The cradle of life
This Saturday I took part in the Toronto Stewardship Forum, a one-day event put on by the city of Toronto’s Parks, Forestry and Recreation dept. The morning’s keynote speaker was Alanna Mitchell, author of Sea Sick: The Global Ocean in Crisis. Through her own story of the aquatic expeditions she joined in order to write the book, Alanna laid out the effects on our oceans — and life on land as well — of burning fossil fuels and the resulting excess of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Alanna described how the global ocean absorbs CO2 and, through a chemical change, becomes more acidic, lowering the pH of the water. (Here’s a more detailed explanation.) Instead of naming this ocean or that ocean, Alanna calls all this water the “global ocean” because, as she says, they’re one connected body of water.
By 2030, Alanna says we could see the Great Barrier Reef disappear as the ocean becomes so acidic it corrodes the living creatures within it. The effect on corals has already been severe. Ocean acidification removes life. Compounding this effect, we have water temperature increases that many creatures can’t adapt to, and falling oxygen levels in mainly coastal areas of the oceans due to nutrient runoff (there are currently 407 dead zones, according to Alanna).
Ocean life is what supports all life on Earth, and ocean acidification, temperature increases and lower oxygen levels are all taking a big toll on that life. “Plankton produce every second breath of oxygen you breathe,” says Alanna.
I hope that, perhaps with additional information from Alanna’s book, you feel you’ll have a good answer to “Who knows if climate change is a real problem?” or “I don’t like winter anyway!” Personally, I’m very grateful to Alanna for taking the time to bring the science of ocean acidification to us masses.
