All at sea

摘要

Arecent search on BBC Online for 'climate change' produced 16,269 results. A search for 'ocean acidification', however, produced just 116. The public, it appears, is receiving an unbalanced understanding of the important ecological implications of increasing concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Data (from the Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii, for example) show that the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide is increasing all the time - not surprising as an increasing human population burns fossil fuels and chops down trees. Presumably the rate of carbon dioxide emissions will eventually slow, but we have been expecting to run out of fossil fuels since the 1970s. Every time a fuel crisis is predicted, further supplies are found.