Signs of the Times: acid ocean killing commercial fishery??

          Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the fizz in the beer (everybody likes beer!), the rise in yeast (everybody loves crunchies and bread) and, as global warming "sceptics" like to claim, "CO2 is plant food". Plant food it might be but, like good ol salt, too much of a good thing can kill ya.. (another of those things the "sceptics" didn't tell ya..)

            CO2 levels in the atmosphere are rising due primarily to industrial activity and forest cutting. The CO2 in the air tends to exist in equilibrium with that dissolved in sea water. At equilibrium the number of CO2 molecules leaving a given surface area of sea water is balanced by the number of CO2 molecules dissolving in the water. If we add CO2 to the air there is more "pressure" on the side of the air and so more molecules will enter the water than leave it, till a new equilibrium is established.

             A bit of the CO2 that enters seawater is turned into a weak acid, carbonic acid (not toxic - gives the tang to beer and pop):

            CO2 + H2O --> H2CO3

            and some of the carbonic acid dissociates into electrically charged ions or radicals:

            H2CO3 + H2O--> H3O(+) + HCO3 (-)

            The H3O thingy ("hydronium ion") is the gold standard of acidity. Since carbonic acid is a weak acid, there aren't too many hydronium ions. But nature is a system of balances which have co-evolved together over time. Putting too many hydronium ions in sea water is not good. The water becomes too acid for sea life to survive. Some forms of life, including photosynthetic plankton which form the base of ocean food web, possess shells. These shells will dissolve or not properly form if seawater is too acid.

           What will happen? At the least, the result will be a loss of livelihood for fisherfolk. At the limit, if ocean ecosystems collapse, people highly dependent upon ocean fisheries will starve. Simple as that. No brainer..

http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/TV%20Shows/The%20National/ID/2439669610/

           This stuff is scary! "Never before seen" levels of CO2 in the water column. 95% of an annual crop of scallops in British Columbia wiped out - just gone. (In past centuries that would be called "famine".)

            In the video above, the feds hypocritically state they are looking into things. Really? Are they really looking well.. I mean all those cuts to federally funded science.. shouldn't those cuts hinder, well.., the capacity of government scientists to do their job protecting the public from environmental hazards and all that?

http://www.themarknews.com/2014/02/20/war-on-science/ 

internal blog links: 

http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2013/05/you-gets-what-you-pays-for.html 

http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2013/03/experimental-lakes-areas-curious-episode.html 

http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2013/04/the-imperial-prime-minister-wither.html 

http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2012/03/decline-and-fall-of-canadian-science.html

Experimental Lakes Area: a most curious episode

         A curious episode in the ongoing saga of Canadian environmental science. The Experimental Lakes Area (northern Ontario). This multidecade project is world renowned for providing essential information on the dynamics of freshwater ecosystems and their interaction with air and water borne pollutants: acid rain, mercury, phosphorus runoff..

         In an interview on the CBC radio program, "As it happens", Prof Britt Hall, an earth science researcher claimed that the federal government gave her the run around when pressed for reasons for cutting funding to the Experimental Lakes Area (ELA) project. Successive "reasons" provided:

1- Budget. This is BS for several reasons. Firstly, ELA costs a measly $2 Million (that is "Million" with an "m", not billion with an "b"). In return, not only does ELA provide info essential for assessing environmental risks, remediating them and drafting legislation but ELA puts science Canada on the world map. As one scientists puts it succinctly: "ELA is Canada's Hadron Collider". The services ELA provided in the long term study of freshwater ecosystem dynamics were, in fact, unique in the world. And all this for a measly $2 million (with an "m", remember). Secondly, most of the $2 million in funding were internal federal expenditures for the salaries of federal government employed scientists. Thus even if the feds chose to withdraw their participation in the scientific side of the project, there is no reason for physically closing it down. At present, full staff maintenance of the facility costs a mere $600,000. Maintaining a skelton maintenance staff for externally funded university and private industry researchers would cost "much less" than $600,000 (Prof Hall in the 18 march"As it happens" interview). We are now getting down into the $100,000 range which is chicken feed even for provincial governments! No, budget is not a legitimate excuse for shutting down ELA.

