World's Oceans Fail Key Health Check As Acidity Crosses Critical Threshold For Marine Life (theguardian.com) 64
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The world's oceans have failed a key planetary health check for the first time, primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels, a report has shown. In its latest annual assessment, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research said ocean acidity had crossed a critical threshold for marine life. This makes it the seventh of nine planetary boundaries to be transgressed, prompting scientists to call for a renewed global effort to curb fossil fuels, deforestation and other human-driven pressures that are tilting the Earth out of a habitable equilibrium. The report, which follows earlier warnings about ocean acidity, comes at a time of recordbreaking ocean heat and mass coral bleaching.
Oceans cover 71% of the Earth's surface and play an essential role as a climate stabilizer. The new report calls them an "unsung guardian of planetary health", but says their vital functions are threatened. The 2025 Planetary Health Check noted that since the start of the industrial era, oceans' surface pH has fallen by about 0.1 units, a 30-40% increase in acidity, pushing marine ecosystems beyond safe limits. Cold-water corals, tropical coral reefs and Arctic marine life are especially at risk. This is primarily due to the human-caused climate crisis. When carbon dioxide from oil, coal and gas burning enters the sea, it forms carbonic acid. This reduces the availability of calcium carbonate, which many marine organisms depend upon to grow coral, shells or skeletons.
Near the bottom of the food chain, this directly affects species like oysters, molluscs and clams. Indirectly, it harms salmon, whales and other sea life that eat smaller organisms. Ultimately, this is a risk for human food security and coastal economies. Scientists are concerned that it could also weaken the ocean's role as the planet's most important heat absorber and its capacity to draw down 25-30% of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Marine life plays an important role in this process, acting as a "biotic bump" to sequester carbon in the depths. In the report, all of the other six breached boundaries -- climate change, biosphere integrity, land system change, freshwater use, biogeochemical flows, and novel entities -- showed a worsening trend. But the authors said the addition of the only solely ocean-centerd category was a alarming development because of its scale and importance.
Oceans cover 71% of the Earth's surface and play an essential role as a climate stabilizer. The new report calls them an "unsung guardian of planetary health", but says their vital functions are threatened. The 2025 Planetary Health Check noted that since the start of the industrial era, oceans' surface pH has fallen by about 0.1 units, a 30-40% increase in acidity, pushing marine ecosystems beyond safe limits. Cold-water corals, tropical coral reefs and Arctic marine life are especially at risk. This is primarily due to the human-caused climate crisis. When carbon dioxide from oil, coal and gas burning enters the sea, it forms carbonic acid. This reduces the availability of calcium carbonate, which many marine organisms depend upon to grow coral, shells or skeletons.
Near the bottom of the food chain, this directly affects species like oysters, molluscs and clams. Indirectly, it harms salmon, whales and other sea life that eat smaller organisms. Ultimately, this is a risk for human food security and coastal economies. Scientists are concerned that it could also weaken the ocean's role as the planet's most important heat absorber and its capacity to draw down 25-30% of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Marine life plays an important role in this process, acting as a "biotic bump" to sequester carbon in the depths. In the report, all of the other six breached boundaries -- climate change, biosphere integrity, land system change, freshwater use, biogeochemical flows, and novel entities -- showed a worsening trend. But the authors said the addition of the only solely ocean-centerd category was a alarming development because of its scale and importance.
Just one of many things (Score:5, Insightful)
That will now go wrong on a slowly accelerating pace. At some time, feeding people becomes difficult in places where it was not before.
Obviously, nothing of that comes as a surprise to anybody that has kept up with reality.
Re:Just one of many things (Score:5, Funny)
Re: Just one of many things (Score:2)
Oh and acidic oceans are good for your skin.
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Maybe he'll recommend that people just stop testing the water so the results won't be bad ...
