
Snails Are Dissolving in Pacific Ocean - vinchuco
http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2014/05/snails-are-dissolving-pacific-ocean
======
Omniusaspirer
"Outside the laboratory, however, just a handful of studies have linked
falling pH levels to damaged shells."

This is odd considering those in the aquarium hobby have known this as common
knowledge for a long time now.

Maintaining reef tanks has made it extremely apparent to me just how badly
we're harming our oceans even with small changes in chemistry. I hope articles
such as this can help make the general public more aware of the dangers.

~~~
the_ancient
The question is not "are we doing damage" The quesiton is how to fix it... Fix
it with out destroying the economy and leading to billions of human life
losses.

At this point many extreme climate change activists want to send the world
back to the 1700's level of technology which while would save the planet,
bring about the end of the human race as we know it

~~~
Intermernet
"At this point many extreme climate change activists want to send the world
back to the 1700's level of technology"

Really, who? I can't see the people in the 18th century using PV (or much
electricity at all for that matter).

I think the _real_ problem is that people somehow believe "the economy" is
more important than the environment. Destroying "the economy" would have
little to no effect at all on about two thirds of the world's population.

Fixing (and preserving) the environment will have an _enormous_ benefit to the
entire world population, with the exception of the _very_ small number of
people who currently profit from treating the environment as an infinite
resource, or a static back-drop to our own civilization.

~~~
twoodfin
_Destroying "the economy" would have little to no effect at all on about two
thirds of the world's population._

I don't think you have a good grasp of how interdependent almost all modern
national economies are today, regardless of their current size or per capita
GDP. There is an almost inconceivably huge difference in aggregate quality of
life (especially for the poorest!) between a 2100 that saw a century with 3.5%
global annual real "gross world product" growth and one where growth averaged
2.5%.

Some back of the envelope calculation tells me it's a choice between a global
economy worth ~$620T and one that's worth ~$1460T. You can pay for a lot of
amelioration when your economy is that big, and still have a bunch left over
to make people's lives so much better than they'd have in an economy less than
half as productive.

Obviously there is a potentially serious downside to emissions growth that
goes along with that economic growth. But the consequences of even moderately
throttling the world economy to deal with it have huge costs that can't be
waved away.

~~~
Intermernet
You're conflating the amount of money involved with the number of people
involved. This rarely works for global situations.

The land-owners of the Alberta Oil Sands (last I heard the Koch brothers were
#1 in this regard) have little or no incentive to put the money they make back
into the Alberta community. They almost certainly have some token gesture
scheme in place that will provide <1% of the profit to local funding, but
that's just PR spin.

You can look at the money, or the people. As of October 2013 (according to
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population))
10 countries had 58% of the world's population. From
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_economy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_economy)
it can be calculated that 64.67% of the money (by GDP) is controlled by 4
countries.

The population growth is decreasing due to (mainly) education. The disparity
in the distribution of wealth is only growing greater. Those in the USA and
Europe should realize that this _isn 't_ happening in their favour. In 2000,
the USA was 22.61% of the world's GDP with China at 4.62%. The estimate for
the next 6 years puts China at 26.79% and the USA at 15.45%.

Try telling the _billions_ of people in the world living hand to mouth that
the actions of some for-profit corporation will mean that they see an
improvement in their quality of life.

EDIT: See
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IMF_Developing_Countries_M...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IMF_Developing_Countries_Map,_2014_\(revised\).png)
for an illustration of what the IMF refers to as "developing countries". This
should give you an idea of the amount of the planet that isn't a "player" in
the world economy.

~~~
twoodfin
_Try telling the billions of people in the world living hand to mouth that the
actions of some for-profit corporation will mean that they see an improvement
in their quality of life._

Hundreds of millions of people in China who would have been living hand to
mouth a few decades ago are now living much fuller, longer, happier lives
because their nation provided cheap labor and manufacturing for "some for-
profit corporation[s]". A global economy half today's size couldn't have
supported them in that way, and a global economy of 2100 cut in half by lower
growth rates will have many more relatively poor people. I'm not sure what the
Koch brothers have to do with that. Your argument does not appear to
coherently respond to what I wrote.

~~~
Intermernet
It sounds like you're actually defending the labour practices of China over
the last few decades. If so, I can't argue with you.

EDIT: In addition, the improvement of China's living standards should _never_
be used as an example of capitalist success. China was at a cultural and
economic low due to the effects of the Chinese "Cultural Revolution".
_Anything_ would have seen an improvement in living standards across a lot of
China.

The point about the Koch brothers is that a project with _staggering_
environmental implications is being controlled by a very small number of
parties, when the actual people living in that same environment are going to
receive little or no compensation for the destruction of said environment.

------
vixin
Apparently these sensitive snails are dissolving p <because> they are in an
alkaline ocean of around pH 8.14. Amazing. The paper does not point out that
some parts of the ocean naturally vary in pH by 1.4 units. Of course none of
the massive amounts of chemical junk dumped into the oceans and poisoning the
fish we eat, has any effect on these snails. Did they check?

