[Stoves] more on ocean acidification

Thu Aug 8 06:38:21 CDT 2013

Dear Crispin et al,

Perhaps those somebodies at NASA who claim that acid rain is acidifying the
ocean - rather than reducing its alkalinity - were simply not paying
attention to their high school chemistry because they too were stoned to
appreciate the subtle difference between 'more acid' and 'less alkaline'.

But a rose by any name will smell as sweet .....so, what are the
predictable systemic consequences of an ocean that is becoming less
alkaline? Is something that humanity is doing causing coral to blanche and
die?  Are the exhalations and run offs of industrial civilization slowly
poisoning the oceans and turning it into an underwater desert?
Can you or anybody at NASA scientifically differentiate between the noise
of conflicting big data from the tiny signals of a world system under
duress and in danger of being destroyed by anthropogenic excesses?

I nearly flunked HS chemistry so please keep your answers as simple as
possible.

What environmental impacts do you think present day climate and oceanic
science tells us humanity needs to collectively manage better because there
is credible evidence that tiny human generated changes in atmospheric and
oceanic conditions have the potential to trigger a cascade of consequences
that - oh my God - could or predictably do lead to a collapse of the
world's environmental balances to the point where industrial civilization
as we know and love it becomes impossible to sustain for billions of
humanoids who all want to be affluent western style.

I remember reading an article from the 1970's written by John Todd, a
marine biologist, about Science for the People in which he recounted his
awakening to the potential threat of ecocide.  He had spent months getting
the plants, corals, fish, crustaceans, worms, and micro flora and fauna in
a salt water aquarium into a healthy and stable balance.  His wife casually
tossed a couple of his freshly dry cleaned jackets onto the back of a chair
beside the aquarium while he was working at Script Oceanic Institute.  The
corner of one sleeve of a sports jacket just barely touched the water.
 When John returned from work in the late afternoon he found everything in
his aquarium had died from the carbon tetrachloride cleaning agents used to
dry clean his coats. His life as a marine biologist was never the same
again because he realized from that moment onward that infinitesimally
small changes in oceanic conditions had the power to precipitate massive
diebacks affecting entire ecosystems.

He began to research what concentrations of carbon tetrachloride and other
organo-phosphates interfered with the health of a particular type of fish
he knew well and he discovered that their presence in concentrations too
dilute for him to measure (back in the early 1970's) interfered with the
mating rituals of this species.  Its presence made it impossible for the
species to reproduce and therefore threatened the survival of this fish
species.  In fact the inability of these fish to mate - the disruption of
their mating behavior -  was the only way he could measure the presence or
absence of toxic chemicals in concentrations too dilute for the science of
that time to measure, monitor and manage.
A series of powerful mystical awakenings like this one helped John and
several of his colleagues who later joined forces to found the New Alchemy
Institute at Woods Hole Massachusetts confront the limitations of science
and humanity's ability to control the partially understood consequences of
industrial civilization.  It was this realization that industrial man is in
the same predicament as the sorcerer's apprentice in Walt Disney's Fantasia
that eventually led to to the formation of the New Alchemy Institute. The
sorcerer's apprentice knows just enough to activate the boomsticks but not
enough to turn them off  or control a vast army of scientific automatons
each mindlessly serving the short run interests of their owners.

They began experimenting with what Todd and co. called Ark's that were
purpose built terrariums in which people, plants, animals could potentially
live together forever within a closed man made bio-shelter covered with a
tough sunlight transmitting and trapping membrane. Because these
bioshelters were separate from the external eco-system the idea was to use
them as temporary fallout shelters in the event of a massive collapse of
the world's environmental system.

Since the eco-spasm has only happened in slow motion and petit mal
disruptions along the the periphery of the Euro-American urban-industrial
empire, Todd changed his focus from the bioshelter as lifeboats for wannabe
Adams and Eves and began applying the genius of his Ark systems to
mediating the interface between energy generation, industrial production,
the waste streams produced by urban conglomerations, large scale commercial
agriculture, and nature. His ecologically efficient and nature protecting
alternative waste treatment and recycling systems are being accepted today
because they save money and simultaneously create urban environment that
people prefer to live in that also meet stringent environmental standards
and simultaneously promotes human and environmental health..

