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Sep 11, 2009 08:00 PM | 23
How do you make a movie about changes to the ocean's chemistry? See here:
Sven Huseby and wife Barbara Ettinger have made a new documentary about ocean acidification, the other offspring (along with global warming) of the rising concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere (and the one that can't be covered up with a good batch of geoengineering.) As a staffer at the marine environmental group Oceana once told me: "If the ocean goes, we're all toast."
A Sea Change premieres outside the film festival circuit this Sunday, September 13, at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City at 4 P.M. (an event that is free with museum admission and open to the public, though seats are limited) and then airs on the Planet Green cable channel starting September 26. Maybe another movie will help convince any remaining doubters that action needs to be taken to address the human-generated greenhouse gas emissions that are dramatically changing Earth's climate—and the chemical balance of the waters that cover more than two thirds of our planet.
Tags:
climate change,
chemistry,
ocean acidification,
global warming
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23 Comments
Add CommentIt will take a mass die-off, of humans.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiscandide: A mass die-off will not be enough, Homo sapien needs to go extinct. The most stupid life-form on planet earth!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHopefully once the planet repairs itself it will not permit a similar species to inhabit its surface.
You have to make it personal. Just lie to them -- tell the public it is no longer safe to swim in the water. They'll believe it; they believe in a sky fairy who made a woman out of a rib, a talking snake in a garden, and that the world is only 6000 years old, after all -- because they're idiots.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOh, you don't like that answer? Well, let's look at the problem:
What the real problem is, is that we let unqualified (for whatever reason) people vote, both in the public and in the legislature. It's like letting some drunk on the street design your house, or repair your electrical infrastructure.
Democracy: Where any two uninformed nincompoops outvote a qualified expert, in an environment where experts are demonstrably rare -- and nincompoops aren't.
That's your damned problem. And it's the problem that's going to take us right down the path to a crashed civilization. Democracy is for idiots. Good thing we have a lot of them, then, eh?
All it will take is more constant drivel of the sort we see daily about global warming.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisdemocracy's vote will always end up as statistical mechanics. it's not really a choice, but a large dump of rational and hysterical actions. humanities record shows it is willing to let something happen, then try to fix it, and then make do.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think it's just wonderful that the worlds oceans have become acidic. Plop in a couple electrodes and turn the earth into a gigantic battery. Energy crisis solved!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNothing like a bit of hysteria. Unfortunately, there is zero evidence for this. Earth has historically far higher atmospheric CO2 without acid oceans. The very term "acidification" is loaded with hype. There may be a modest movement to a less base environment, or there may not be as the ocean salt buffers any Ph effect.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Oceanic acidification" is only slightly more possible then CO2 causing global warming which is not possible. The sun causes warming and cooling and is at present making a lie of all AGW bs arguments. "Oceanic acidification" is the latest attempt of ECO's to maintain their fantastic religion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Humans are the curse of the planet and must be eradicated."
Perhaps "scientific earthling " would be the first ECO to volunteer to remove himself. Nah never happen and on rare occasions actually makes an intelligent observation.
Now what will be the next "scientific earthling" comment?????????????
Perhaps the concept that our climate is changing is too much for some people to grasp. Maybe we should concentrate on things people can see in their own backyards, like polluted drinking water, beaches closed because of bacteria, people getting sick from eating sea food or the smog in the air that they can see. Personally I don't care if NY City winds up on the bottom of the ocean in 100 years, but today while I'm alive, I want to be able to breathe air, eat food and drink water without becoming ill. You've made the problem so big, global warming, that most people feel powerless to do anything about it. If everyone would look around them, in their own communities and concentrated their efforts in their own backyards on doing things that will improve their air, their water and their food supply, then who cares if they believe in global warming or not?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWilliam Phillips, it is true that CO2 has been much higher than today and the oceans were not acidified. The problem is that the present rate of increase is larger than the ocean's ability to transfer the CO2 to deeper water. Ocean pH levels are measured, and they are in fact decreasing slightly. While the ocean will remain basic (ie. pH > 7.0), parts of it will not be basic enough to support calcium carbonate shell formation by plankton, which are at the base of the food chain.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCO2 levels did increase rapidly around 50 million years ago (the Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum), and there is fossil evidence of a mass extinction of small shelled organisms.
The problem here is the extreme polarization. On one side you have a hatred for humans and a contempt for democracy (this is from the so-called "liberal" left) and on the other is a unthinking denial of well established scientific evidence. Global warming and ocean acidification are real. They are not the end of the world, as alarmists like to scream, but they will cause real problems in the future.
This is supposed to be Scientific American, so lets all put the eco-religion and denial religion aside and try to look at the real evidence.
