The Oil Slick You Can't See

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The Oil Slick You Can't See

Posted May 5, 2010 by Bill McKibben

[Excerpt] If you think that slick of oil spreading across the Gulf of Mexico is a nasty sight ... well, it is. And so we'll probably do something about it. Within hours of the crude reaching the coast, an aide to President Barack Obama said new offshore drilling would be put on hold.

But here's the problem: An even bigger slick -- this one of acid -- is spreading across the entire ocean. It's doing damage far more profound than even the oil. But since you can't see it, nothing's happened.

The day after the gulf rig blew out, the National Research Council quietly issued a report on what exactly carbon dioxide, which is warming the atmosphere, is doing to seawater. As the oceans absorb some of the carbon our factories and engines pour into the atmosphere, the "chemistry of the ocean is changing at an unprecedented rate and magnitude," the report said. "The rate of change exceeds any known to have occurred for at least the past hundreds of thousands of years."

Already fishermen report that oysters aren't reproducing, and biologists are saying that coral reefs may not survive the century. "This increase in [ocean] acidity threatens to decimate entire species, including those that are at the foundation of the marine food chain," said Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J...

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Originally published May 3, 2010 at AOL news

Photo credit: Ben Gertzfield/flickr

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