( Like this during COVID: Trump: ‘If We Stop Testing, We’d Have Fewer Cases’ [voanews.com] )
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Trump is in the process of "flooding the zone with crap", since he still has the Epstein files hanging over his head (whatever may be in there that scares him) and a increasing group of really bad decisions. Hence all he does is create as much hot air as he can. Even his flip-flop on Ukraine is probably just a diversion.
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Fuck the DEA, they should not exist as a law enforcement agency.
Ah yes, the DEA. Created by (checks notes) woke libtard Richard Nixon.
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Well, the advantage of a "war" that cannot be won is that you can always pretend to be doing "something". As in "we have always be at war with Eurasia". Hence the DEA is effective politics by really bad people.
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Sorry, but Tylenol and Paracetamol _are_ safe. You just need to take them according to the prescription and take the warnings seriously. There are lots of ways you can kill yourself if you do not pay attention, like cars, kitchen knives, guns, etc. Tylenol and Paracetamol are not a major risk by themselves. People that have reality-perception and attention disorders are a major risk though.
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At some time, feeding people becomes difficult in places where it was not before.
LOL, you are worrying about food? Ha! You should be worried about air bro. Without the oceans biological organisms, we will not have enough oxygen to live.
A long long (REALLY long) time ago, the atmosphere was mostly carbon dioxide. Then, these little single celled cyanobacteria took over the oceans. They breathed CO2 and farted out O2. It was a complete disaster. Almost all life on Earth was wiped out. And then, with so much oxygen available, newer life forms started forming. They started breathing O2 and
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That comes later in the progression. Much later.
Rest Easy Folk (Score:5, Funny)
Fortunately, the U.S. elected a visionary stable genius as its president who will take this problem seriously and lead the best minds in the nation and the power of the nation's economy to mitigate and ultimately solves this crisis.
Oh, wait. I posted that in the wrong universe. My bad.
Re:Rest Easy Folk (Score:5, Informative)
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He won't be in office forever. Its just a matter of waiting.
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We"ve been saying this shit so long we've already turned into old men!
We're now the same age as they were when i first started having doubts about the self professed perfection of the boomer generation.
Re:Rest Easy Folk (Score:4, Informative)
These assholes have the best medical care in the world. Mitch McConnell is a literal walking corpse at this point and Dianne Feinstein was an argument for elder abuse. Her handlers propped her up and told her which button to press to vote.
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It's awesome having a bunch of old fucks in every decision making position.
I hope in the after-after times their corpses are exhumed and publicly raped.
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Yes and they'll be huddled around the burning trash can at night muttering how at least the libs are suffering too.
This is the part to be scared of (Score:4, Informative)
Ocean acidification is the scariest aspect of global warming, it could cause an oceanic mass extinction that no amount of distance from the equator, coasts or forests could keep you safe from.
When we finally get our asses in gear to start the planetary-scale artificial carbon sequestration necessary to address global warming, we'll need to start by pulling CO2 out of the oceans, and the only good news is that this happens to be a very efficient way to do it.
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We are in an age where Wind and Solar are cheaper than oil and coal.
The problem with wind and solar is that they're too woke.
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No, the problem is Wind and Solar don't have a supreme spokesman that can kneel at Trump's zipper to change his tiny mind.
Remember, Trump is a champion of the birds. Wind and Solar kill birds so they must be evil. All the petroleum giants have told him this.
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Nah, its the solar wind that is bad, and those windmill operators should know better than to catch it.
Re: This is the part to be scared of (Score:5, Insightful)
the problem is mostly that very powerful and rich companies stand to lose money when wind and sun become the new energy source.
Enlightened times such as that of S-Arabia, Russia and Venezuela also stand to lose large chunks of money in that case.
This means they don't like it. Hence all the vitriol directed against it.
Its a repeat of what we saw with leaded fuel, smoking, public transport vs cars, and other moneymakers that kill people. Basically, capitalism at work.
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Things seem simpler to me, MAGAs think that solar and wind is bad, oil is good.
