works for global situations. The land-owners of the Alberta Oil Sands (last I heard the Koch brothers were #1 in this regard) have little or no incentive to put the money they make back into the Alberta community. They almost certainly have some token gesture scheme in place that will provide <1% of the profit to local funding, but that's just PR spin. You can look at the money, or the people. As of October 2013 (according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population) 10 countries had 58% of the world's population. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_economy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_economy it can be calculated that 64.67% of the money (by GDP) is controlled by 4 countries. The population growth is decreasing due to (mainly) education. The disparity in the distribution of wealth is only growing greater. Those in the USA and Europe should realize that this isn't happening in their favour. In 2000, the USA was 22.61% of the world's GDP with China at 4.62%. The estimate for the next 6 years puts China at 26.79% and the USA at 15.45%. Try telling the billions of people in the world living hand to mouth that the actions of some for-profit corporation will mean that they see an improvement in their quality of life. EDIT: See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IMF_Developing_Countries_Map,_2014_(revised).png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IMF_Developing_Countries_M... for an illustration of what the IMF refers to as "developing countries". This should give you an idea of the amount of the planet that isn't a "player" in the world economy.
  - Omniusaspirer 13y ago
    Personally? I think we can use technology to dig ourselves out of this problem without needing to revert to "1700's level of technology" (which actually obliterated old growth forests/whale populations). It's not a question of how at this point, it's a question of research and desire to change. We have 4+ TRILLION dollars for wars in the middle east (at least partially driven by a desire for stable oil) but we can't find even 1% of that for nuclear power research/testing? Batteries? Solar? Our priorities as a society are in the wrong place.
    - the_ancient 13y ago
      I would agree with that... Unfortunately most environmentalists believe in the same people that are wasting all those resources on war... Government. They look to the governments of the world to violently effect change... That is not the solution.
      - wycx 13y ago
        Probably due to the ubiquity of regulatory capture
  - gizmo686 13y ago
    >send the world back to the 1700's level of technology which while would save the planet That is a pretty strong claim you are making their. We have already mucked up the carbon cycle be adding vast amounts of carbon into the system (carbon that took billions of years to get sequestered in the first place). This change alone would be sufficient to cause massive damage (and likely a mass extinction), and the 'only' way to fix it is to actively remove carbon from the environment and sequester it again. I put only in quotes because there may be ways we can prevent a lot of the damage by intervening at other stages of the process (for example, find a way to replace the functionality of species that are directly affected to prevent a cascade effect through the entire system).
  - dredmorbius 13y ago
    Fix it with out destroying the economy and leading to billions of human life losses. I'm coming to the conclusion that both of those are likely unavoidable even in the best case. The present economic system cannot survive, and a stable, sustainable human population at anything remotely resembling present levels of affluence is likely in the 500 million - 2 billion range. How the transition happens is the interesting question.
- Dwolb 13y ago
  It's pretty apparent too if you go scuba diving at any reef.
  - rdl 13y ago
    I thought coral bleaching was due to temperatures, not acidity.
- legohead 13y ago
  Maintaining a tank and "maintaining" the ocean are such astronomically different scales. We are wasteful and polluting creatures, but to attribute drastic change to the ocean only to humans for the past ~50 years is almost egotistical.
  - kennywinker 13y ago
    Yeah it's pretty far fetched to think humans could impact an ecosystem as big as the ocean... http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overfishing http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overfishing
  - Omniusaspirer 13y ago
    Your second line is the same that was used in regards to global warming and the hole in the ozone layer. It's a straw man, since nobody (sane) is saying it's 100% the fault of humans. That doesn't mean we can't affect something that large, we just take some time to do so.
vixin 13y ago
Apparently these sensitive snails are dissolving p <because> they are in an alkaline ocean of around pH 8.14. Amazing. The paper does not point out that some parts of the ocean naturally vary in pH by 1.4 units. Of course none of the massive amounts of chemical junk dumped into the oceans and poisoning the fish we eat, has any effect on these snails. Did they check? http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0028983 http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjourna... “This natural variability has prompted the suggestion that “an appropriate null hypothesis may be, until evidence is obtained to the contrary, that major biogeochemical processes in the oceans other than calcification will not be fundamentally different under future higher CO2/lower pH conditions””
