Oceans' Ability To Absorb CO2 May Be Failing - Royal Society

[hatrack]

LONDON (Reuters) - "Thousands of marine species are at risk from global warming because of acidification of the world's oceans, scientists said on Thursday. The Royal Society said in a report that the seas were currently absorbing one tonne of carbon dioxide -- the prime greenhouse gas -- per person per year and were simply running out of capacity to absorb it.

It called on next week's summit of the Group of Eight industrialised nations to take action. "Our world leaders meeting at next week's G8 summit must commit to taking decisive and significant action to cut carbon dioxide emissions," said the society's oceanic expert John Raven.

"Failure to do so may mean that there is no place in the oceans of the future for many species and ecosystems that we know today," he added. The Royal Society said the carbon sink-holes of the oceans were being overtaxed by the rising output of carbon dioxide from power stations burning fossil fuels, raising their acidity and with it the threat to life.

"Basic chemistry leaves us in little doubt that our burning of fossil fuels is changing the acidity of our oceans," Raven said. "And the rate of change we are seeing to the ocean's chemistry is a hundred times faster than has happened for millions for years," he added."

EDIT

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-06-30T100328Z_01_SCH036170_RTRUKOC_0_ENVIRONMENT-OCEANS.xml

[NMDemDist2]

1. I wondered how long that would take..... n/t

[enough]

2. Well there won't be any help from Bushco.

Anothher reality that means nothing to them.

[slor]

3. Growing Industrial Hemp would help...

but we have idiots running the country that "just say no" to any logical actions.

[midnight armadillo]

4. If we manage to kill the oceans...

...we're dead as a species.

[Boomer]

9. What would you like on your tombstone?

Plankton levels are waaay down, biodiversity of fish species is waaay down, coral reefs are bleaching, and sea birds and mammals are starving to death.

Sounds like the ocean is dying to me.

[phantom power]

5. "The United States has been a reluctant participant..."

That's putting it kindly. I really hope the "G7" find the motivation to just leave the USA behind on this. It's too damned important to wait for us to get the clue.

[RONSTOO]

6. how practical is "carbon -trading"

how do you do it on a global scale?

[phantom power]

7. In my opinion, it's a boondoggle.

It would work in theory, if there were an enforceable, hard cap on total carbon emissions world-wide.

Because that's the point: reducing the total CO2 emissions. If the grand, world-wide total doesn't decrease, then nothing of value has been accomplished.

At any rate, I think it's pragmatically impossible to actually enforce such a hard cap, and then gradually lower it.

The world's countries are going to lower CO2 emissions when they are ready, when they finally grasp the consequences for themselves. It's quite possible that it will be too late, but I think that's how it will have to happen.

[Viking12]

8. Boondoggle is a good description

"On development, demography and climate change: The end of the world as we know it?

Tim Dyson

London School of Economics

Paper prepared for Session 952 of the XXVth Conference of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population, Tours, 18-23 July, 2005


-snip-

"Following publication of the IPCC's second report, world leaders met in Kyoto in 1997. But in many respects the ensuing 'Kyoto process' can itself be seen as one chiefly concerned with ways of avoiding making reductions in CO2 emissions. Examples of this tendency include the discussion of 'carbon sequestration' i.e. the planting of trees and other vegetation to help 'neutralize' CO2 emissions. It took considerable time for the limitations of this approach to be appreciated fully - in particular, that over the long run the areas of forest required are incredibly great and that there is no feasible way of stopping the 'respiration' of sequestrated carbon back into the atmosphere (Lohmann 1999). Another approach with a strong element of avoidance - one that has occupied armies of negotiators, lawyers, economists, consultants, etc, the very stuff of Weberian bureaucratization (Prins 2003) - is the construction of 'carbon markets'. The theory is that by enabling 'emissions trading' such markets will allow some countries (usually richer ones, with high emissions) to pay others (usually poorer ones, with low emissions) - essentially as a way of reducing the need to make any reductions at all. The fact is that: None of Kyoto's market measures tackle directly the physical root of global warming: the transfer of fossil fuels from underground, where they are effectively isolated from the atmosphere, to the air.

http://iussp2005.princeton.edu/download.aspx?submissionId=50222

[Boomer]

10. Beyond the point of reducing of emissions

With the highest levels of CO2 since before our species even walked the planet, I'm not surprised that some scientists are saying we are beyond the point of needing to reduce emissions.

We now need to take C02 OUT of the atmosphere.

Unfortunately, we have no such viable technology at hand, and it's unlikely we have enough time left to develop and deploy any new technology.

At this point, I would advise that people be implementing their survival plans for the next few decades.