Acidification Of Our Oceans: A Slow and Silent Killer
“Not again!”, Fred, the town doctor exclaimed as his 12th patient of the day was rushed into his ward that day. It was the same symptoms as all the others. High fever, stomachache, nausea and vomiting. A lot of vomiting. Fred was on his last straw. He had half a mind to barge in on those stuck-up rich people with their shiny, fancy schmancy cars, and give them a piece of his mind. All of their posh cars and titanic factories were poisoning all these people, or rather- the oceans.
Ocean acidification has surely been a topic that has been overlooked for too long, even by me! My first impression of the topic was that it was just global warming rephrased or something of the like. It has come to my understanding that this topic is one to be handled with utmost seriousness. For countries like the Maldives and Iceland, which consume amounts of seafood in the range of 34,000 tonnes to 47,000 tonnes annually, if their main food source becomes contaminated, it could be cataclysmic.
Ocean Acidification is a big problem, and there are few who would argue otherwise. Even though it is a major problem, it has only one major cause. The very same cause too many other phenomena such as global warming.. emissions of carbon dioxide (The very same gas that is produced by the cars and factories Fred mentioned) !! Many different activities, such use of engines and the burning of objects can actually contribute to the emissions of CO2. This leads to the ocean being exposed to this gas and gradually becoming more and more acidic.
The science behind ocean acidification is not as complex as one might think. For starters, it just needs to be known that whilst oxygen is neutral, hydrogen and Carbon are known to be more acidic. CO2 contains carbon and water contains hydrogen, and when these two meet, an acid is formed with the combination of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen, by the name of carbonic acid. Then the acid breaks down into bicarbonate and hydrogen ions. The important part is hydrogen ions which are what cause the ocean to become acidic.
Even when most people hear of this, they still choose to dismiss the significance of this phenomenon. The truth is that this will impact humans in more ways than one. One might argue that humans could live without eating any fish or seafood, but they cannot say the same for all of the animal kingdom. Excluding marine life, we have to think about our water. While water is being purified for safe usage, it would only add to this process if the water was acidic. In addition, a large percentage of the oxygen that humans breathe in would become unsafe as well.
Saving our oceans from such a big disaster may seem futile, but if individuals such as you, me and Fred do our jobs properly, we will come to see a day when our ocean is as clear as glass. We would have to slowly decrease our output of carbon emissions to make it possible.
References
Ocean Acidification
Jean-Pierre Gattuso, Lina Hansson · 2011
Author Biography
Ahmed Mikail is a boy who is currently in grade 8 at Iskandhar School. He has a hobby of reading and playing different games. He likes all STEM subjects and enjoys studying. He also likes listening to and even singing songs.
Cite this article as:
Ahmed Mikail Ali Zahir, Acidification Of Our Oceans: A Slow And Silent Killer, theCircle Composition, Volume 4, (2023). Acidification Of Our Oceans: A Slow And Silent Killer - theCircle Composition