2- The second phony "reason" the feds tried to get Prof Hall to swallow: "not our mandate". But ELA reasearch does actually relate to the environment in Canada, duhhh.. (Who then should be responsible for the Canadian environment - the Vietnamese environmental agency, maybe??)

3- The last pathetic excuse for a rationale for killing ELA: redundancy - work done at ELA overlaps that covered by other federally funded projects. Problem: one can't find 'em when one looks for 'em.. More BS..

               When pressed by the "As it happens" interviewer for a plausible reason for the cuts, Prof Hall said simply, the only conclusion one could draw is that the feds don't want research on air pollution / fresh water ecosystem quality to continue. Aside: Prof Hall is a soft spoken woman and does not come across as an ideological firebrand of the confrontational environmental Left. She is an academic.

                 After the jaw drop provoked by this astounding interview, comes the obvious question: but WHY?? Why the hell cut a high prestige, world class long term science project of great potential value which, moreover, operates on a shoestring budget? What have the feds got for brains??!! What is Steven Harper and his friends dropping or smoking?

               Perhaps research on air quality bothers Harper's friends / supporters in the Oil Patch. This is the closest to a rational motive I could find. Anybody got better?

Podcast of "As it happens", CBC, monday, 18 march, 2013. To quickly access the  interview with Prof Britt Hall advance the cursor one third.

http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/podcasts/asithappens_20130318_13749.mp3

                 The CBC deserves a bit of credit (not much, but a little) for sticking with this story a bit longer than usual. The day following the interview with Prof Hall, Prof Moss, a limnologist (studies terrestrial water systems) registrered his astonishment at  Canada's  recent "loss of good sense": gagging scientists, restricting access to research results, radical - and apparently strategic - budget cuts to scientific projects of long term proven value. Prof Moss particularly lamented the loss of the long term data base provided by ELA's 45 years of continuous monitoring and research.

                  Access to the interview with Prof Moss is easy, first interview on clip:

http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/podcasts/asithappens_20130320_36132.mp3

Internal blog links (gives numerous internal links): 

http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2013/02/climate-scientists-speak-out.html  

                  

The Decline and Fall of Canadian Science

          At the American Association for the Advancement of Science's annual conference Feb. 16 to 20 in Vancouver, one of the panel discussions was titled "the muzzling of Canada's federal scientists." 

http://www.embassymag.ca/page/printpage/scientist-02-29-2012 

           Many of the participants appeared openly surprised, puzzled or worried by recent modifications in protocols relating to Federally employed or supported scientists' media access. In the past Canada was often seen as a model of governmental transparency. We find these recent changes a bit ironical, not to say hypocritical, given the fact that the Harper government was elected on a platform of "law and order, transparency and responsible government". Ironic, too, since Canada is headed in the direction the US followed under the Administration of George Bush, jr when climate science supporting the global warming hypothesis was ignored or devaluated. Today, under the Obama Administration, the US has become more open, while Canada, traditionally the more liberal and open society, is becoming more closed, controled, defensive.

            Dr. Francesca Grifo, one of the panelists on "The muzzling of Canada's federal scientists" discussion and senior scientist and director of the Scientific Integrity Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists warned that re-establishing open communicatons will be an ardurous process. "The longer that this [restricted access] goes on, the more deeply embedded it becomes in the culture in the agencies, and the harder it is to turn back," she said. "You don't want a situation where a scientist is scared to open their mouths when something is desperately wrong, that can hurt lives in a very direct way." Dr. Grifo's warning needs to be taken very seriously, we feel. In the turbulent times ahead, it will be essential that we have confidence in our officials and leaders. We will be facing, in the next few decades, several critical transitions: from our current cheap oil economy to the "post peak" oil economy, the divisive challenges of climate change adaptation, global demographic pressures on dwindling non-renewable resources.. Failing an abiding confidence in our leaders, we will only face a future of political and social chaos..

                Here is a link to the full panel discussion at which Dr Grifo spoke:

http://hosting.desire2learncapture.com/StellarJay/4/watch/28.aspx 

                 It is interesting to note that, while the government was invited to participate in the panel, all invited participants declined (!!) Very telling piece of behavior that..

