[Stoves] ocean acidification

[Paul Olivier]

T*hat CO2, of course, leads to global warming and climate change, as well
as what’s called ocean
acidification<http://na.oceana.org/en/blog/2010/12/ocean-acidification-the-untold-stories>,
which might be thought of as oceanic global warming and is a greater
catastrophe than any spill to date. The oceans absorb about 30 percent of
the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, creating carbonic acid. Since the
start of the industrial revolution we’ve added about 500 billion metric
tons of carbon dioxide to the oceans, which are 30 percent more acidic than
they were a couple of hundred years ago.*

**

*This acidification makes it difficult for calcifying organisms — coral,
snails and oysters and other mollusks, and more — to build shells and
skeletons sturdy enough for them to survive. Many of these are on the
bottom of the food chain and, as they begin to die off (we’ve already
seen massive
oyster declines on the Pacific
coast<http://www.commercial-fishing.org/seafood/ocean-acidification-linked-to-pacific-oyster-declines-a641.html>),
the effects trickle up. Acidification has already wreaked havoc on coral
reefs, on which about 25 percent of all marine life depends. By the end of
this century, Safina says, the ocean will begin dissolving coral reefs —
unless we make a big change in our fossil-fuel use.*

*
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/19/whats-worse-than-an-oil-spill/
*

*http://oceana.org/en/blog/2010/12/ocean-acidification-the-untold-stories
*
We talk a lot about global warming and climate change, and there are some
of us who go so far as to deny the role that humans play in making this
happen. But a significant amount of the CO2 that humans pump into the
atmosphere ends up in our oceans and is destroying them. The science here
becomes much harder to deny.

As Bittman explains, we have to make a big change in our fossil fuel use.
For many of us on this stove list this means that we should start designing
and using stoves that replace fossil fuel gas with syngas. Every meal we
cook, even in Europe and the USA, could be fueled with with syngas. And as
we cook with syngas, we produce biochar, and the CO2 that is locked away in
this biochar does not end up in our oceans.

It is easy to design stoves for poor people in Third World countries. It is
a much bigger challenge to design them for use each day in our own kitchens.

Thanks.
Paul Olivier
-- 
Paul A. Olivier PhD
26/5 Phu Dong Thien Vuong
Dalat
Vietnam

Louisiana telephone: 1-337-447-4124 (rings Vietnam)
Mobile: 090-694-1573 (in Vietnam)
Skype address: Xpolivier
http://www.esrla.com/
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