Speaker 1: Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Forward Thinking. Hey there, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the
Speaker 1: podcast that looks at the future and says, somebody calls you,
Speaker 1: you answer quite slowly. I'm Jonvin Strickland and I'm Joe McCormick.
Speaker 1: I I was assuming that you were going to do
Speaker 1: an acid bath song. I had a lot of different
Speaker 1: thoughts on the subject, and ultimately I decided to go
Speaker 1: just one step further removed. Are we all of just
Speaker 1: about the right age to have heard a whole lot
Speaker 1: about acid rain in school when we were kids. I
Speaker 1: think we are. Yeah, I definitely am. And that's what
Speaker 1: we're gonna be talking about water accidification today, and not
Speaker 1: just acid rain, but water acidification in general. What does
Speaker 1: that mean? What? First of all, what does the term mean? Second,
Speaker 1: what does that mean to our planet? And third is
Speaker 1: there anything we can do about it? Uh? So? Yeah,
Speaker 1: when I was growing up, acid rain was like one
Speaker 1: of those buzzwords that I remember hearing frequently. Let me
Speaker 1: let me tell you what was like growing up in
Speaker 1: the in the early to mid eighties. So acid rain
Speaker 1: big concern, probably second only to communism. It sounds like
Speaker 1: I'm making a joke, but I'm really Yeah, no, I
Speaker 1: I was there. I remember. Yeah, as a kid, it
Speaker 1: was weird getting this because I didn't know what communism
Speaker 1: was as a kid. I just knew it was supposedly awful,
Speaker 1: but you knew what acid was. It's that big vat
Speaker 1: of stuff that the bad guy hangs Batman over on
Speaker 1: a rope before Batman escapes. Pretty much, that's it's very
Speaker 1: close to what my conception was of the idea of
Speaker 1: what acid was. Therefore what acid rain must be. And
Speaker 1: this is this is despite the fact that all of
Speaker 1: us kind of grew up. I mean, it's certainly like
Speaker 1: the seventies nineties were a golden age, a very weird,
Speaker 1: very earnest outreach to children about environmental issues. Outreach is
Speaker 1: a cute word, because because we kids had so much
Speaker 1: power over the massive amounts of pollution being poured into
Speaker 1: our environment. We we we mentioned fern Gully in the
Speaker 1: last episode, Azing mentioned it recently, one of the in
Speaker 1: a couple of the last episodes at anyway. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: for Fern Gully, the last rainforest. There was also Captain Planet,
Speaker 1: which was pretty amazing. Um. Of course, of course Dr
Speaker 1: Seuss Lorax and David the Gnome, and like the Final
Speaker 1: Fantasy series and the work that Miyazaki was doing over
Speaker 1: in Japan that wouldn't make it over here for another
Speaker 1: few years, but was still part of the ovoir of
Speaker 1: the time, Like Nasca of the Valley of Wind. I
Speaker 1: feel like in this list you're kind of mixing together
Speaker 1: some things that are like wonderful pieces of art with
Speaker 1: environmental themes and then just pure propaganda. Well, to be fair,
Speaker 1: it was all part of the spectrum that was coming
Speaker 1: out towards us kids. I gotta tell you, it did
Speaker 1: convince me to shut down my coal gas firing plant
Speaker 1: and that I was using to really run my he
Speaker 1: manuh toys. You know what it did convince me to
Speaker 1: do was not to build coal plants in sim city.
Speaker 1: It had an effect on that. Really well simulated environment
Speaker 1: was as well, go planet, Go planet. Indeed so so okay.
Speaker 1: So all of these media were really good at convincing
Speaker 1: us that the Earth was in terrible trouble, possibly even
Speaker 1: our own sim sim Earth. But maybe they weren't as
Speaker 1: good at explaining what any of these things actually were.
Speaker 1: It's possible that either they were poorly uh written attempts
Speaker 1: to explain this like it was getting across the fact
Speaker 1: that this was These were important issues, but as a kid,
Speaker 1: I was not absorbing the actual information of what the
Speaker 1: stuff meant. I was misinterpreting it. In my mind, acid rain,
Speaker 1: if it were to actually be a thing that happened
Speaker 1: in my neighborhood, it would that were I had to
Speaker 1: get caught out in it, I would melt away like
Speaker 1: the wicked Witch of the West, or like the Nazis
Speaker 1: at the end of Raiders at the Lost Start. It
Speaker 1: would be another example and also raised lost art played
Speaker 1: a very important role in my childhood, so that definitely
Speaker 1: was one of the images going through my mind. Whenever
Speaker 1: I heard the phrase acid rain, I figured it literally
Speaker 1: meant it must be raining. Acid. Um, well, you could argue, yeah,
Speaker 1: but acid is a is a term that children don't
Speaker 1: quite understand the right one. Adult start necessarily understand it
Speaker 1: either broad term as well. Acidic things are many things. Yes,
Speaker 1: they have a pH lower than seven point oh. Essentially
Speaker 1: that means that it's acidic. It doesn't necessarily mean that
Speaker 1: it's it's acidic to the point where it could react
Speaker 1: with something like your skin. But as a child, that
Speaker 1: subtlety was lost on me. As an adult, I understand
Speaker 1: it a little bit better. So here's the thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it wasn't like this rain was going to melt the
Speaker 1: flesh off of my bones and I was going to
Speaker 1: be standing there as a skeleton for a second before
Speaker 1: collapsing into a little pile. But we also shouldn't just
Speaker 1: sit here and mock the past for being concerned about it,
Speaker 1: because acid rain is something that's actually worth being concerned about. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: And so we're gonna spend the first little bit about
Speaker 1: this in this podcast talking about acid rain, and then
Speaker 1: we will transition to talk about ocean acidification. The different
Speaker 1: is two are different, yes, although it's certainly related. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean in the sense that you don't want either
Speaker 1: to happen. So, so the e p A defines acid
Speaker 1: rain as quote a broad term referring to a mixture
Speaker 1: of wet and dry deposition, which means deposited material from
Speaker 1: the atmosphere containing higher than normal amounts of nitric and
Speaker 1: sulfuric acids. So this would be acid rain that actually
Speaker 1: contains nitric acid and sulfuric acid, not again at a
Speaker 1: concentration or intensity strong enough to do physical harm to
Speaker 1: your skin, but it could still harm you in the
Speaker 1: long term. Uh, it's a little different from ocean and centification.
