With acidification comes the extinction of marine life that would lead to an unsustainable planet and its people.
The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) said the world's oceans are close to becoming too acidic to properly sustain marine life or help stabilize the planet, said a report of Agence France Presse last September 24.
The sustainable level of ocean acidification is now also set to be exceeded, largely as a result of ever-increasing emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) created by burning fossil fuels like oil, coal and gas.
“As CO2 emissions increase, more of it dissolves in seawater… making the oceans more acidic,” Boris Sakschewski, one of the lead authors, told reporters.
The PIK report details nine factors– six of which had already been breached because of human activity – that are crucial for regulating the planet’s ability to sustain life.
The crucial threshold for ocean acidification could soon become the seventh to be breached, according to the PIK’s first Planetary Health Check.
The safe boundaries that have already been crossed concern crucial — and related — factors including climate change; the loss of natural species, natural habitat and freshwater; and a rise in pollutants, including plastics and chemical fertilisers used in agriculture.
“Even with rapid emission cuts, some level of continued acidification may be unavoidable due to the CO2 already emitted and the time it takes for the ocean system to respond,” he explained.
“Therefore, breaching the ocean acidification boundary appears inevitable within the coming years.”
Acidic water damages corals, shellfish and the phytoplankton that feeds a host of marine species.
This means it also disrupts food supplies for billions of people and limiting the oceans’ capacity to absorb more CO2 and thus help limit global warming.
The only one of the nine planetary boundaries that is not close to being crossed concerns the state of the planet’s protective ozone layer.
Man-made chemicals have damaged this shield, causing acid rain, but it has started recovering since a number of these chemicals were banned in 1987.
A ninth threshold — concerning concentrations of minute particles in the atmosphere that can cause heart and lung diseases -– is close to the danger limit.
But the researchers said the risk showed signs of receding slightly due to efforts by several countries to improve air quality, such as banning the most pollutant petrol and diesel cars.
They warned, however, that concentrations of fine particles could still soar in countries that are rapidly industrializing.
The PIK set these nine planetary danger levels to warn humans against tipping Earth’s natural systems past points of no return.
“These tipping points… if crossed, would lead to irreversible and catastrophic outcomes for billions of people and many future generations on Earth,” they said.
All nine planetary boundaries are “interconnected” so breaching one crucial limit can destabilize Earth’s entire life system, Sakschewski said.
But that also presents an opportunity because addressing one problem -– such as preventing the Earth’s average temperature rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels — “can lead to significant benefits across different issues,” AFP quoted the report.
My take
Efforts to reverse the destruction of our planet's sustainability rest on each of us– individually, as a community and globally.
We can clean the rivers in our small ways by avoiding throwing trash into them, esp. plastics; we can help in reforesting our once pristine tree covers and shades that have been abused by loggers, miners and kaingineros (or those who thrive on forest for their lives); we can teach ourselves and our children to recycle everything from plastic PET bottles, paper and plastic bags and food containers; we can avoid burning our garbage (industrial, commercial, farm and residential) in open air which results in the thinning of the ozone layer and produces GHG (greenhouse gases); we should prevent food wastage, esp. rice, by cooking and getting on our plates the volume that we need and can handle so producing food through harming can be minimized (agriculture is a top GHG producer) and so many more.
We can also plan and reduce our trips– to lessen our gasoline or diesel consumption; we can plan our laundry, gardening and other activities. We should also be exercising more for healthy bodies.
#WeTakeAStand #OpinYon #OpinYonColumn #ColumnbyRoseDeLaCruz #BareTruth