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Ocean acidification due to carbon emissions is at highest for 300m years

theguardian.com

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Re: Ocean acidification due to carbon emissions is at highest for 300m years

#41

Post by Daishiman »

hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #39
Daishiman wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ocean's effect as a buffer is fading very rapidly. The growth of cyanobacteria may have extremely harmful events. No organism on this planet has ever seen a rate of change as strong as this, so this is completely unpredictable territory.

> No organism on this planet has ever seen a rate of change as strong as this, so this is completely unpredictable territory. It isn't unpredictable, it already happened, and still the world is not overtaken by cyanobacter. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanobacteria#Earth_history

The fact that it's predictable in the span of several hundreds of thousands of years doesn't mean that we're in for massive, massive two hundred years (or more) or unpredictable events.

Systems may take a looong time before they stabilize.

Re: Ocean acidification due to carbon emissions is at highest for 300m years

#42

Post by ancarda »

While I recognise this question might be abrasive, I feel compelled to ask it.

Why does this belong on Hacker News?

This isn't technology. This isn't legal news (i.e. software patents). This is in no way related to Hacker News. I have no problem with interesting articles being upvoted, but I feel we need a place to put these or a tagging system similar to lobsters.

Re: Ocean acidification due to carbon emissions is at highest for 300m years

#44

Post by JohnnyBrown »

kmfrk wrote: post #15
protomyth wrote: post #9

Can the CO2 be removed from the ocean and broken into C and O2? Is this geo-engineering we can do?

We are actually a week from the anniversary of the world's first act of geo-vigilantism: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/10/the-f... . Really fascinating stuff.

> ... nearly all agree that we need to move with great deliberation when altering the ecosystem of the ocean.

It's been quite a while since Humanity applied anything like deliberation to our ongoing alterations of ocean ecosystems.

Re: Ocean acidification due to carbon emissions is at highest for 300m years

#45

Post by efnx »

ancarda wrote: post #42

While I recognise this question might be abrasive, I feel compelled to ask it. Why does this belong on Hacker News? This isn't technology. This isn't legal news (i.e. software patents). This is in no way related to Hacker News. I have no problem with interesting articles being upvoted, but I feel we need a place to put these or a tagging system similar to lobsters.

One could argue that this would affect any number of technological subjects. From the obvious 'no oceans, no life, no technology' to the subtle change in stocks due to the report that the article is covering.

Re: Ocean acidification due to carbon emissions is at highest for 300m years

#46

Post by JumpCrisscross »

How credible a source is IPSO, the author of the report backing this story? From what I can tell it's a U.K. non-profit hosted by the Zoological Society of London [1], itself a U.K. non-profit [2]. Alex Rogers, IPSO's Scientific Director [1], is also a Professor in Conservation Biology at the University of Oxford [3].

Paper article is based on: http://www.stateoftheocean.org/pdfs/Bijma-et-al-2013.pdf

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Programme_on_the_...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoological_Society_of_London

[3] http://www.zoo.ox.ac.uk/people/view/rogers_ad.htm

Re: Ocean acidification due to carbon emissions is at highest for 300m years

#48

Post by efnx »

colmvp wrote: post #47
efnx wrote: post #43

It's sad to me that this is not the top post. It seems that fact is a reflection of the problem at hand. We don't care about the oceans as much as we care about Twitter. :(

It is the top post.

We did it! Maybe there is hope...

Re: Ocean acidification due to carbon emissions is at highest for 300m years

#49

Post by fleitz »

kintamanimatt wrote: post #21
protomyth wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are the authors against all geo-engineering or just this plan?

They seem very in favor reducing over-fishing, switching to clean energy sources, etc. They're only in favor of geoengineering if politicians can't get their shit together and we end up on the brink of a disaster. "We do not promote the use of the [geoengineering] method highlighted in this section. We merely present it here as an interesting solution proposed by the field of geoengineering, a popularly growing disci…

The symptoms are all we care about, why would anyone give a shit about CO2 levels if it didn't cause global warming?

It's not like it's toxic. If it's cheaper to geoengineer the CO2 away, why not?

Re: Ocean acidification due to carbon emissions is at highest for 300m years

#50

Post by coryrc »

protomyth wrote: post #18
na85 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not without a significant energy expenditure. But most of our energy sources of course produce CO2 and other products.

I guess the Scifi question is can you build a nuclear ship with some apparatus that pulls the CO2 out of the ocean and breaks it into C (stored on ship) and O (released into atmosphere)?

It'd be far more efficient to replace coal power with nuclear power plants.
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