- QuantumChaos 13y ago
  >major biogeochemical processes in the oceans other than calcification will not be fundamentally different But calcification precisely the process in question here.
highace 13y ago
What's the likely solution here? Is it possible to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere without damaging it in some other way? Or are we destined to slowly but surely destroy this planet?
- shinryuu 13y ago
  Yes, that is the likely solution. The ocean currently absorbs a lot of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and mitigating climate change. It is a tall order though given how much carbon dioxide we put in the atmosphere every single day.
- socialist_coder 13y ago
  I'll take eventual destruction for $1000, alex
- pjc50 13y ago
  It is somewhat self-stabilising over time, but the first step is to stop putting it into the atmosphere in the first place. Or at least reduce the rate. That implies not opening new fossil fuel fields; not fracking, and not extracting the tar sands.
- Theodores 13y ago
  > What's the likely solution here? Turn your computer off. The CO2 that acidified that ocean came from the fossil fuels + oxygen that were burned to make the power needed to build that wind turbine that powers your computer. So, if you want to save the life of a snail, turn off your computer. And stop breathing. Instead of having a 'war on terror' and a trillion dollar arms trade we could get serious about greening this planet, as in planting green things that look pretty, take in CO2 and breathe out oxygen. If we set our minds to it and found some political will we could do it, to create a true paradise on earth and not have this fear of climate change. We could steward this planet whichever way we wanted rather than always going for the tragedy of the commons and electing the evil, corrupt, lying retards such as the politicians we have. I thought we had reached the turning point (of no turning back) about 15 years ago when action would have been worthwhile. But, since then we have gone the other way, hit on fracking and decided to go for mass die-off. Are we to be no better than bacteria on a petri dish, to bloom exponentially, hit resource depletion and die off? Is that it? Arthur C Clarke and Carl Sagan had us conquering new worlds rather than just assuming the zombie apocalypse will miss our generation.
tim333 13y ago
The evidence sounds a bit weak - as I understand the paper summary they collected a bunch of snails just the one time in 2011 and found a correlation between shell damage and the concentration on aragonite in the water which is a form of calcium carbonate of which the concentration presumably varies with acidity. There could be a bunch of reasons why some snails where more damaged - storms, different ages etc. One sample with no control experiments is pretty weak data. If you wanted to check it you could put a bunch of snails in tanks and with varying pH and see if the effect is replicated I guess.
- socialist_coder 13y ago
  This isn't a new thing and there are heaps of evidence. Google "ocean acidification" for lots more studies and reports. Here's 1: http://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/feature/ocean-acidification--a-risky-shell-game http://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/feature/ocean-acidification--a-r... "In tanks filled with seawater, they raised 18 species of marine organisms that build calcium carbonate shells or skeletons. The scientists exposed the tanks to air containing CO2 at today’s level (400 parts per million, or ppm), at levels that climate models forecast for 100 years from now (600 ppm) and 200 years from now (900 ppm), and at a level (2,850 ppm) that should cause the types of calcium carbonate in shells (aragonite and high-magnesium calcite) to dissolve in seawater. The test tanks’ miniature atmospheres produced elevated CO2 in the tiny captive oceans, generating higher acidity. The researchers measured the rate of shell growth for the diverse species ranging from crabs to algae, from both temperate and tropical waters. They included organisms such as corals and coralline algae, which form foundations for critical habitats, and organisms that support seafood industries (clams, oysters, scallops, conchs, urchins, crabs, lobsters, and prawns)."
  - 001sky 13y ago
    So-called ocean "Acidification" appears to be 100% propoganda. "scientists do not think the seas will become truly acidic (with a pH less than 7.0), but rather less alkaline" So, it is not "acid" that is eating away anything. If these shells were in "pure water" with ph 7.0, the deterioration woud be worse.
Darkworld1 13y ago
This strange behaviour whether its creatures dying and filling up the ocean floor 98 percent or this snail thing is related to the fukushima radiation which is reaching the west coast. No other explanation can possible explain these which has never happened in history.
djwon 13y ago
This strange behaviour whether its creatures dying and filling up the ocean floor 98 percent or this snail thing is related to the fukushima radiation which is reaching the west coast. No other explanation can possible explain these which has never happened in history.
avaku 13y ago
The question is: have they been dissolving before as well?
yusery 13y ago
This strange behaviour whether its creatures dying and filling up the ocean floor 98 percent or this snail thing is related to the fuku shima radiation which is reaching the west coast. No other explanation can possible explain these which has never happened in history.

