Ocean Acidification is not mentioned much in politics today, but maybe it should be. The general idea is that the increased amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, which in turn is dissolved into the ocean, is making the water too acidic for many types of marine life. In particular, it is killing off coral. By the end of the century, there may be no coral reefs at all.

For decades, scientists have viewed the oceans’ absorption of carbon dioxide as an environmental plus, because it mitigates the effects of global warming. But by taking up one-third of the atmosphere’s carbon dioxide — much of which stems from exhaust from automobiles, power plants and other industrial sources — oceans are transforming their pH level.

The science is simple. Take a glass of water and measure the pH. Blow into the glass of water (CO2 comes out of your mouth). Then check the pH. It’s lower. Now pretend that many, many people are doing this to the oceans on Earth. It’s a simplification, but that’s the general idea.

Langdon, who conducted an experiment between 1996 and 2003 in Columbia University’s Biosphere 2 lab in Tucson, concluded that corals grew half as fast in aquariums when exposed to the level of carbon dioxide projected to exist by 2050. Coupled with the higher sea temperatures that climate change produces, Langdon said, corals may not survive by the end of the century.

Even if you don’t think coral reefs are pretty, they are essential to many small organisms’ lives in the sea today. So many of these small organisms are also essential to larger ones, like salmon and redfish. Basically, if we do nothing, we could totally destroy a major part of Earth’s ecosystem.

Just another reason to do something about CO2.

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