Carbon Emissions are Harming Ocean Oxygen Production
Climate change is a loaded subject. It can be hard to make sense of what exactly is happening, how it affects you, and what can be done about it.
So, let’s start off with an easy and important fact. The overwhelming scientific consensus is that climate change is real, and is being driven by human activity, primarily through the use of fossil fuels.
Fossil fuels are composed of prehistoric plant and animal matter which has been condensed within the earth’s crust over millennia to form hydrocarbon’s.
The matter is dug up, processed and combusted to release the energy contained within hydrocarbon bonds as heat. This in turn fuel’s the turbines and motors which create the kinetic energy and electricity that powers our industrial society.
So, what’s the problem? — We only use the energy in the bonds, not the carbon atoms themselves. This means that when the hydrocarbon is combusted, the carbon is mostly dispersed as a waste product into the atmosphere in the form of CO2.
Ocean acidification.
An estimated 30–40% of the carbon dioxide from human activity ends up in oceans, rivers and lakes. This is causing a huge disruption to the natural chemical balance of ocean water, making it more acidic and threatening the entire marine food chain.
Small plant-like microorganisms called Phytoplankton form the basis of the marine food chain and are a huge component of the global ecosystem. They are responsible for a large component of the photosynthetic activity on this planet and therefore provide a huge amount of energy that flows up the food chain to us. They also happen to provide 50–85% of the world’s oxygen supply.
The increasing acidification of the oceans is caused by CO2 reacting with H2O on the ocean’s surface. This increases the H+ concentration of the ocean, driving down the pH value making it more acidic. This weakens phytoplankton and puts constraints on their ability to create oxygen.
The H+ concentration of the oceans has increased about 35% since the beginning of the industrial revolution, and It is proposed that with carbon levels rising the way they are it will cause many species of phytoplankton to become extinct within a relatively short period of time.
So, the oceans are becoming more acidic, but what about the water level’s rising?
That comes down to CO2 as well, which is a greenhouse gas that traps heat within the earth’s atmosphere. This means the heat that comes to the earth from the sun can’t escape as well as it used to before. This is increasing our global temperature and most notably having a significant effect on the ice glaciers that lock up a lot of water and allow landmasses to be above sea level.
This effect is also being exacerbated by another effect of burning coal for energy — Soot.
Soot, which is that black powdery stuff that comes out of the chimneys, is another form of carbon pollution (amorphous carbon) which is produced by the incomplete combustion of the coal. This has recently been linked to the hugely accelerating melting of ice glaciers.
The natural brilliant white colour of ice glaciers reflect light which helps keep them cool in the sun. Soot travels in the air to the glaciers and accumulates on the surface of the ice, as a result the ice turns a dark shade of “pollution grey”. The dark grey colour on the surface is causing the ice to absorb all wavelengths of light as heat, causing massive melting and compounding the melting caused by the greenhouse effect.
The melting of sea ice is resulting in many low lying coastal areas and island nations which are feeling the effect of large retracements of land area. As this process matures, the world will expect to see around 760 million people displaced as the temperatures increase, creating enormous pressure on infrastructure and raising tensions around population density, societal function, and resource distribution.
Demand for energy is only going up globally and will likely triple in the coming decades, attempting to meet this demand by continuing with the current method of burning coal for electricity is clearly not a viable option.
One of the most powerful solutions that can be used to combat the problem of climate change is the utilization of renewable energy through Distributed Solar Technology.
The current landscape see’s corporations making hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue from harvesting and selling fossil fuel material, which plays a major role in the commodities market and is supported by $5 trillion per year in subsidies.
Unfortunately, the financial interests that benefit from fossil fuel production are very centralized. This allows for the dissociation between environmentally sustainable practice and profit interests to drive the decision of resisting change in favour of maximizing profit.
With the technology available today, the revenue stream associated with the energy sector can change from a centralized fossil fuel based market to a decentralized renewable energy based market.
Profiting from energy production is no longer a privilege reserved only for large energy corporations, they no longer have a monopoly on the ability to power the economy.
MyBit is creating a market for renewable energy investment and reclaiming association between environmental interests and economic success, unlocking billions in energy revenue to monetize saving the planet.
No more waiting around for governments and big corporations to change. Through the easy to use MyBit platform, you can make lucrative investments in the renewable energy sector which distributes revenue back to you while contributing to a sustainable energy future.
Decentralized energy is the future!
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