106 points by vinchuco 13y ago

"Outside the laboratory, however, just a handful of studies have linked falling pH levels to damaged shells." This is odd considering those in the aquarium hobby have known this as common knowledge for a long time now. Maintaining reef tanks has made it extremely apparent to me just how badly we're harming our oceans even with small changes in chemistry. I hope articles such as this can help make the general public more aware of the dangers.

danieltillett 13y ago
You make a real good point. There is something about getting your hands into something that convinces you of reality. Maybe what we need to do is try to encourage more people to take up marine aquariums as a hobby.
the_ancient 13y ago
The question is not "are we doing damage" The quesiton is how to fix it... Fix it with out destroying the economy and leading to billions of human life losses. At this point many extreme climate change activists want to send the world back to the 1700's level of technology which while would save the planet, bring about the end of the human race as we know it
- Gravityloss 13y ago
  Destroying the oceans could destroy humanity completely.
- Intermernet 13y ago
  "At this point many extreme climate change activists want to send the world back to the 1700's level of technology" Really, who? I can't see the people in the 18th century using PV (or much electricity at all for that matter). I think the real problem is that people somehow believe "the economy" is more important than the environment. Destroying "the economy" would have little to no effect at all on about two thirds of the world's population. Fixing (and preserving) the environment will have an enormous benefit to the entire world population, with the exception of the very small number of people who currently profit from treating the environment as an infinite resource, or a static back-drop to our own civilization.
  - Alphasite_ 13y ago
    How on earth can you make such absurd statements without the smallest shred of evidence? I'm not interested in arguing with you, but unsubstantiated claims are worse than useless.
    - Intermernet 13y ago
      Which claim would you like me to substantiate? I'm not sure which of my statements you regard as "absurd".
  - twoodfin 13y ago
    Destroying "the economy" would have little to no effect at all on about two thirds of the world's population. I don't think you have a good grasp of how interdependent almost all modern national economies are today, regardless of their current size or per capita GDP. There is an almost inconceivably huge difference in aggregate quality of life (especially for the poorest!) between a 2100 that saw a century with 3.5% global annual real "gross world product" growth and one where growth averaged 2.5%. Some back of the envelope calculation tells me it's a choice between a global economy worth ~$620T and one that's worth ~$1460T. You can pay for a lot of amelioration when your economy is that big, and still have a bunch left over to make people's lives so much better than they'd have in an economy less than half as productive. Obviously there is a potentially serious downside to emissions growth that goes along with that economic growth. But the consequences of even moderately throttling the world economy to deal with it have huge costs that can't be waved away.
    - Intermernet 13y ago
      You're conflating the amount of money involved with the number of people involved. This rarely works for global situations. The land-owners of the Alberta Oil Sands (last I heard the Koch brothers were #1 in this regard) have little or no incentive to put the money they make back into the Alberta community. They almost certainly have some token gesture scheme in place that will provide <1% of the profit to local funding, but that's just PR spin. You can look at the money, or the people. As of October 2013 (according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population) 10 countries had 58% of the world's population. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_economy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_economy it can be calculated that 64.67% of the money (by GDP) is controlled by 4 countries. The population growth is decreasing due to (mainly) education. The disparity in the distribution of wealth is only growing greater. Those in the USA and Europe should realize that this isn't happening in their favour. In 2000, the USA was 22.61% of the world's GDP with China at 4.62%. The estimate for the next 6 years puts China at 26.79% and the USA at 15.45%. Try telling the billions of people in the world living hand to mouth that the actions of some for-profit corporation will mean that they see an improvement in their quality of life. EDIT: See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IMF_Developing_Countries_Map,_2014_(revised).png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IMF_Developing_Countries_M... for an illustration of what the IMF refers to as "developing countries". This should give you an idea of the amount of the planet that isn't a "player" in the world economy.
