Enjoy serving shrimp, oysters or crabs during your holiday meals? Then you should pay heed to the big climate-change meeting opening next Monday in Copenhagen. What nations decide there could determine if our ocean will continue providing tasty shellfish — or instead become part of a perilous chemistry experiment that could ravage valuable fisheries and coral reefs.
The problem, strange as it may seem, is that the ocean is doing a wonderful job of slowing down global warming. Every day, it removes nearly 30 million metric tons of carbon dioxide — the main warming gas — from the atmosphere. That’s nearly twice what U.S. power plants, cars and factories spew daily into the sky. So we owe the ocean a big thanks for putting a brake on climate change and giving us time to find solutions.
Unfortunately, that help comes at a steep price. When carbon dioxide in the air mixes with seawater, a chemical reaction creates a compound called carbonic acid. In the ocean, however, “acidification” is bad news for shellfish and corals. That’s because as acidification increases — and it is increasing rapidly — the process locks up the carbonate molecules these creatures need to build their shells and stony skeletons.
Read the complete story at The Providence Journal.