True, a lot of people deserve to be taken care of by natural selection. However, not everyone is a fundamentalist that believes that man was created 6,000 years ago. In fact, it is just a small minority of people in industrialized societies that believe this nonsense.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou may have concentrated all of your studies on science and not enough on history. For if you were truly knowledgeable of history you would understand that the other forms of government were/are not very efficient, caused a great deal of human suffering, and were not conducive to scientific development. Democracy, or rather the Republic is the best form of government that has ever existed. If anything, we need to tweak it a bit. If you think you are different and won't be persecuted in a more closed form of government, think again. Going back to closed government would not be progress. We would be devolving ourselves.
True, a lot of people deserve to be taken care of by natural selection. However, not everyone is a fundamentalist that believes that man was created 6,000 years ago. In fact, it is just a small minority of people in industrialized societies that believe this nonsense.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou may have concentrated all of your studies on science and not enough on history. For if you were truly knowledgeable of history you would understand that the other forms of government were/are not very efficient, caused a great deal of human suffering, and were not conducive to scientific development. Democracy, or rather the Republic is the best form of government that has ever existed. If anything, we need to tweak it a bit. If you think you are different and won't be persecuted in a more closed form of government, think again. Going back to closed government would not be progress. We would be devolving ourselves.
True, a lot of people deserve to be taken care of by natural selection. However, not everyone is a fundamentalist that believes that man was created 6,000 years ago. In fact, it is just a small minority of people in industrialized societies that believe this nonsense.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou may have concentrated all of your studies on science and not enough on history. For if you were truly knowledgeable of history you would understand that the other forms of government were/are not very efficient, caused a great deal of human suffering, and were not conducive to scientific development. Democracy, or rather the Republic is the best form of government that has ever existed. If anything, we need to tweak it a bit. If you think you are different and won't be persecuted in a more closed form of government, think again. Going back to closed government would not be progress. We would be devolving ourselves.
There's no point in trying to convince people. Most people are at best reactionary, and in general apathetic. It requires a vast disaster to make any useful changes. Till then, Ill be in the market for an underground Vault to spend humanity's last dying days as it kills itself off in whatever manner is fashionable at the time.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLOL, I love it when people try to dispute some very basic, chemical process. Pgtruspace, try to at least sound intelligent when disputing fundamental science. Try and bubble air with an elevated pCO2 value (say 500ppm) through seawater and see what happens. When you've done this come back and tell me what the pH did. I'll give you a hint, it neither, rises, nor stays the same...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWith that said, in the past these changes (increase in CO2) occurred over millenia which allowed thermohaline circulations and natural weathering to keep the oceans saturated with aragonite and calcite which is what most shelled organisms use to build their shells. Because this change is happening so fast, these natural processes will most likely not be able to keep up.
To understand the effects of ocean acidification on the oceans, look here: http://www.ucar.edu/communications/Final_acidification.pdf
What a load of codswallop. Find out the truth. We add about 1 in 600,000,000 ppm to the oceans pa.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCO2Science (real science, not rent seeking)
http://www.co2science.org/subject/o/oceanacidification.php
Sea Friends (real science, not rent seeking)
http://www.seafriends.org.nz/issues/global/acid.htm
My bad, just woke up.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe add about 1 to 600,000,000 molecules CO2 in the oceans pa.
Perhaps it should be mentioned that CO2 partial pressures in water affect the very delicate balance of calcium carbonate and bicarbonate chemistry which also vary with temperature. Man is presently adversely tampering with these equilibriums which are sensitive to very small changes. Hence the concern for sea organisms which depend on stable conditions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisClothcap,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou say its "codswallop" but again, to argue concentrations is a mute point. Again, if you think you're right, just bubble the 500ppm CO2 air through water and see what happens. I find it funny that such a simply designed little experiment can refute all your info at CO2science.org which in no way is a reputable science website. Personally I'd feel wary trusting anything published by a website with coal and other fossil fuel adds on their front page. But critical thinking is not a skill everyone possesses.
Shoreliner11; Actually as part of my research in my invention "Gas, liquid contacting device and method" I washed elevated CO2 from the atmosphere into water solutions. The greatest problem with the experiment you propose is the relative sizes and energy needed to approximate reality. I no longer have time and money to do such a thing. But I'm sure you are young and rich enough to do it correctly. As you propose a theory, do the science and really prove it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisShoreliner11, how does atmospheric CO2 bubble up through the oceans?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this~99% absorbed CO2 stays as CO2, around 1% reacts and a tiny part of that 1% forms acid. Are you so desperate to be guilty of something or are you getting an income from the hype? Experiments should bear some resemblance to reality. Put a 50 gallon open top drum of sea water in a room of 500ppm, stir, redo at temperatures equivalent to SST at various latitudes and report back.
"Clothcap"; I don't believe your proposed experiment layout will approximate reality. A storm with wind speeds over 40mph will have to be faked. Also at least a 40 degree F temperature gradient maintained. Tough to do in a 50 gallon container in a small room. But go ahead and but your money where your mouth is. I would be glad to peer review your data.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI seem to have replied to the wrong commentor's reply to a commentor
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Shoreliner11" is the one that needs to do the experiment that Shoreliner11 has proposed.
My apologies to "Clothcap".