Monday 14 December 2009

Good news, bad news.

From the BBC:

Good news: "Up to one half of the carbon dioxide (CO2) released by burning fossil fuels over the past 200 years has been absorbed by the world's oceans."

Bad news: An increase in molecules containing carbon in the oceans "limits organisms' access to carbonate ions". As a result of which, we are all going to die a slow and painful death. Or something.

PS, I thought "acid rain" went out of fashion years ago, are they now dusting the idea down and rebranding it? Given how little damage "acid rain" did back then, and the fact that it will be diluted a thousand or a million-fold if it falls in the oceans, one does wonder quite how desperate they are.

PPS, the much vaunted statistic that the oceans are 30% more acidic than [some random date in the past] is fairly meaningless unless you know a) what the optimum pH of the oceans is; b) what it is now, in absolute terms, and c) what they expect it to be in future, in absolute terms. If, for example, pH drops from 6.99 to 6.987, that [probably] 30% more acidic but no great shakes, really.

16 comments:

knirirr said...

It's a few years since I worked on (the computing support for) this sort of research and I'm not sure how it's progressing. But, you might find something of interest here.

View from the Solent said...

But the pH of seawater is around 8.5. And CO2 will never reduce it below 7 (not at atmospheric pressure, anyway).
And extra CO2 leads to extra shell growth in organisms with exoskeletons -
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/01/oh-snap-co2-causes-ocean-critters-to-build-more-shells/

Not surprising since they evolved when CO2 concentration in the atmosphere was much higher.

And etc. etc. etc.

Next, of course, will be all that nasty nitrogen we're pouring into the atmosphere by burning petrol.

Naturally (sorry, that should be anthropogenically), we are all doomed.

neil craig said...

The extra CO2 in water is allowing coral to grow faster. it seems only a few months ago that the eco-fascists were telling us that global warming was destroying coral reefs & thus justifying the War Against Fire.

knirirr said...

The extra CO2 in water is allowing coral to grow faster.

I'd be very interested to see a source for that information, if you have one handy.

AntiCitizenOne said...

Warmer water holds less CO2.

So is the BBC Narrative really telling us that the sea is getting colder?

Anonymous said...

Acid rain was a problem and got solved by man intervening (cleaning up industrial plants and that sort of thing).

The watermelons probably don't like talking about it too much as the old Eastern European countries had a dreadful record on acid rain.

AntiCitizenOne said...

Yep. You saw after Chernobyl which way the wind blows, and after the fall of the Berlin wall how well Marxists prevent pollution.

Acid Rain came from the East.

"We" should perhaps tax communist countries as they do not generate the wealth to enable people to afford to worry about the environment.

neil craig said...

Knirrer - Coral sponges growing faster http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/13/sea-sponges-soak-up-carbon-like-a-sponge/

Shell building creatures generally http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/01/oh-snap-co2-causes-ocean-critters-to-build-more-shells/

To be fair neither actually say the corals themselves are doing so though the same factors apply more slowly.

Anon - It went almost unreported when, a few years ago, the Norwegian government acknowledged that acid rasin wasn't a real problem either. http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/2008/08/acid-rain-iis-good-for-trees.html

I was astonised to find that since it was about the only eco-scare story which had seemed reasonable.

Tim Almond said...

ACO,

Absolbloodylutely. They pushed industrialisation to the limit and didn't care a damn about the effects.

Then there's the fact that they often produced things inefficiently because all the incentives were wrong.

Think of how wasteful our state is. Tower blocks which barely lasted 25 years (when all the private housing from the same era is still going). Lottery museums which barely lasted a couple of years. The Olympics with it's huge use of resources which is going to run for 3 weeks before many of the facilities are either knocked down or left to rot.

AntiCitizenOne said...

Marxism is anti-person.

They wrongly decided supply was far more important that Demand.

It's impossible for a Bureaucrat to correctly allocate money to fulfil demand as efficiently as a person spending their own money.

DBC Reed said...

@AntiCitizen One
The Guv might as well take as much money as possible off average British citizens as all they want to do is to invest it in property.
Mortgage holders are hundreds of quid a month better off thanks to interest rate falls (see HPC) but do they spend it in a libertarian splurge on fast cars,good looking but untrustworthy women,juke boxes,cabin cruisers, and all the things that the British gentleman of whatever class cannot really do without?No the dullards do not.Was it for this that freeborn men gave up the handy perk of selling their votes to the highest-bidding candidate: to sit on their chuffs in their houses as the land goes up in value underneath them?Evidently it is.

AntiCitizenOne said...

Who really makes money from falls in house price affordability?

It's the people that lend the money at interest higher than they borrow it (and people who get the state to pay their interest).

knirirr said...

Neil - interesting links, thanks.

DBC Reed said...

@AntiCitizenOne
Not sure I get your meaning.
As for lending at interest The Green New Deal report " The Cuts Won't Work " contains a classic (Greenshirt)explanation of how banks create money in Section 4 " First it creates the money loaned out of thin air,then it charges interest for having done so".
If that's what you're driving at.

Robin Smith said...

It is if you are the coral! Is this one sided science we are witnessing here ?

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I think that all news media, online and in print, contain a lot of bias and distortion. Regardless of what a person reads, he or she must learn to sift out the facts from the misleading information.