- Omniusaspirer 13y ago
  Personally? I think we can use technology to dig ourselves out of this problem without needing to revert to "1700's level of technology" (which actually obliterated old growth forests/whale populations). It's not a question of how at this point, it's a question of research and desire to change. We have 4+ TRILLION dollars for wars in the middle east (at least partially driven by a desire for stable oil) but we can't find even 1% of that for nuclear power research/testing? Batteries? Solar? Our priorities as a society are in the wrong place.
  - the_ancient 13y ago
    I would agree with that... Unfortunately most environmentalists believe in the same people that are wasting all those resources on war... Government. They look to the governments of the world to violently effect change... That is not the solution.
    - wycx 13y ago
      Probably due to the ubiquity of regulatory capture
- gizmo686 13y ago
  >send the world back to the 1700's level of technology which while would save the planet That is a pretty strong claim you are making their. We have already mucked up the carbon cycle be adding vast amounts of carbon into the system (carbon that took billions of years to get sequestered in the first place). This change alone would be sufficient to cause massive damage (and likely a mass extinction), and the 'only' way to fix it is to actively remove carbon from the environment and sequester it again. I put only in quotes because there may be ways we can prevent a lot of the damage by intervening at other stages of the process (for example, find a way to replace the functionality of species that are directly affected to prevent a cascade effect through the entire system).
- dredmorbius 13y ago
  Fix it with out destroying the economy and leading to billions of human life losses. I'm coming to the conclusion that both of those are likely unavoidable even in the best case. The present economic system cannot survive, and a stable, sustainable human population at anything remotely resembling present levels of affluence is likely in the 500 million - 2 billion range. How the transition happens is the interesting question.
Dwolb 13y ago
It's pretty apparent too if you go scuba diving at any reef.
- rdl 13y ago
  I thought coral bleaching was due to temperatures, not acidity.
legohead 13y ago
Maintaining a tank and "maintaining" the ocean are such astronomically different scales. We are wasteful and polluting creatures, but to attribute drastic change to the ocean only to humans for the past ~50 years is almost egotistical.
- kennywinker 13y ago
  Yeah it's pretty far fetched to think humans could impact an ecosystem as big as the ocean... http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overfishing http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overfishing
- Omniusaspirer 13y ago
  Your second line is the same that was used in regards to global warming and the hole in the ozone layer. It's a straw man, since nobody (sane) is saying it's 100% the fault of humans. That doesn't mean we can't affect something that large, we just take some time to do so.

vixin 13y ago

Apparently these sensitive snails are dissolving p <because> they are in an alkaline ocean of around pH 8.14. Amazing. The paper does not point out that some parts of the ocean naturally vary in pH by 1.4 units. Of course none of the massive amounts of chemical junk dumped into the oceans and poisoning the fish we eat, has any effect on these snails. Did they check? http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0028983 http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjourna... “This natural variability has prompted the suggestion that “an appropriate null hypothesis may be, until evidence is obtained to the contrary, that major biogeochemical processes in the oceans other than calcification will not be fundamentally different under future higher CO2/lower pH conditions””

QuantumChaos 13y ago
>major biogeochemical processes in the oceans other than calcification will not be fundamentally different But calcification precisely the process in question here.

highace 13y ago

What's the likely solution here? Is it possible to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere without damaging it in some other way? Or are we destined to slowly but surely destroy this planet?