Don't forget about coal -- sorry, "beautiful, clean coal" -- no matter how unnecessarily expensive to consumers...
Independent Report Finds that the Trump Administration’s Orders to Keep Coal-fired Power Plants Running Could Cost Consumers between $3-6 Billion a Year [edf.org]
If the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) mandates that the large fossil fuel power plants scheduled to retire between now and the end of 2028 continue to operate, the cost to ratepayers could exceed $3.1 billion per year. If DOE issues similar orders for additional older fossil plants, the cost could reach nearly $6 billion per year, according to an independent analysis prepared by Grid Strategies for Earthjustice [earthjustice.org], Environmental Defense Fund, NRDC, and Sierra Club.
And other sources, Google trump coal power cost [google.com]
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But feel free to imagine whatever you'd like for them to believe. Heck, imagine the most awful things you can. That way you won't feel bad about murdering me and my family. I'd hate to see you riddled with guilt.
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It's pretty simple in MAGA land. Liberals like clean energy therefor it is bad.
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Saying that solar isn't good enough to meet all of our needs on its own isn't saying that it is bad.
And by replacing me with a strawman you can call evil and hate, you have successfully dehumanized me to the point where you might not feel bad about murdering me.
Thanks again for being so big-hearted.
Nice sentiment, won't work in practice (Score:5, Insightful)
Carbon sequestration currently doesn't even get close to dealing with the CO2 we release on a daily basis. The chances of it sequestering all that AND start pulling excess out of the air too in any forseable time frame is for the birds I'm afraid.
No, I don't know what the solution is but I'm afraid its not that, however it would be possible to seed small shallow parts of the ocean close to the shore with carbonates to reduce the acidity and preserve the life there though it would need to be done where ocean currents don't move the water away too fast so the seeding needs to be re-done.
Re: Nice sentiment, won't work in practice (Score:3)
You're not exactly wrong, the solution is both: greatly reduce carbon emissions by turning fossil fuels into a niche power source, and then use planetary-scale artificial carbon sequestration to start putting the carbon back underground somewhere near as fast as we took it out. Natural sequestration with trees etc is far too slow so artificial sequestration will have to do the heavy lifting.
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If there was a useful and actionable set of advice, then great, we could examine the list and see what we can do.
LOL
You act like a typical MAGA who's been told repeatedly how to lower CO2 emissions. Who is now asking why nobody told him how to lower CO2 emissions...
There isn't really.
Yep. nobody ever told you how to burn less oil or slap up some solar panels.
It's all just "humans are bad".
Well some of you are...
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Once hot fusion becomes ubiquitous, none of this is really going to matter. Coal and natgas will be too expensive for power generation. People will want carbon sources (hydrocarbons being the cheapest available) for materials synthesis.
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> What are we supposed to do with that information?
Your doctor tells you that you have terminal cancer, what do you do with that information?
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Sorry, but thermodynamics is real. Entropy is real.
OTOH, some choices are more destructive than others. If you pay attention, you can pick the less destructive ones. (But we probably *are* beyond the carrying capacity of the planet for our species. This isn't a certainty, as there are many different approaches, but I believe we're past the carrying capacity using every approach that's been tried up until now. Including "pastoralist" and "hunter-gatherer".)
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OK, I've thought about a tiny amount of CO2. Now what?
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Small number big change (Score:5, Informative)
To quote from the report, 'Over the past two-and-a-half centuries, surface ocean pH has decreased by about 0.11, which is an increase of about 30%â"40% in the hydrogen ion concentration'.
It's difficult not to feel a sense of despair as we document in great detail the escalating damage we are doing to the place we all live, whilst failing to do anything about it.
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Nah a bunch of autistic smartest guys in the room have been on slashdot telling me this is no big deal for the past 20 years.
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5th horseman of the apocalypse (Score:2)
"Stupidity"
An orange twat on a fat donkey.
Good grief Charlie Brown.
Bummer (Score:2)
Better enjoy your fish and chips while you can!