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California oceans rising in acidity at alarming rate, study finds

latimes.com

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Re: California oceans rising in acidity at alarming rate, study finds

#2

Post by Thorentis »

I wonder if instead of desalination plants, there exists "de-acidification" plants that can in turn use the acid for electricity generation or something like that?

Whenever I see these articles, unfortunately my first thought is "we're too far gone, we can't turn around now" in terms of climate change. But! I think that instead of trying to reverse the situation (for instance, by convincing the largest carbon emitters like China to stop - which they won't), we should try to make use of the situation.

Too much carbon being released? Free carbon! How can we use it to make something else / convert it to something else? Too much acid in the ocean? How can we extract it and use it for something? Rising temps? How can we make use of this to grow crops that need warmer environments, or use it for better solar generation, or use thermal power generation in these areas. Our best hope it to adapt to the new norm rather than fight a losing battle. I know it's fatalistic, but I think we will last longer as a species if we adopt this approach instead.

Re: California oceans rising in acidity at alarming rate, study finds

#3

Post by changoplatanero »

Thorentis wrote: post #2

I wonder if instead of desalination plants, there exists "de-acidification" plants that can in turn use the acid for electricity generation or something like that? Whenever I see these articles, unfortunately my first thought is "we're too far gone, we can't turn around now" in terms of climate change. But! I think that instead of trying to reverse the situation (for instance, by convincing the largest carbon emitter…

Unfortunately the "free carbon" is in the form of a very dilute gas that is very hard to do anything useful with.

Re: California oceans rising in acidity at alarming rate, study finds

#4

Post by bamboozled »

Thorentis wrote: post #2

I wonder if instead of desalination plants, there exists "de-acidification" plants that can in turn use the acid for electricity generation or something like that? Whenever I see these articles, unfortunately my first thought is "we're too far gone, we can't turn around now" in terms of climate change. But! I think that instead of trying to reverse the situation (for instance, by convincing the largest carbon emitter…

I think this is the right attitude really. What else is there ?

It’s the same way I see politicians doing nothing helpful, people are just going to have to work around them to get the situation under control or at least make use of it.

Re: California oceans rising in acidity at alarming rate, study finds

#6

Post by warent »

ainiriand wrote: post #5

California oceans? Does it have more than one?

I think it's pretty common to refer to a single body of water in plural form. Probably because it's so massive or maybe just due to the nature of liquid. For example: sailing the waters; a ship got caught in the stormy seas; etc.

Re: California oceans rising in acidity at alarming rate, study finds

#7

Post by powowow »

Thorentis wrote: post #2

I wonder if instead of desalination plants, there exists "de-acidification" plants that can in turn use the acid for electricity generation or something like that? Whenever I see these articles, unfortunately my first thought is "we're too far gone, we can't turn around now" in terms of climate change. But! I think that instead of trying to reverse the situation (for instance, by convincing the largest carbon emitter…

I think our best hope is a multi-pronged approach that includes reusing the output (as you suggest), as well as reducing the output. This has a dramatically better chance of overall success than any single-pronged approach.

As such, I heartily endorse your 'how do we make use of that?' attitude, but I also will never agree with your assertion that our best hope is to accept it as a new norm, or to accept it's a losing battle.

It's just like how in business you want to get new customers, but you also want to reduce costs. Any company that chooses to care about only one of those things is doomed in the long-run.

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