How Pollution is Changing the Ocean's Chemistry

This Ted talk by Triona McGrath discusses how carbon emissions not only impact our atmosphere, but also negatively effect our oceans. I found this to be very surprising as well as informative and interesting. While climate change and carbon emissions seems to be discussed frequently, we seem to forget about how this will effect our oceans. Even though water covers two thirds of our planet, how global warming or other harmful human activities could potentially hurt our oceans does not seem to be discussed nearly as often. McGrath talks about ocean acidification and how in recent years there has been a substantial decrease in pH levels which is caused by the increase of carbon emissions from human activity. She states that this has happened previously at a much slower rate, and even then many marine species had become extinct. Based on this Ted talk, I think it is crucial that we as humans not only continue to talk about climate change and carbon emissions, but also begin the conversation on ocean acidification.

Comments

  1. AnonymousAugust 30, 2017 at 6:21 PM

    I agree that we should take action into saving our home planet because we are doing much more damage that are harming many species and potentially humans. We should change our ways of life to hold back the increase of carbon emissions, but it won't be easy. Oceans and the marine life are receiving an impact with pollution and global warming, and we can't have more species going extinct from the harmful actions of humans. Increase of conversation and work on the topic of acid in the ocean will definitely decrease the amount of harm done to the marine life.

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  2. AnonymousSeptember 12, 2017 at 12:37 PM

    After reading your blog post, I am surprised to know that carbon emissions affects the oceans as much as it affects the atmosphere. I am even more surprised at the fact that I did not even consider their relationship before reading this post and watching the Ted Talk. From this point of view, I agree that people need to become more educated on ocean acidification in order to understand how to slow/stop it from occurring.

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