Speaker 1: Ocean a centification really is the accumulation of hydrogen ions
Speaker 1: as a result of this absorption of carbon dioxide. We'll
Speaker 1: get into that in a little bit. So acid rain
Speaker 1: can actually come from natural sources, right, It's not just
Speaker 1: man made. If there's a volcanic eruption, that can end
Speaker 1: up injecting quite a bit of uh nitric acid and
Speaker 1: sulfuric acid into the atmosphere, which where it can then
Speaker 1: be absorbed in precipitation and then rained down upon the
Speaker 1: surrounding countryside, even miles or hundreds of miles away from
Speaker 1: where the eruption happened. I was curious to see what's
Speaker 1: what's the worst acid rain we've ever had on Earth?
Speaker 1: And I found an interesting article on smithsonian dot com
Speaker 1: from January talking about the acid rain that probably fell
Speaker 1: during the Great Dying, also known as the Permian tri
Speaker 1: Triassic extinction event. This is also known as the next
Speaker 1: Game of Thrones novel. Yes, yes, this was the worst
Speaker 1: stinction event in every Game of Thrones novel. Fair enough.
Speaker 1: For some reason, I almost just said in human history,
Speaker 1: not in human history and the history of the Earth,
Speaker 1: of life on Earth. Uh, nine out of every ten
Speaker 1: species are actually more than nine out of every ten
Speaker 1: species on Earth completely wiped out, which it was. It's
Speaker 1: so hard for us to even even fathom that today, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the idea that well, I mean, hopefully we'll never have
Speaker 1: to actually witness nine more than of all life forms
Speaker 1: being wiped off the planet. But uh, you know, when
Speaker 1: we think of extinctions, mostly extinctions that we're aware of
Speaker 1: are tiny on a scale compared to this particular one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this thing was horrible. Life on Earth could very well
Speaker 1: have been completely snuffed out for all we know, and maybe,
Speaker 1: as far as we know we barely scraped by not
Speaker 1: we as in humans, but we as in our distant ancestors. Um,
Speaker 1: So what caused it? Scientists are still debating this, but
Speaker 1: the usual suspects are called up. There's mass of volcanic eruptions,
Speaker 1: usually centered around these the Siberian traps, these Siberian eruptions
Speaker 1: that uh seemed to happen at a particularly bad time
Speaker 1: to affect the Earth's atmospheric composition. And then there's also
Speaker 1: hypothesized space impacts and maybe bacterial or microbial blooms that
Speaker 1: changed the composition of the atmosphere. There are a lot
Speaker 1: of different hypotheses, but one uh anyway, that the article
Speaker 1: I mentioned talks about a few lines of research pointing
Speaker 1: to the theory that this volcanic eruption that's been hypothesized
Speaker 1: as one of the major causes of the extinction event
Speaker 1: led to extreme, widespread acid rain. And so according to
Speaker 1: to several findings, the carbon dioxide emitted by the Siberian
Speaker 1: volcanism would have lowered the pH of the rain to
Speaker 1: about four, which is they compare that in the article
Speaker 1: to the acidity of tomato juice. I mean, it's not
Speaker 1: acidic enough to burn your skin off, but that's really
Speaker 1: acidic for rain, yes. Uh. And then at on top
Speaker 1: of that, the acidifying effects of sulfur dioxide from the
Speaker 1: volcanic eruptions in the northern hemisphere they say may have
Speaker 1: been uh seeing pulses of weather events with rain that's
Speaker 1: as acidic as lemon juice. Lemon juice is nice to
Speaker 1: squirre it over your fish and chips, It is not
Speaker 1: nice to square it over your land masses and oceans, right,
Speaker 1: And Uh, I should point out, of course, the acid
Speaker 1: rain that we heard about in the eighties and nineties,
Speaker 1: that was clearly acid rain that was caused by by
Speaker 1: human activity. That was the sort of stuff we were
Speaker 1: being warned about, like, stopped this stuff because it's killing
Speaker 1: our planet, the bad guys on Captain planet. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was the industrial revolution. Um, your coal burning factory, right, boy?
Speaker 1: Is my face red? Add of fact that the main
Speaker 1: thing I remember being told as a kid about acid
Speaker 1: rain was that it would discolor our statues and natch
Speaker 1: national monuments, which it would, so that is one thing
Speaker 1: it would do. So yeah, that just seems like a
Speaker 1: weird thing to emphasize. Yeah, well, to be fair, it's
Speaker 1: the one thing that stayed with you. It's not necessarily
Speaker 1: the one thing that was stressed above all others. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but uh, you know, the the the human made acid
Speaker 1: rain that comes from emissions of nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide,
Speaker 1: both of which are biproducts of fossil fuel combustion. So
Speaker 1: as we depend upon fossil fuels, as we burn those
Speaker 1: fossil fuels, we release these sorts of gases into the
Speaker 1: atmosphere where they can end up becoming acid rain. There
Speaker 1: can be some chemical UH processes that then converted into
Speaker 1: nitric acid and sulfuric acid and mixed with the precipitation. UH.
Speaker 1: Most of the sulfur dioxide emissions and about a quarter
Speaker 1: of the nitrogen oxide emissions are the results of power
Speaker 1: plants burning coal to produce electricity. So again, my little
Speaker 1: coal firing plant was a really bad option. I should
Speaker 1: have gone solar. He man would have told me that
Speaker 1: if I paid attention at the last thirty seconds of
Speaker 1: every episode where the little educational p s a would
Speaker 1: come into play, But I always turned it off at
Speaker 1: that point because I wasn't there to learn things. Darn it.
