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"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 hob

"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 12y 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 12y 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 12y ago
  Destroying the oceans could destroy humanity completely.
- Intermernet 12y 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_ 12y 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 12y ago
      Which claim would you like me to substantiate? I'm not sure which of my statements you regard as "absurd".
  - twoodfin 12y 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 12y 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 12y 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 12y 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 12y ago
      Probably due to the ubiquity of regulatory capture
- gizmo686 12y 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 12y 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 12y ago
It's pretty apparent too if you go scuba diving at any reef.
- rdl 12y ago
  I thought coral bleaching was due to temperatures, not acidity.
legohead 12y 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 12y 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 12y 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.

danieltillett 12y 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 12y 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 12y ago
Destroying the oceans could destroy humanity completely.
Intermernet 12y 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_ 12y 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 12y ago
    Which claim would you like me to substantiate? I'm not sure which of my statements you regard as "absurd".
- twoodfin 12y 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 12y 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 12y 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 12y 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 12y ago
    Probably due to the ubiquity of regulatory capture
gizmo686 12y 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 12y 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 12y ago

It's pretty apparent too if you go scuba diving at any reef.

rdl 12y ago
I thought coral bleaching was due to temperatures, not acidity.

legohead 12y 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 12y 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 12y 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.