Earth Day

Climatologist Roy Spencer reflects on ecological happenings in this National Review Online piece:

When Earth Day was first celebrated 40 years ago, there were many good reasons to be concerned about the environment. Not only did trash litter the landscape, but rivers were catching fire and massive numbers of fish were dying due to unrestricted pollution from factories. Lake Erie was essentially a dead lake. Lead in paint and auto exhaust were real health hazards for many.

Today, these problems have been largely alleviated. But for those whose worldview requires a pristine and undisturbed natural world, the fight to reduce pollution will never be over. That’s because as long as there are humans using natural resources, the world will never be pristine or undisturbed.

...even if the threat of global warming from our carbon dioxide emissions fades away, waiting in the wings is the next threat: ocean acidification. Since CO2 dissolved in water makes carbonic acid, it is believed that the pH of the ocean will decrease as the CO2 content of the atmosphere slowly increases.

The more I look into this issue, though, the more it resembles the global-warming issue in terms of our ignorance regarding the ability of nature to adapt. Some recent research suggests that more CO2 might actually be beneficial for sea life, as we already know it is for most kinds of vegetation.