Speaker 1: What were the what were the power plant options in
Speaker 1: sim City before sim City two thousand? Was a just
Speaker 1: coal and nuclear? Was that about it? I think giant
Speaker 1: hamsters were also. I think it was just nuclear at
Speaker 1: any rate. So when those emissions are released in the atmosphere,
Speaker 1: the components react chemically with other stuff like water, oxygen,
Speaker 1: other airborne chemicals that are already up there, and that
Speaker 1: creates that mild sulfuric acid and nitric acid, and so
Speaker 1: you me I mentioned wet and dry deposition. Acid rain
Speaker 1: is wet deposition. It means that you're actually depositing this
Speaker 1: acid through rain. Other types include fog and snow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: acid fog, which I'm pretty an the Surewood just that
Speaker 1: should be the sequel to the John Carpenter movie, you know,
Speaker 1: the exactly then everyone just tripping out as the fog
Speaker 1: is coming in and be that kind. So then uh,
Speaker 1: sulfuric and nitric Nitric acid mixed with wet weather fall
Speaker 1: to the ground during rainstorms, and this acid rain can
Speaker 1: damage plants and animals and change the acidity levels and
Speaker 1: bodies of water like streams, lakes, and ponds. The actual
Speaker 1: effects of acid rain depend on lots of different factors,
Speaker 1: so you can't give like a blanket statement that says
Speaker 1: here's how it's going to affect this region. There are
Speaker 1: a lot of things that will determine that, such as
Speaker 1: what is the acidity level, how bad, how concentrated is
Speaker 1: the acid in the rain itself? What is the buffering
Speaker 1: capacity of the soil to handle acidic water. Some soils
Speaker 1: can absorb it and hold onto it uh more effectively
Speaker 1: than others. Some it's going to run off right into
Speaker 1: whatever water bodies. Water are nearby, Um, things like marshes
Speaker 1: and stuff. You have a lot of very delicate types
Speaker 1: of animals and plants that can be very dramatically affected
Speaker 1: by changes in acidity levels. Uh, it's you know, things
Speaker 1: like you know, we often think of frogs as an
Speaker 1: early indicator species. That's one of the ones that we
Speaker 1: would be looking at in areas around where acid rain
Speaker 1: is happening, because they tend to be pretty sensitive to
Speaker 1: those kind of changes. Uh. Then you also have to
Speaker 1: take into account like there might be some species of
Speaker 1: plants and animals in certain areas that are a little
Speaker 1: more hardy. They can they can handle bigger changes in
Speaker 1: acidity levels without it dramatically affecting their health. In those cases,
Speaker 1: you might not even be aware that acid rain is
Speaker 1: a factor because you're not seeing the the consequences, at
Speaker 1: least not right away. So, uh, it's not a one
Speaker 1: size fits all kind of thing by any stretch of
Speaker 1: the imagination. And as Joe is pointing out earlier, the
Speaker 1: message he took home from all of this acid rain
Speaker 1: talk when he was a kid, it can cause damage
Speaker 1: demand made structures, including ones that are irreplaceable. No, Yeah,
Speaker 1: like those statues, you know, like ancient statues or monuments,
Speaker 1: that kind of thing where you know, I think this
Speaker 1: specific example I remember was something about the the what's
Speaker 1: it called Mount Rushmore? I was going to say, was
Speaker 1: it Mount Rushmore? Because I feel like that was a
Speaker 1: big thing that was impressed upon me as a child.
Speaker 1: It's still a big thing. These heads are enormous. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: can you can you actually climb out their nose holes? That?
Speaker 1: I can't? Pretty sure you cannot. I can't. I have
Speaker 1: you know, I have never been to Mount Rushmore. It's
Speaker 1: when it's still on my list. But uh, and I
Speaker 1: guess I need to get there before the acid rain hits, because,
Speaker 1: appoint to you guys, those heads are living on borrowed time.
Speaker 1: According to my memory of my childhood, it may very
Speaker 1: well be that they're completely safe. I'm just considering it
Speaker 1: infallible at this point. So also, the acid rain can
Speaker 1: cause direct harm to our health. I mean, we're joking
Speaker 1: about this largely because it's a defense mechanism at some point.
Speaker 1: You know, you've gotta you've got to be able to
Speaker 1: lighten up things. But it really can cause harm to us. Now,
Speaker 1: the acidity, as we said, isn't enough to harm you
Speaker 1: directly through your skin, So you're not gonna be walking
Speaker 1: out there and rain starts to fall on you. You
Speaker 1: see like little plumes of smoke where it's hitting your
Speaker 1: skin and you can feel it bubbling. That's not happening. No, No,
Speaker 1: even drinking it isn't really going to do you any harm. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it turns out you got acid in your stomach and
Speaker 1: it's pretty strong, um, way stronger than the acidity levels
Speaker 1: in the an acid rain. So I mean, if you
Speaker 1: already drink Coca cola, that's fairly acidic, right, Yeah. I
Speaker 1: mean there's a lot of lemon juice, like you said before,
Speaker 1: very acidic, and we can ingest that without problems. I
Speaker 1: mean most of us. Some of us get a sensitivity
Speaker 1: to it, and after a little while your mouth might
Speaker 1: start to hurt, but that's that's kind of the extent
Speaker 1: of it. But breathing in those acids, when they're in
Speaker 1: the atmosphere, that is a problem, and that can lead
Speaker 1: to long term health complications, everything from asthma to bronchitis
Speaker 1: to even heart disorders. So it's serious stuff. Obviously, the
Speaker 1: biggest solution to this problem is to find other methods
Speaker 1: of generating power and other and all the other fossil
Speaker 1: fuel uses that we have. Getting off fossil fuels and
Speaker 1: using something else. That's the big solution to acid rain.
Speaker 1: It's you've got to look at what is causing the
Speaker 1: acid rain. Can you affect what that is? Because otherwise
Speaker 1: all you're doing is treating symptoms, right, and that's that's
Speaker 1: a losing game in the long run. So, uh, well,
Speaker 1: I'm all for treating some symptoms if it could you
Speaker 1: help us not get asthma. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, in the
Speaker 1: in the short term, in the acute sense, absolutely, But
Speaker 1: if you want to to solve things for the longer term,
Speaker 1: you've got to You've got to address the fossil fuel problem. Now.
