Soda Pop and Slushies
The dialog surrounding dead trees and bodies of fresh water in the Northeastern United States and Maritime Canadian Provinces (which I mentioned last time) ultimately yielded an hemispheric alert. Soon thereafter, the Clean Air Act of the United States was amended and updated to address acid rain, as it was known at the time, and thousands of lakes and surrounding forests were given a fair shot at recovery. As important as the landmark legislation was, though, it only postponed the inevitable, acidification of the world’s oceans.
If acid rain was caused by nitrogen and sulfur in smokestack and tailpipe emissions, why does an acidification problem remain if nitrogen and sulfur now are under control?
Well, the global reliance on fossil fuels has grown by leaps and bounds in the years since the Clean Air Act was amended but of equal importance is the fact that the changes made in order to protect American lakes and forests from acid rain did little to reduce carbonic acid.
Why is this a problem? For the answer, we only need to consider the effect of carbonic acid on people. You may have read that the medical community has issued warnings to people who regularly consume soda pop and other carbonated beverages to limit the quantities on account of the fact that carbonic acid can stunt absorption of calcium. This is very significant as to regards of the health of coral reefs, which rely on proper acidity factors for their metabolic process. When the process is out of balance, such as with an excess of carbon in the water, calcium levels are skewed and the coral becomes diseased.
How does the carbon reach coral? It is in our smokestack and tailpipe emissions. Worldwide, we add 40,000,000 tons of carbon to the atmosphere each and every day. It has to go somewhere and large amounts of it permeate the oceans through rainfall and the (newly-accelerated) melting of glaciers.
Evidence Above The Surface
If you remain unconvinced of the effect of so much carbon on our oceans, you don’t have to don a SCUBA suit and go for a swim near a coral reef. Instead, you can test it under the hood of your car.
A well-known country remedy for corroded battery terminals is soda pop. Seriously! So, how does that work? Soda pop contains carbonic acid, a mild corrosive. When poured on corroded metal, the carbonic acid in the soda pop literally eats away the corrosion.
Now, imagine what 40,000,000 tons of soda pop will do to calcium-sensitive coral reefs every day. Do you have the mental picture? Multiply it by 365 days in a year. Multiply it again by a century of fossil fuel consumption. Simple chemistry was bound to catch up with us. In 2008, it has and every living thing on the planet will be impacted for decades to come.
Fomenting the Triple Bottom Line
Corbett Kroehler
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