For some time now the ongoing rise in the atmosphere’s CO2 concentration has been predicted by climate alarmists to raise havoc with earth’s coral reefs and other calcifying marine organisms by acidifying the world’s oceans and thus lowering the calcium carbonate saturation state of seawater, making it ever more difficult for these creatures to produce their calcium carbonate skeletons; and in this regard, Hansen claims “we will be able to avoid acidification of the ocean with its destruction of coral reefs and other ocean life” if we follow his policy prescriptions. However, there is no compelling reason to believe that “coral reefs and other ocean life” will be significantly harmed – much less “destroyed” – by continuing to let technology take its natural course in terms of transitioning from fossil fuel-burning to other forms of energy production; for just like the CO2-induced global warming concept itself, the CO2-induced acidification of the world’s oceans – and especially its deadly consequences concept – is an unproven theoretical construct that ignores many important biological phenomena. Nevertheless, the degree to which this catastrophic concept of CO2-induced death-in-the-oceans has been embraced, even by scientists, is nothing short of astounding, as is indicated by a paper authored by 27 researchers from eight countries that was published in the 29 September 2005 issue of Nature (Orr et al., 2005), in which the group wrote that under a “business-as-usual” scenario of future anthropogenic CO2 emissions, “key marine organisms – such as corals and some plankton – will have difficulty maintaining their external calcium carbonate skeletons,” and where they suggested that these dire conditions “could develop within decades, not centuries as suggested previously.”
CO2 Science, 6 June 2007. Web site.