Speaker 1: The other issue that we're going to talk about today,
Speaker 1: the different but I guess related issue in that it
Speaker 1: also deals with pollution and acidity, is ocean acidification. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and by acidity in this sense, we're not saying that
Speaker 1: the oceans themselves are turning acidic, correct, but they are, well,
Speaker 1: you could say they're becoming more acidic even though they
Speaker 1: are not acidic, right, they they themselves aren't on the
Speaker 1: acid end of the pH scale. No, the ocean is
Speaker 1: so basic. It's it's pretty basic. I mean, it's big,
Speaker 1: it's wet, covers most of the planet. How more much
Speaker 1: more basic can you get? But now again to explain
Speaker 1: the PhD, so we say seven is neutral. Scale goes
Speaker 1: from zero to fourteen. Anything above a seven is a base,
Speaker 1: below a seven is an acid, and the ocean is
Speaker 1: what it's like seven points something yet's it's it's above seven.
Speaker 1: It's in on the basics slightly slightly basic scale. It's
Speaker 1: between seven and eight, and it's closer to seven than eight.
Speaker 1: But when we talk about ocean a centification, we talk
Speaker 1: about that number going down slightly. So it's still on
Speaker 1: the basic end of the spectrum, but it's lower than
Speaker 1: what it would naturally be otherwise. So according to woods Whole,
Speaker 1: ocean a graphic institution. I'll just call it woods Hole
Speaker 1: because when I say ocean a graphic it sounds like
Speaker 1: I'm having some sort of episode. I'm having issues with
Speaker 1: talking today. Don't know what the big deal is, Joe.
Speaker 1: I just for some reason today that word is just
Speaker 1: tripping me up. But at any rate, it's a multi uh.
Speaker 1: They say that studying ocean and centification involves a multi
Speaker 1: disciplinary field of research, and it includes quote counter intuitive
Speaker 1: end quote aspects such as carbonate chemistry carbonate as in
Speaker 1: C A R B O in A T E carbonate
Speaker 1: And uh, it's a little they say counterintuitive because once
Speaker 1: you start looking into this, it sounds like the opposite
Speaker 1: thing is happening what you would expect. And because of that,
Speaker 1: it makes it particularly difficult to educate people and also
Speaker 1: to get across to the media the subtleties of what
Speaker 1: ocean and centification is all about. And uh, and I
Speaker 1: fully appreciate that. So we're gonna try our best to
Speaker 1: be as accurate as we possibly can, but keep in
Speaker 1: mind this is complicated stuff. Yeah, it's one of those
Speaker 1: things where like the issue is that Earth's oceans are
Speaker 1: are big, like really big kind of thing. Um, there's
Speaker 1: more ocean than truck. There's more ocean than truck. And uh,
Speaker 1: and like trucks, oceans have a lot of moving parts.
Speaker 1: Like like literally every molecule of water that makes up
Speaker 1: all of the oceans is probably moving right now. I
Speaker 1: don't want to freak you guys out, don't think about
Speaker 1: it too hard. Uh, And every single one of those
Speaker 1: molecules is interconnected and there's like a lot of fish
Speaker 1: and stuff. So you're connected. Now, you don't mean in
Speaker 1: a deepac choper a kind of sense. You mean in
Speaker 1: like a fluid dynamics and if a dynamic sense more so, yes, right,
Speaker 1: if you were to push against some of those molecules,
Speaker 1: they would push against other molecules that would push against
Speaker 1: other molecules, and so on and so forth, and a
Speaker 1: butterfly with flap its wings, and then you would get
Speaker 1: acid rain outside of my house. That's the way I
Speaker 1: understand it. At any rate. I hate this fossil fuel
Speaker 1: burning butterflies. They are the worst. They're so loud to
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you. Okay, but what what actually is
Speaker 1: ocean acidification? We sort of explained it, but it's it's
Speaker 1: the oceans pH becoming lower, not necessarily being an acid,
Speaker 1: but becoming more relatively acidic, right compared to what it
Speaker 1: was before exactly, And it's primarily caused by carbon dioxide
Speaker 1: dissolving into seawater. So now now you may have actually heard,
Speaker 1: I bet you've heard people who are trying to say, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, global warming, climate change, it's no big deal
Speaker 1: because the oceans will absorb the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Speaker 1: It's not partially it's partially true, and that the oceans
Speaker 1: will as long as the carbon dioxide concentrate, the atmosphere
Speaker 1: goes up, and it goes up higher than what the
Speaker 1: ratio between water and atmosphere typically is than the water
Speaker 1: compensates by absorbing some of that CEO too. Now, it's
Speaker 1: not true that that means climate change is no big deal.
Speaker 1: It also is not true that that that means that, hey,
Speaker 1: we're okay, because if the carbon dioxide goes into the ocean,
Speaker 1: who cares, right, because it turns out yeah, yeah. And
Speaker 1: so what's going on with this, with this equilibrium thing here,
Speaker 1: is that when there's less carbon dioxide in the surface
Speaker 1: of the ocean than there is in the lower atmosphere,
Speaker 1: that the physical system that is that air and water
Speaker 1: is out of equilibrium. So so the water is going
Speaker 1: to try to absorb some of the carbon dioxide to
Speaker 1: even things out. And it doesn't happen instantaneously. According to
Speaker 1: the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, it takes about
Speaker 1: a year for the system to reach equilibrium. Every time
Speaker 1: there's an increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which
Speaker 1: has been happening more or less constantly as far as
Speaker 1: we can track it back, for decades and decades. On
Speaker 1: a molecular level, what's going on here is that the
Speaker 1: carbon dioxide in the water react form carbonic acid, which
Speaker 1: is a type of molecule that can lose protons, which
Speaker 1: acidifies the water, decreasing the pH as. We've been talking
Speaker 1: about protons being hydrogen ions, right, because you get a hydrogen,
Speaker 1: you lose the electron. You've got a proton that's a
Speaker 1: hydrogen ion. And that's that's essentially what we talked about.
