In addition to the famous impacts of atmospheric carbon on global warming, there is an equally worrisome effect of carbon dioxide on the oceans: ocean acidification (or OA for short). Here at I2SEA we have a series of resources about OA, including Our Acidifying Ocean, which is an introductory activity and virtual lab (note: now mobile compatible!).
A student suggested that we start a conversation topic about OA, and here it is! Have you heard about Ocean Acidification? If so, are you worried about it? How do you think we can best raise awareness about it among your fellow students and the general public? Have you seen particularly good links or films about OA that you would like to share? What are you doing to address the problem?
Ocean Acidification >
Carly Jewell/ Ocean Acidification
I never realized how bad of a conditions our oceans were until learning about it in class and reading up on the topic. The main issue of ocean acidification is burning of the fossil fuels. However, it is very difficult to get the corporations to burn less. So what can we do? In the article I read, it said growing sea plants can help slow down the process. While it doesn't completely fix the problem, it does buy us some time until we can fix it.
https://e360.yale.edu/features/kelp_sea … on_netarts
Apart from growing sea plants to slow down the process of ocean acidification, I feel that we need to get the corporations to burn less fossil fuel. The number one goal of any corporation is to make money, and I believe that if we can somehow make it less profitable for corporations to burn fossil fuels, then they will burn less fossil fuel. We can either do this by levying an additional tax on corporations that burn fossil fuel, or by giving tax breaks to corporations that use renewable energy.
Even though there are many solutions to help the coral reefs, they are already dying. The fossil fuels aren’t going to stop so easily because of the huge demand for products made by burning fossil fuels. We need to somehow raise coral and place it in the ocean so they can reproduce. However, I just read about a machine who just delivered 100,000 baby coral to the Great Barrier Reef which is great. However, we need to reduce the use of carbon emissions to prevent the new baby coral from dying.