Crispin, check out John Todd's (a fellow Canadian) perspective on the fatal
consequences of a tiny amount of CCl4 in a salt water aquarium and perhaps
you will be willing to graciously allow more space for the precautionary
principle in your climate and ocean science.

In service,

Cecil Cook

On Thu, Aug 8, 2013 at 7:27 AM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <
crispinpigott at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear Friends****
>
> ** **
>
> I have been catching up on less important correspondence after being in
> Asia for a while. There is one thing that still needs to be put down like a
> broken-legged horse and that of course is the idea that CO2 ‘acidifies’
> the ocean.****
>
> ** **
>
> Because this is a high school chemistry level topic and I know some of us
> took other things – or as the drummer in my brothers class said, “I don’t
> remember Chemistry, I was stoned that year.”****
>
> ** **
>
> So for those of you who were also stoned that year or can’t remember back
> that far, here is a simple review of pH with special reference to the
> oceans, CO2 and the false, badly mis-named idea that CO2 ‘increases the
> acidity of the oceans’.****
>
> ** **
>
> The term pH refers to one of three distinct chemical conditions which bear
> no relationship to each other. One is called acidity, another is called
> alkalinity and third is ‘neutral’. Acidity and alkalinity are so different
> that if equal in ‘strength’ they cancel each other completely leaving a
> neutral condition. Different pH numbers refer to different conditions.****
>
> ** **
>
> Acid solutions (it has to be a solution with water in it) have a chemistry
> that has Hydrogen atoms stripped of their single electron. They are thus
> positively changed and seeking an electron. This they will happily strip
> out of anything passing by if they can find it, tearing the molecules to
> bits in the process which is why acids ‘eat’ things.****
>
> ** **
>
> Alkaline solutions (again, involving water) have molecules that have an
> extra electron available (but not Hydrogen) and are thus negatively
> charged. They will give away an electron happily, often wrecking the object
> that receives it which is why they eat things too but by a completely
> different process.****
>
> ** **
>
> Both acidic and alkaline solutions can corrode things like metals and
> rocks. One takes electrons and one gives them. Quote opposite. The two
> conditions are so incompatible they cannot be present at the same time in a
> mixed solution. It is one, the other or ‘neutral’ if neither condition is
> present.****
>
> ** **
>
> If you have an alkaline solution like the ocean (pH 7.8 - 8.4 depending on
> where you are, the time of day and a host of other things) and you want to
> neutralise it so that all its spare electrons are taken up by various
> things, you would have to add something acidic. Adding CO2 by bubbling it
> through the seawater will convert some of the CO2 (about 1%) to carbonic
> acid which has a deficiency of electrons and that acid will merge with
> whichever passing opportunity presents itself. The corresponding alkaline
> molecule will be neutralised as its spare electron will be passed to the
> carbonic acid molecule (which has an H- in it) and afterwards neither
> will have any charge. Both will be neutralised if the charges are balanced.
> ****
>
> ** **
>
> Because this happens very quickly, you cannot actually find any carbonic
> acid in the ocean. Nor any other acid. The oceans are not acidic at all.
> Any ocean has quite a store of available electrons. Anything acidic you
> dump into the sea is quickly neutralised and the pH drops slightly because
> it is closer to a neutral condition. The oceanic capacity to hand over
> electrons to any passing electron gap is very, very large. There are
> several processes that would begin to offer electrons but do not because
> the ocean is too alkaline to allow them to get started. The ability to do
> this is called the ‘buffering’ capacity. You may remember ‘Bufferin’ the
> pill that neutralises stomach acid. The pill is alkaline and has a large
> buffering capacity so it can hand a lot of electrons over to the acid in
> the stomach, thus neutralising it. If you took a whole bottle of Bufferin
> pills, your stomach would not become less and less and less acidic. It
> would be neutralised and then become alkaline and remains so until the
> spare electrons were taken up in a neutralising process. People are, in
> general, alkaline and should eat alkaline foods to remain healthy. Excess
> acid is a problem.****