Speaker 1: Whenever you're talking about to sit, uh, you know, something
Speaker 1: becoming more acidic, you're really talking about accumulation of hydrogen
Speaker 1: ions on a very simple chemical level. I almost said basic,
Speaker 1: but that would have been so misleading. Uh So, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the ocean absorbs about a quarter of all the carbon
Speaker 1: dioxide we released into the atmosphere. Well, in some senses,
Speaker 1: like if it didn't do that, then the rate of
Speaker 1: climate change we are observing would go even faster. However,
Speaker 1: the tradeoff is we have this increase in uh, the
Speaker 1: acidification of the oceans, and as it turns out, that
Speaker 1: is pretty bad. So one thing we can say is
Speaker 1: that while climate change and ocean a centification are not
Speaker 1: the same thing, they both have they both share one
Speaker 1: common cause. Keeping in mind there are a lot of
Speaker 1: different causes that are at play, but carbon diox Yeah. Both,
Speaker 1: but carbon dioxide is like a big player in both,
Speaker 1: and so the emissions of carbon dioxide have an impact
Speaker 1: on climate change as well as ocean a cidification. Now,
Speaker 1: one thing we should probably point out is even though
Speaker 1: we are tracking a trend where the oceans are becoming
Speaker 1: more acidic, it will probably never dip below the neutral
Speaker 1: pH and become an acid. No, it will not do
Speaker 1: that because other other chemical components that are in the
Speaker 1: ocean will end up neutralizing acids. It will never get
Speaker 1: to the point where it goes below seven on the
Speaker 1: pH scale. It's never going to actually become an acid.
Speaker 1: The acidification is really talking about the trend of that
Speaker 1: pH getting lower. But essentially every research that I read,
Speaker 1: every single paper I read, said it is for all
Speaker 1: intents and purposes, impossible for the oceans to become acidic,
Speaker 1: right to to actually turn onto the ascid level of
Speaker 1: that pH scale. Come on, it's impossible. With that kind
Speaker 1: of attitude, I mean, yeah, I mean maybe if we're
Speaker 1: really determined and we really mess things up, we can
Speaker 1: make it happen. But I really don't think we want
Speaker 1: to find out. No, no, And and those small changes,
Speaker 1: though are are are perhaps surprisingly impactful, and we'll get
Speaker 1: into that a little bit later on. But but yeah,
Speaker 1: So so there we were talking about some of the
Speaker 1: some of the other factors that go into this carbon transfer,
Speaker 1: this carbon dioxide transfer, right, And as it turns out,
Speaker 1: it's it's not even as simple as more carbon dioxide
Speaker 1: goes into the atmosphere therefore more common doxide gets or
Speaker 1: by the oceans, and it's never as simple as that.
Speaker 1: We often will try and talk in those terms to
Speaker 1: kind of boil down a concept so it's easily digestible.
Speaker 1: But this is part of the reason why woods Hole
Speaker 1: was saying, guys, this is complicated. Don't oversimplify the issue,
Speaker 1: because then you're really misleading the public. So the concentration
Speaker 1: of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere drives acidification overall. So
Speaker 1: generally speaking, as those carbon dioxide levels increase in the atmosphere,
Speaker 1: the acidification process increases, But other factors mitigate how much
Speaker 1: carbon dioxide the ocean can actually absorb. So one of
Speaker 1: those factors is the ocean water temperature. Uh, if ocean
Speaker 1: water warms, however, it might warm, let's say through climate change.
Speaker 1: That's a big one, right. Then the warming effect actually
Speaker 1: reduces the speed at which the ocean will absorb carbon dioxide,
Speaker 1: and therefore the rate of acidification will decrease. But it
Speaker 1: doesn't stop, It just slows down a little. Well, that's great.
Speaker 1: Let's say let's continue global warming while decreasing carbon emissions,
Speaker 1: and eventually it'll I'll just work itself. You know, I
Speaker 1: didn't work up a whole bunch of notes on why
Speaker 1: climate change is bad. I didn't anticipate needing them. But yeah, no,
Speaker 1: this is obviously you don't. You don't want the planet
Speaker 1: to warm up because of all the implications of climate
Speaker 1: change where you know, and of course we're when we
Speaker 1: say global warming, we're oversimplifying. Really when when you're talking
Speaker 1: climate change, some regions are going to experience overall cooling
Speaker 1: blah blah blah. The point is that's we don't want that,
Speaker 1: and we don't want ocean a cerentification, right um. And
Speaker 1: also if you think that that, hey, wait, wait, wait,
Speaker 1: what about the ice caps, right, Like what about icebergs
Speaker 1: and and and glaciers and sheets of ice if those
Speaker 1: belt those are fresh water, right, if those melt and
Speaker 1: then doesn't that dilute the ocean? Won't that dilute the
Speaker 1: acid or the acidification and thus slow down or maybe
Speaker 1: maybe even reverse acidification. And the answer to that is nope,
Speaker 1: or at least not in the long term. That does
Speaker 1: seem kind of intuitive, but yeah, why why not? Because
Speaker 1: once the water does start to dilute that concentration of
Speaker 1: carbon dioxide in the oceans, you still have the imbalance
Speaker 1: in the atmosphere, which means all you've really done is
Speaker 1: is increased the ocean's capacity for absorbing C O two
Speaker 1: in that particular region, and that's what it'll do. So
Speaker 1: if you think about it, it's kind of like, um, oh,
Speaker 1: what would be a good analogy I'm trying to think of,
Speaker 1: Like if you had like a paper towel and you
Speaker 1: soaked up a little water and you had just a
Speaker 1: little little corner of your paper towel and it was
Speaker 1: still dry. So you're thinking, all right, well, uh, if
Speaker 1: I pour a little bit more are on there, it's
Speaker 1: going to absorb everything that's just that's as much as
Speaker 1: it can go. Everything's cool. But then you pick up
Speaker 1: the paper towel and you wring it out and you
Speaker 1: put it back down. Now it has the capacity to
Speaker 1: soak up even more water. It's that's sort of what's
Speaker 1: happening with the ocean. It gets diluted. It's like ringing
Speaker 1: out that paper towel. Uh, really, you've just you've just
Speaker 1: except instead of getting rid of the carbon dioxide, you
Speaker 1: really just diluted it. Now you have the capacity to
Speaker 1: take on even more. And once that happens, once you've
Speaker 1: reached that level of equilibrium between the atmosphere and the
Speaker 1: ocean again, you're right back to where you started from,