[http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjourna...](http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0028983)

“This natural variability has prompted the suggestion that “an appropriate
null hypothesis may be, until evidence is obtained to the contrary, that major
biogeochemical processes in the oceans other than calcification will not be
fundamentally different under future higher CO2/lower pH conditions””

~~~
QuantumChaos
>major biogeochemical processes in the oceans other than calcification will
not be fundamentally different

But calcification precisely the process in question here.

------
tim333
The evidence sounds a bit weak - as I understand the paper summary they
collected a bunch of snails just the one time in 2011 and found a correlation
between shell damage and the concentration on aragonite in the water which is
a form of calcium carbonate of which the concentration presumably varies with
acidity. There could be a bunch of reasons why some snails where more damaged
- storms, different ages etc. One sample with no control experiments is pretty
weak data. If you wanted to check it you could put a bunch of snails in tanks
and with varying pH and see if the effect is replicated I guess.

~~~
socialist_coder
This isn't a new thing and there are heaps of evidence. Google "ocean
acidification" for lots more studies and reports.

Here's 1: [http://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/feature/ocean-acidification--
a-r...](http://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/feature/ocean-acidification--a-risky-
shell-game)

"In tanks filled with seawater, they raised 18 species of marine organisms
that build calcium carbonate shells or skeletons. The scientists exposed the
tanks to air containing CO2 at today’s level (400 parts per million, or ppm),
at levels that climate models forecast for 100 years from now (600 ppm) and
200 years from now (900 ppm), and at a level (2,850 ppm) that should cause the
types of calcium carbonate in shells (aragonite and high-magnesium calcite) to
dissolve in seawater.

The test tanks’ miniature atmospheres produced elevated CO2 in the tiny
captive oceans, generating higher acidity. The researchers measured the rate
of shell growth for the diverse species ranging from crabs to algae, from both
temperate and tropical waters. They included organisms such as corals and
coralline algae, which form foundations for critical habitats, and organisms
that support seafood industries (clams, oysters, scallops, conchs, urchins,
crabs, lobsters, and prawns)."

~~~
001sky
So-called ocean "Acidification" appears to be 100% propoganda.

 _" scientists do not think the seas will become truly acidic (with a pH less
than 7.0), but rather less alkaline"_

So, it is not "acid" that is eating away anything. If these shells were in
"pure water" with ph 7.0, the deterioration woud be worse.

~~~
alchemism
"Less alkaline" is the same as saying "more acid" as you move in a specific
direction along the scale.

Srsly can't believe you tried to make that point

~~~
001sky
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutralization_%28chemistry%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutralization_%28chemistry%29)

There seems to be an established name for what you call mixing an acid and a
base: Neutralization Chemistry.

Even freshwater lakes like lake erie ar pH 8.4, yet for some reason when
articles are published about pH variance, it is never referred to as
"neutralization" but rather "acidification"\--with no mention of the net-
alkalinity of the solution. The latter would paint the former phrasing as
self-evidently awkward, of course.

eg> [http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-08-16/news/ct-met-
gr...](http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-08-16/news/ct-met-great-lakes-
acidification-20100816_1_carbon-dioxide-zebra-and-quagga-mussels-
acidification)

------
highace
What's the likely solution here? Is it possible to remove carbon dioxide from
the atmosphere without damaging it in some other way? Or are we destined to
slowly but surely destroy this planet?

~~~
Theodores
> What's the likely solution here?

 _Turn your computer off_. The CO2 that acidified that ocean came from the
fossil fuels + oxygen that were burned to make the power needed to build that
wind turbine that powers your computer. So, if you want to save the life of a
snail, turn off your computer. And stop breathing.

Instead of having a 'war on terror' and a trillion dollar arms trade we could
get serious about greening this planet, as in planting green things that look
pretty, take in CO2 and breathe out oxygen. If we set our minds to it and
found some political will we could do it, to create a true paradise on earth
and not have this fear of climate change. We could steward this planet
whichever way we wanted rather than always going for the tragedy of the
commons and electing the evil, corrupt, lying retards such as the politicians
we have.

I thought we had reached the turning point (of no turning back) about 15 years
ago when action would have been worthwhile. But, since then we have gone the
other way, hit on fracking and decided to go for mass die-off.

Are we to be no better than bacteria on a petri dish, to bloom exponentially,
hit resource depletion and die off? Is that it? Arthur C Clarke and Carl Sagan
had us conquering new worlds rather than just assuming the zombie apocalypse
will miss our generation.

~~~
dllthomas
_" And stop breathing."_

That will also stop you eating, you'll die, decompose, and the carbon will
become available to other things that respire. Humans don't breath out any
carbon that wasn't recently in the atmosphere. What's needed is to somehow
have more carbon sequestered in things-that-are-not-the-ocean-or-air. Some of
that can be biomass. Some of that is "big puddles of gunk deep underground"
(which is what we've been un-sequestering). In principle, doing more
manufacturing with carbon (carbon fiber, synthetic diamonds, plastics) would
help _provided_ the carbon itself came from the atmosphere (or something that
would've ended up there) and the energy was produced without emitting still
more carbon - in practice, the amounts involved in manufacturing are probably
too small to be relevant...

------
djwon
This strange behaviour whether its creatures dying and filling up the ocean
floor 98 percent or this snail thing is related to the fukushima radiation
which is reaching the west coast. No other explanation can possible explain
these which has never happened in history.

------
avaku
The question is: have they been dissolving before as well?

------
yusery
This strange behaviour whether its creatures dying and filling up the ocean
floor 98 percent or this snail thing is related to the fuku shima radiation
which is reaching the west coast. No other explanation can possible explain
these which has never happened in history.