                Now what does Harperite "transparency" look like in practice, the transparency they promised us before they were elected? Well, in the past, reporters could call up an Environment Canada scientist, chat, and arrange an interview. Now calls are required to pass through a "filter" called "Media Relations". Good Lord, shades of the former Soviet Union, wouldn't you believe it! This is Canada we're talking about folks.. The idea seems to be: "no news is good news", "what the public doesn't know won't hurt them" (it will hurt them, of course, but we are dealing here with ideologues, no different - in reality - from those who oversaw the decline and fall of the Soviet Union). 

                En passant, it is interesting to note that the "muzzling" / "filtering" process imposed by the Harper government actually succeeds in introducing several new levels of beauracracy to science communication -  and this from a rabidly anti-beauracracy government so keen to cut services to the most disadvantaged members of society! Will wonders never cease? What the hell is going on with these guys? Did they never heard the words "consistency" or "integrity"..

                  Canada has recently lost its "PEARL" of arctic science research, the world renowned Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory. Once again, one wonders about the possible motivations for the irrational destruction of critically important data gathering infrastructure: "no news is good news?", "what the public doesn't know won't hurt them"..

http://forums.canadiancontent.net/news/104697-feds-cut-funding-key-science.html

"This loss comes at a highly significant time when Arctic conditions are changing rapidly: Witness the recent rapid loss of permafrost, the appearance of the first large Arctic ozone depletion last year and many other harbingers of significant Arctic change," the researchers said in a statement Tuesday.

"Without PEARL there will be no continuous active measurements in the High Arctic of many atmospheric quantities scientists believe greatly affect both our Arctic and the whole planet."

                    Public ethics is in deep water, folks, and sinking fast.

internal blog link: sep 19, 2011 http://transparencycanada.blogspot.com/2011/09/environmental-transparency-what-you.html
                  

              

Environmental Transparency: what you don't see, can't hurt you!

                  Oh dear! The Harperites are at it again, it seems. Defaulting on their campaign promises. What this time..?

                   Remember the promises about "responsable government"? A government is responsable when it informs citizens of common dangers. This is so because, technically speaking, the government is supposed to be acting - in democracies anyway - as the agent of the people. You do not expect your banker to be rifling your accounts or your grocer to be short changing on the weight of the veggies you buy.

                 So too with governments. One of their functions is national defense. "Defense" - in the large sense - includes warning people of dangers, for example, a radioactive cloud arriving on the Pacific cost from damaged Japanese reactors. If the government failed to do so, the public would, in fact, be justified in calling the government to account for its failure to inform. We all know damn well this is true.

                 Now, since we accept the consensus opinion of the scientific community on the risks posed by climate change, we consider it totally unacceptable that the Harper government would suppress reasearch and  monitoring programs relating to anthropogenic climate change. This however is exactly what the Harperites have done!

                  Incredible! Do these guys have no shame? Or are they so brain-washed by the propaganda machine of the oil industry they serve that they really feel such programs and research are "a waste of time and money" in a time of budget restriction? Although, even here, given the way the economy is behaving lately, it is arguable that the feds should actually be spending money in strategic areas - renewable energies, energy conservation, public transport.. - even if this means going into deeper debt for a while.

                 The consequences of further budget cuts to Environment Canada will be long reaching and unpredictable. For those who reject the scientific consensus on the reality of anthropogenic climate change but who do believe in the threat of ozone eating CFC gases, consider the following:

"... the Canadian cuts also threaten to erode the Montreal Protocol, an international agreement that obliges Arctic countries to monitor the ozone layer and maintain scientific ozone research.
Closing down Canada's ozone stations and the Toronto data archive "would clearly be seen as eroding the regulations of the Montreal protocol,"... "Once such an erosion process starts other countries can follow and may start to question other parts of the regulations under the Protocol.""

 http://www.canada.com/technology/Harper+government+cutting+vital+climate+science+Critics/5402767/story.html

                   We are treading on very thin ice here! Global problems, like Ozone Layer Depletion which could reduce crop outputs and further destabalize the third world, need to be faced multilaterally, that  is, "internationally". Harper and his gang, in a move to gain cheap votes from their right wing core - populism, in other words - are dismantling multilateral structures and institutions, the destruction of which will entail unknowable - but extremely heavy - long term consequences.

internal blog link: mar 6, 2012 http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8403090612918247270#editor/target=post;postID=7082523677780259320