Speaker 1: with the added benefit of not having those pesky giant
Speaker 1: sheets of ice anymore. So that's a bad thing because
Speaker 1: the polar bears will have no place to live well,
Speaker 1: polar bears that that Speaking of fauna, one of the
Speaker 1: things that we should be thinking about is what effect
Speaker 1: does ocean acidification have, Because one of the most obvious
Speaker 1: things to be concerned about is, well, if the oceans
Speaker 1: chemical nature is changing slightly, how does this affect the
Speaker 1: creatures that dwell in the ocean? And and as it
Speaker 1: turns out, just like the other elements that we've talked about,
Speaker 1: in this case, it is incredibly complicated. It is not
Speaker 1: so simple as to say all species, you know, ocean
Speaker 1: dwelling species are equally affected through the process of acidification. Right. Well,
Speaker 1: for one thing, um, I've read that you might be
Speaker 1: able to look at ocean acidification and say, well, it
Speaker 1: looks like this might have a beneficial effect to photosynthesizing
Speaker 1: animals that live in the oceans. Though that's not necessarily
Speaker 1: so good for the rest of the planet, right right, right,
Speaker 1: because since it's an ecosystem, not a eco, there's no
Speaker 1: eye and ecosystem. Um, No, there is, but there isn't
Speaker 1: emy not in order. No, you make a good point. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: So you know it's overall if if the play ants,
Speaker 1: the photosynthesizing stuff that lives in the ocean, um has
Speaker 1: a chance to overgrow, that it's going to set off
Speaker 1: the balance of a lot of other things that are
Speaker 1: either competing for the resources or or in other in
Speaker 1: some other way need to hang out at a certain level. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it would lead to this, this
Speaker 1: thing in particular, but one comparison point I have is
Speaker 1: the idea of algal blooms in the ocean leading to
Speaker 1: oceanic dead zones, or if you have, you basically you
Speaker 1: create regions of the ocean that are too friendly to
Speaker 1: explosive algae populations, and then they make that water uninhabitable. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's some species that, like you were saying, Lauren, are
Speaker 1: competing for the exact same resources, and if the chemistry
Speaker 1: of the ocean ends up favoring one over the other,
Speaker 1: the danger is to the other, right, that the other
Speaker 1: could suffer, perhaps even die out, and in some cases
Speaker 1: that could be absolutely catastrophic. The the one of the
Speaker 1: example is that that goes right into what you're both
Speaker 1: talking about. Is coral the actual organisms of coral, Yeah,
Speaker 1: or any actually, I think it's any mineral forming or
Speaker 1: cast calcium based mineral forming organisms organisms in the ocean, right,
Speaker 1: all the all the ones that have calcium based shells,
Speaker 1: those are also affected by ocean of cientification. Have you
Speaker 1: did you, guys see the pictures of like the the
Speaker 1: sea snails. Yeah, I think you're referring to the tarot taropods, right,
Speaker 1: I remember specifically seeing a sequence of pictures of this snail,
Speaker 1: and it showed what the what happens to the shell
Speaker 1: over the course of time in one of these environments. Yes, Uh,
Speaker 1: so they simulate this this water environment with the decreased
Speaker 1: pH that is that was matched up to what it
Speaker 1: was predicted to be within a hundred years in the oceans.
Speaker 1: If trends continue and the shell does not do well, no,
Speaker 1: you start to see it like it becomes translucent and
Speaker 1: then transparent and look at this as this gonna make
Speaker 1: me really upset. It made me really upset. I got
Speaker 1: very upset when I saw it because I wasn't expecting
Speaker 1: that when I was doing my research. Well, I mean
Speaker 1: it was just very to see just to see like
Speaker 1: the actual uh sequence that that this represents and thinking,
Speaker 1: all right, well now this is no longer uh this
Speaker 1: kind of just vague idea that I have in my head.
Speaker 1: Now I'm seeing actual results of what happens. Uh. That
Speaker 1: is incredibly impactful. And you said, especially if you are
Speaker 1: one of those people who really likes marine biology or
Speaker 1: you have an interest in things like the ocean. I mean,
Speaker 1: I I I love going to the ocean. I love snorkeling,
Speaker 1: I love exploring and to think of those environments being
Speaker 1: put in danger. I mean, obviously I have a greater
Speaker 1: appreciation for what that means to on a larger scale
Speaker 1: ecosystem wide and and planet wide ultimately, but also on
Speaker 1: just a personal scale of my own experience of interacting
Speaker 1: in these environments. It's a pretty powerful thing. But I
Speaker 1: guess we should look at beyond the specifics of which
Speaker 1: organisms would be affected in what ways, because really that's
Speaker 1: one of those things that we don't entirely know, you right,
Speaker 1: we we we were just species by species speculating here
Speaker 1: based on what seems like will probably happen. Um, we
Speaker 1: could look at a kind of general approach to what's
Speaker 1: going to happen to species overall, Like what are their
Speaker 1: strategies for coping with this? Yeah, there are three general responses,
Speaker 1: right there is acclamation, adaptation, and extinction. I think we
Speaker 1: know extinction ex is not a great strategy. It kind
Speaker 1: of kind of stinks if that's the one you choose. Well,
Speaker 1: it's not, it's not. It's not usually the first choice.
Speaker 1: I don't think acclamation essentially an adaptation are are are
Speaker 1: similar but not exactly the same. But both of them require, uh,
Speaker 1: the the organisms to be able to to survive and
Speaker 1: potentially thrive in the changing environment. So animals that have
Speaker 1: long lifespans are the least able to adapt to new conditions,
Speaker 1: which makes sense right. The longer the lifespan, uh, then
Speaker 1: you've got these very long generational periods between generations. That
Speaker 1: means that you have fewer opportunities for new generations to
Speaker 1: uh to to succeed in a changing environment. So if
Speaker 1: you get fewer mutants to work with, pretty yeah, pretty much. Yeah.
Speaker 1: If the environment is changing faster than the mutations can occur,
Speaker 1: then it's a losing battle for that particular species in
Speaker 1: the In general, uh So, the ones that that tend
Speaker 1: to have shorter lifespans tend to be better able to
Speaker 1: adapt to conditions. That's not a rule across the board.
