Plastic and toxic chemical induced ocean acidification
will cause a plankton crisis that will devastate humanity over the next 25
Years, unless we act now to stop the pollution.
14 Pages Posted: 8
Jun 2021 Last revised: 23 Jun 2021
Goes Foundation
Clean Water Wave CIC
Date Written: June 5,
2021
Abstract
Planktonic plants and
animals at the base of the marine food chain make all life on Earth possible.
Without them the atmosphere would be toxic from carbon dioxide, we would have
no oxygen and there would be no whales, birds or fish in the oceans.
Over the last 70 years, more than 50% of all marine life has been lost from the
world’s oceans, and it continues to decline at rate of 1% year on year.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide causes ocean acidification, and a loss of marine
plants and animals accelerates the process.
A small increase in acidity caused by carbon dioxide dissolves magnesium
calcite and aragonite, forms of calcium carbonate upon which 50% of all marine
life including plankton and coral reefs are composed. Over the next 25 years,
the pH will continue to drop from pH8.04 to pH7.95, and an estimated 80% to 90%
of all marine life will be lost from the oceans. Even if the world achieves net
zero by 2045, atmospheric carbon dioxide will still exceed 500ppm and the
oceans will still drop to pH 7.95.
Based on current climate change policy of carbon mitigation, we will not be
able to stop the loss of most marine life, which includes fish and the food
supply for 3 billion people. In addition, we lose the life support system for
the planet. This decline has gone largely unnoticed because most of the plants
and animals in the oceans are under 1 mm in size and they are not closely
monitored. By way of an example: Prochlorococcus, a cyanobacteria responsible
for making 20% of our oxygen, was only discovered in the 1985.
Ocean acidification and climate change cannot adequately describe the loss of
marine life. 30% of the ocean have high nutrient (nitrate) concentrations but
zero or only low plant growth. If it is not the lack of nutrients or trace
nutrients, responsible for the loss of marine life, then this just leaves
aquatic environmental pollution as the last plausible explanation. The impact
of chemical and micro-plastic pollution on planktonic marine life has been
almost completed ignored by the scientific community, and as such industry and
governments have not been alerted to the impending threat to the oceans.
This is potentially a good news story, because the solution will be to
eliminate pollution from plastic and toxic chemicals or develop green alternatives
that do not harm to the environment or humans. We still need to reduce carbon
from the burning of fossil fuels, but the priority over the next 25 years
should be to protect the oceans, because all life on earth depends upon marine
life in the world’s oceans.
Keywords: ocean,
acidification, marine, climate, change, extinction
JEL
Classification: Q54, Q56
Suggested
Citation:
Dryden, Howard
and Duncan, Diane, Plastic and toxic chemical induced ocean acidification will
cause a plankton crisis that will devastate humanity over the next 25 Years,
unless we act now to stop the pollution. (June 5, 2021). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3860950 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3860950
52 References
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Posted: 2021-02-25
- A Mcquatters-Gollop, P Burkill, G Beaugrand, D Johns, J.-P Gattuso, M Edwards
Atlas of calcifying
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Posted: 2010
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