>
> ** **
>
> By the same measure, reducing the availability of spare electrons in the
> ocean water does not *at all* make the water acidic because it still has
> many more available electrons. It is less alkaline, but it is not acidic at
> all – zero in the ‘acidic scale’ (there isn’t one). ****
>
> ** **
>
> In order to make a convenient metric for describing these two conditions
> (which can cancel each other out very predictably) the pH scale is used.
> Above 7.0 the solution has available electrons and is termed alkaline.
> Below 7.0 is has a deficiency of electrons and is called ‘acidic’. The
> reason for the use of two different terms is they are chemically dissimilar
> and cannot coexist.****
>
> ** **
>
> Acidity of a solution is often represented by the Hydrogen equivalent [H+]
> T which is the total number of Hydrogen electrons that would be needed to
> neutralise it.****
>
> ** **
>
> Alkalinity is often expressed in terms of its equivalence to Calcium
> Carbonate CACO3 in mg/Litre.****
>
> ** **
>
> Q.           Can CO2 ‘acidify’ water? ****
>
> A.            Yes, if the water is neutral to begin with, or already
> acidic, like rain water. Because rain water is acidic, when it falls into
> the ocean it neutralises the drops of seawater where it touches, before
> becoming diluted again by the surrounding ocean. Rainwater does not impart
> to the ocean any microscopic ability to withdraw electrons. It is quickly
> neutralised by some seawater. When it is finished a few seconds later, the
> acid has been destroyed.****
>
> ** **
>
> Q.           If one bubbled CO2 through sea water, would it eventually
> become acidic?****
>
> A.            Yes. If you were to first neutralise all the available
> electrons by mopping them up, after that it would start to become acidic.
> It would not considered be acidic at all until the whole body of the sample
> had first been neutralised. These two conditions cannot co-exist.****
>
> ** **
>
> Q.           What about ‘acid rain’. ****
>
> A.            All rain is acidic. It is acidic because fresh water absorbs
> CO2 rapidly from the atmosphere, converting about 1% into carbonic acid.
> This falls into the oceans and reacts with the available alkaline
> molecules. It is easy to acidify rain. It is very difficult to neutralise
> the oceans because of the rocks upon which they sit which have a huge,
> massive buffering capacity. There are numerous life cycles of creatures
> that withdraw CO2, CO3-2 and HCO3- when it is available. Obviously CACO3is high on the list for uptake by creatures that make shells.
> ****
>
> ** **
>
> Q.           Which has a larger impact on ocean alkalinity: atmospheric CO
> 2 or rain containing CO2?****
>
> A.            Not clear. Rain has a big effect because oceans actually
> have difficulty picking up enough CO2 to drive the level much above 600
> ppm because of the limited surface area compared with the volume and the
> huge buffering capacity.  Rain is much higher - about 1120 ppm CO2.
> Global rainfall totals about half a million cubic kilometers per year and
> contains about 600 billion tons of CO2 which is about 20 times human<http://www.global-greenhouse-warming.com/anthropogenic-climate-change.html>output.
> ****
>
> ** **
>
> Q.           What is the mass of the oceans?****
>
> A.            1.332 billion billion tons.****
>
> ** **
>
> Q.           Do reputable scientific organisations refer to ‘acidifying’
> the oceans even though that is not, chemically, what it happening?****
>
> A.            Yes. NASA does<http://www.earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/OceanCarbon/>.
> “As we burn fossil fuels and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels go up, the
> ocean absorbs more carbon dioxide to stay in balance. But this absorption
> has a price: these reactions lower the water’s pH, meaning it’s more
> acidic.”****
>
> ** **
>
> Q.           But it is less alkaline, not more acidic. Why do they write
> that when it is untrue, in fact it is unscientific?****
>
> A.            I don’t think anyone knows.  Perhaps they too missed
> Chemistry in high school.****
>
> ** **
>
> +++++++****
>
> Regards
> Crispin****
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> *Sent:* Friday, July 26, 2013 3:25 PM
> *Subject:* [Stoves] more on ocean acidification****
>
> ** **
>
>
> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=noaa-scientists-embark-voyage-asses-ocean-acidification
>
> --
> Paul A. Olivier PhD
> 26/5 Phu Dong Thien Vuong
> Dalat
> Vietnam
>
>
> ****
>
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