Speaker 1: Some organisms can get left behind even if they have
Speaker 1: short lifespans. Coral was that example I gave earlier. They
Speaker 1: coral has pretty short lifespan. But if you have another
Speaker 1: species there that is competing for the exact same sort
Speaker 1: of stuff that your species is competing for, and they're
Speaker 1: better at adapting to that environment than your species is,
Speaker 1: you still can come out behind, and you can still
Speaker 1: lose out and still face extinction uh in the long run.
Speaker 1: And that's sort of the case that people are talking
Speaker 1: about with coral um like that, you know it won't
Speaker 1: be able to outcompete those types of algae. And more
Speaker 1: more than that, ecosystems are incredibly complex, right, and we
Speaker 1: cannot anticipate what will happen to an ecosystem. Even if
Speaker 1: you were to remove just one type of species from
Speaker 1: that ecosystem, it's very difficult to predict how that would
Speaker 1: play out across the entire ecosystem. Yeah. In in in general,
Speaker 1: biologists have identified a bunch of keystone species that are
Speaker 1: the most important to keeping the whole thing running. But
Speaker 1: but but every every cog is important. Yeah. Uh. For
Speaker 1: one thing, every time you lose a species, you have
Speaker 1: a decrease in biodiversity. We've talked about biodiversity in previous
Speaker 1: episodes of forward thinking in general. When you see biodiversity decrease,
Speaker 1: that is a bad thing. Uh. Species like coral again
Speaker 1: very important to to uh, to certain ecosystems. Right, you
Speaker 1: have the coral reefs. If those were to no longer
Speaker 1: be a thing, if they were the organisms were not
Speaker 1: there to build coral reefs, and those were to break
Speaker 1: down over time, those entire ecosystems would completely transform, and
Speaker 1: we would likely see many species suffer as a result.
Speaker 1: Some might benefit because they might be praying on all
Speaker 1: the ones that no longer have a home. But that
Speaker 1: doesn't last very long. That lasts for essentially a generation
Speaker 1: or two, and then after that you've got the problem
Speaker 1: of Hey, that plentiful food source that we were so
Speaker 1: happy about just a couple of generations go is gone.
Speaker 1: Now what happens? So it becomes this crazy dumb into effect.
Speaker 1: And that's why I said, something that even is potentially
Speaker 1: fairly localized can become a global issue due to this
Speaker 1: complex interlocking nature of ecosystems. Um and that means we
Speaker 1: could see massive shortages in lots of different ocean resources.
Speaker 1: Uh so it could. It could have an actual financial
Speaker 1: impact as well as a food source impact to us
Speaker 1: as humans. We could see a decrease in fisheries and
Speaker 1: lots of other important elements to our economy and to
Speaker 1: where we get our food. I mean, I'm not eating
Speaker 1: shrimp anymore, but that doesn't mean I don't think anyone
Speaker 1: else should be able to get it. They should be
Speaker 1: able to get it. Um and it would also have
Speaker 1: a big impact on the carbon cycle. So coral creates
Speaker 1: calcified minerals and they kind of lock carbon away. When
Speaker 1: when coral ends up breaking off and crumbling and landing
Speaker 1: onto the ocean floor, it's a sin really locked in
Speaker 1: carbon into the actual material there. And and so if
Speaker 1: coral is gone, then that one that that way of
Speaker 1: locking away carbon is also gone. So now you have
Speaker 1: one fewer way to lock up carbon, and potentially that
Speaker 1: could create you know, it could exacerbate a problem. Right,
Speaker 1: you get even more carbon being released into the environment.
Speaker 1: That's what started this issue in the first place. That's
Speaker 1: a bad thing. So how bad are we talking about? Well,
Speaker 1: according to the research I was reading, it looks like
Speaker 1: the pH of the ocean surface has decreased by zero
Speaker 1: point one pH unit since pre industrial times, which doesn't
Speaker 1: sound like a whole lot. So what's the big deal, right, Well,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, isn't the pH scale logarithmic, Well, there's that,
Speaker 1: it's a part of it. Is also that the point
Speaker 1: one pH unit indicates that hydrogen ion levels those protons
Speaker 1: we were talking about, have increased by twenty six percent,
Speaker 1: and projections predict that the pH will continue to drop
Speaker 1: somewhere between point three and point four pH units by
Speaker 1: the end of the century, which would mean a one
Speaker 1: one increase in hydrogen ion concentration. That that is a
Speaker 1: dramatic enough change where the the the safety of many
Speaker 1: different species is called into question. We honestly do not
Speaker 1: know how many of those species would be able to
Speaker 1: adapt to such a dramatic change in ocean chemistry, or
Speaker 1: which ones would not be able to adapt, in which
Speaker 1: ones are the most at risk for us to lose UM.
Speaker 1: So it's again complicated. Yeah, and unfortunately the ocean is
Speaker 1: a lot harder to study than the atmosphere. The data
Speaker 1: that we've been collecting so far has not added up
Speaker 1: to to a smooth trend like decade over decade. That's
Speaker 1: indirect correlation with climate change, and researchers aren't entirely sure
Speaker 1: what's driving this variability. So without knowing what's really going on, UM,
Speaker 1: it's harder to to either help alleviate the problem or
Speaker 1: or to even to even figure out where it's going
Speaker 1: to go. And then, adding to this complicated nature of
Speaker 1: the issue, you know, marine ecosystems are are part of
Speaker 1: what affects how the ocean absorbs carbon dioxide, so as
Speaker 1: a cidification changes these ecosystems, the problem could get better
Speaker 1: or worse. Uh, No, one knows. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Again,
Speaker 1: this is one of those things where first of all,
Speaker 1: the ocean and centification research is a relatively young science,
Speaker 1: really very detailed work has been going on for about
Speaker 1: a decade. Yeah. And in fact, the reason why we
Speaker 1: know information about like, how can we say since the
Speaker 1: pre industrialized era, After all, you just said the research
Speaker 1: is only be going on a decade. We can say
Speaker 1: that because of ice, we can look at ice and
Speaker 1: we can see what the water acidification was in uh
Speaker 1: sheets of ice that were around in the pre industrial era,
Speaker 1: and then compare it to what we see today. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh and and those efforts um, I mean there are
Speaker 1: absolutely organizations that are working to study the issue and
Speaker 1: and figure out how to best apply any potential forthcoming solutions,
Speaker 1: which we'll get to in a second. Uh. For for example,
Speaker 1: here in the United States, the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory
Speaker 1: helps conduct hydrographic cruises science cruises. There's no tick drinks
Speaker 1: involved probably on these cruises. No. They they send ships
Speaker 1: out that are equipped to take measurements about how different
Speaker 1: parts of the oceans vary and how different marine environments
Speaker 1: in them contribute to to this carbon cycle. Uh. They
Speaker 1: also employ a fleet of volunteer observation ships and all,
Speaker 1: so another fleet of moored buoys that that can monitor
Speaker 1: carbon dioxide levels and temperatures and salinity and all that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. So so, so we're working towards it.