shinryuu 13y ago
Yes, that is the likely solution. The ocean currently absorbs a lot of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and mitigating climate change. It is a tall order though given how much carbon dioxide we put in the atmosphere every single day.
socialist_coder 13y ago
I'll take eventual destruction for $1000, alex
pjc50 13y ago
It is somewhat self-stabilising over time, but the first step is to stop putting it into the atmosphere in the first place. Or at least reduce the rate. That implies not opening new fossil fuel fields; not fracking, and not extracting the tar sands.
Theodores 13y ago
> What's the likely solution here? Turn your computer off. The CO2 that acidified that ocean came from the fossil fuels + oxygen that were burned to make the power needed to build that wind turbine that powers your computer. So, if you want to save the life of a snail, turn off your computer. And stop breathing. Instead of having a 'war on terror' and a trillion dollar arms trade we could get serious about greening this planet, as in planting green things that look pretty, take in CO2 and breathe out oxygen. If we set our minds to it and found some political will we could do it, to create a true paradise on earth and not have this fear of climate change. We could steward this planet whichever way we wanted rather than always going for the tragedy of the commons and electing the evil, corrupt, lying retards such as the politicians we have. I thought we had reached the turning point (of no turning back) about 15 years ago when action would have been worthwhile. But, since then we have gone the other way, hit on fracking and decided to go for mass die-off. Are we to be no better than bacteria on a petri dish, to bloom exponentially, hit resource depletion and die off? Is that it? Arthur C Clarke and Carl Sagan had us conquering new worlds rather than just assuming the zombie apocalypse will miss our generation.

tim333 13y ago

The evidence sounds a bit weak - as I understand the paper summary they collected a bunch of snails just the one time in 2011 and found a correlation between shell damage and the concentration on aragonite in the water which is a form of calcium carbonate of which the concentration presumably varies with acidity. There could be a bunch of reasons why some snails where more damaged - storms, different ages etc. One sample with no control experiments is pretty weak data. If you wanted to check it you could put a bunch of snails in tanks and with varying pH and see if the effect is replicated I guess.

socialist_coder 13y ago
This isn't a new thing and there are heaps of evidence. Google "ocean acidification" for lots more studies and reports. Here's 1: http://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/feature/ocean-acidification--a-risky-shell-game http://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/feature/ocean-acidification--a-r... "In tanks filled with seawater, they raised 18 species of marine organisms that build calcium carbonate shells or skeletons. The scientists exposed the tanks to air containing CO2 at today’s level (400 parts per million, or ppm), at levels that climate models forecast for 100 years from now (600 ppm) and 200 years from now (900 ppm), and at a level (2,850 ppm) that should cause the types of calcium carbonate in shells (aragonite and high-magnesium calcite) to dissolve in seawater. The test tanks’ miniature atmospheres produced elevated CO2 in the tiny captive oceans, generating higher acidity. The researchers measured the rate of shell growth for the diverse species ranging from crabs to algae, from both temperate and tropical waters. They included organisms such as corals and coralline algae, which form foundations for critical habitats, and organisms that support seafood industries (clams, oysters, scallops, conchs, urchins, crabs, lobsters, and prawns)."
- 001sky 13y ago
  So-called ocean "Acidification" appears to be 100% propoganda. "scientists do not think the seas will become truly acidic (with a pH less than 7.0), but rather less alkaline" So, it is not "acid" that is eating away anything. If these shells were in "pure water" with ph 7.0, the deterioration woud be worse.

Darkworld1 13y ago

This strange behaviour whether its creatures dying and filling up the ocean floor 98 percent or this snail thing is related to the fukushima radiation which is reaching the west coast. No other explanation can possible explain these which has never happened in history.

djwon 13y ago

avaku 13y ago

The question is: have they been dissolving before as well?

yusery 13y ago

This strange behaviour whether its creatures dying and filling up the ocean floor 98 percent or this snail thing is related to the fuku shima radiation which is reaching the west coast. No other explanation can possible explain these which has never happened in history.