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Oceans Getting More Acidic

A recent study published in Geophysical Research Letters, based on measurements in 1991 and 2006, shows that the ocean is becoming more acidic due to rising CO₂ in the atmosphere. This is very bad news for, well, everyone that cares about life on earth. I met Ken Caldera, a scientist at Stanford, last year, and heard a presentation on ocean acidification which terrified me more than anything else I’ve heard or read about climate change.

Plankton fertilization may backfire

One of the solutions proposed to reduce atmospheric CO₂ levels is to capture some of it and store it deep in the ocean. In these so-called sequestration schemes, the seas swaths of the ocean surface are fertilized with iron, and vast quantities of carbon are absorbed by single-celled aquatic plants, which then sink to the bottom of the ocean where they will stay, theoretically, forever. The only problem: these schemes also produce poisons which spread through the food chain and kill wildlife.