Speaker 1: But but some of those solutions are Are there solutions
Speaker 1: to this problem? Well, I mean, one, one big one
Speaker 1: would be to cut carbon dioxide emissions as much as
Speaker 1: we possibly can, because again, if if the carbon dioxide
Speaker 1: levels in the atmosphere are lower than you start to
Speaker 1: you decrease that pressure where carbon dioxide ends up being
Speaker 1: absorbed into the surface of the ocean. Well, let's just say,
Speaker 1: for the sake of argument, that we live in some
Speaker 1: strange alternate universe where people don't want to do that.
Speaker 1: Are there other options that could potentially be available to us.
Speaker 1: There's some band aids where we could we could alleviate
Speaker 1: the symptoms, but again it would be like treating the
Speaker 1: symptoms but not the disease, so you would still have
Speaker 1: the overall problem. Geoengineering. Uh, people have talked about potentially
Speaker 1: using geoengineering tactics in order to lock up carbon to
Speaker 1: to take carbon dioxide either out of emissions and lock
Speaker 1: it up in some way, or to actually find ways
Speaker 1: of pulling it from the atmosphere itself and locking it up. Uh,
Speaker 1: that's important. It would definitely help the acute problem. But
Speaker 1: as long as we're continuing to produce carbon dioxide, it's
Speaker 1: not a long term solution. It's really again, it's it's
Speaker 1: too reactionary. It's kind of like when we talk about
Speaker 1: health care and we talk about treating an acute disease
Speaker 1: and not doing preventitive care where you don't get sick
Speaker 1: in the first place. It's very similar to that. Um.
Speaker 1: There's also there have been some people said, well, what
Speaker 1: if we were to add some sort of carbon neutralizer
Speaker 1: or even hydrogen neutralizer into the oceans, like essentially, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the the equivalent of ant acids, just dump
Speaker 1: bunch of that in the ocean to soak that stuff up. Well,
Speaker 1: the biggest problem there is that you have to add
Speaker 1: an equivalent amount of the neutralizer as the carbon dioxide
Speaker 1: that's actually going into the ocean in the first place.
Speaker 1: And that's like a that's that's not a little bit. No,
Speaker 1: that's not that's that's literally m thousands, hundreds of thousands
Speaker 1: of tons of material and one that could have a
Speaker 1: really serious effect on ocean ecosystems too. But to to
Speaker 1: generate those neutralizers, to get that stuff would involve mining,
Speaker 1: it would involved manufacturing processes, so it would involve a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff that guess what, am, it's a lot
Speaker 1: of carbon. So you're making the problem worse while trying
Speaker 1: to treat the symptom. Uh. Not a great solution either, um,
Speaker 1: but here's here's hoping that at least the awareness of
Speaker 1: the problem, the fact that we have this this growing
Speaker 1: discipline of science that's really looking into it, and we
Speaker 1: have multiple avenues where people are paying more attention to
Speaker 1: carbon emissions uh, and and trying to find ways of
Speaker 1: reducing that, both in developed nations and industrializing nations just
Speaker 1: particularly difficult because remember the United States, the United Kingdom,
Speaker 1: a lot of other developed nations, we went through that
Speaker 1: industrial era and we weren't worried about carbon emissions, and
Speaker 1: it's and now we're very much concerned about it. But
Speaker 1: all the other countries that are undergoing that same sort
Speaker 1: of process. Now if you think about it from their perspective,
Speaker 1: you're thinking, well, you're placing an unfair burden on us
Speaker 1: because you didn't play by those rules and you enjoy
Speaker 1: the benefits of industrialization. Our country is trying to get there,
Speaker 1: but you're putting the brakes on us. So we've got
Speaker 1: a lot of complicated issues social, political, economic, environmental all
Speaker 1: coming to play in the same space. The hope is
Speaker 1: that we're able to science our way out of it,
Speaker 1: both um an energy uh standpoint, how do we deal
Speaker 1: with the stuff that's already out there, and how do
Speaker 1: we do it in a way that's that's environmentally, economically, politically,
Speaker 1: culturally responsible. I don't have the answer to that. It's
Speaker 1: a big question. Uh. And I'm just a dude who
Speaker 1: sits to the computer and does my TYPEE type TYPEE
Speaker 1: and research stuff. It's I'm I'm glad that we see
Speaker 1: so much attention going toward it, and I am encouraged
Speaker 1: by the work of various scientists to try and create
Speaker 1: alternatives to carbon admitting methods of energy generation or electricity
Speaker 1: generations relations and not energy generation, but to generate electricity. UM.
Speaker 1: But it's a fascinating subject one that I thought was
Speaker 1: important for us to really take a look at I
Speaker 1: personally support the work of scientists who want to create
Speaker 1: energy out of nothing. Do you yeah, I can point
Speaker 1: you in the direction of several blogs are so for
Speaker 1: those of you who are interested in real science, or
Speaker 1: you have questions about how something is going to be
Speaker 1: in the future. You've got or you've got comments on this.
Speaker 1: Perhaps you're someone who works in this field and you
Speaker 1: have your own insight into it. We would love to
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