Dear David,

It's great to hear from you.  You make some good points below and I
subscribe to much of what you have to say since it is balanced, not like
a lot of the tirades I hear from some of the "green" crowd out there who
don't believe in counterpoint or peer review - the same folks who think
specimen shell collectors are going to wipe out money cowry populations
worldwide.

No doubt reductions in alkalinity have an effect on organisms that
depend on some sort of calcareous structural support for survival.  I
myself would not want to keep a swig of vinegar in my mouth for more
than a few seconds.  It all depends on how many H+ ions there are
relative to the calcareous material at hand.  Acidity may go up, but a
threshold will need to be achieved before damage occurs.

We all know that legitimate scientists who study things like pteropods
and calcareous algae that are willing to stick their necks out by
publishing in well-regarded journals are rolling in mounds of cash.
Well, obviously not, otherwise we would all be doing fun stuff like
that, but there are certainly folks out there, particularly those who
litigate in the name of the environment and the pseudo-scientists that
act as expert witnesses, who do make a fair living off the trumped up
bad science.  These guys can indeed take on the giants because they have
something that's extremely powerful, public sentiment, and these days
public sentiment is extremely high towards the environment.  The issue
is that they can easily highjack the context of even the best research
and spin it towards fear mongering.  The giants may not be angels, but
neither are some of those on the other side of the fence.

Please take a look at the AP article contained at link
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=82134&keybol
d=ocean%20warming%20salmon.  Take note on who from the Center for
Biological Diversity is being quoted in the article.  Is it a scientist?
Absolutely not, it's a lawyer.  Also, note that the last paragraph
throws the ocean acidification topic into the mix with global warming,
another area where jury concerning the true science behind its cause is
still out.  It's sound bite piling on sound bite.

Have a great week.

Aloha,
Dave



-----Original Message-----
From: Conchologists List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
David Kirsh
Sent: Sunday, June 08, 2008 8:05 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [CONCH-L] our dissolving hobby, our dissolving food chain?

Dear David Lum,

I applaud your skepticism. You raise an interesting question regarding
volcanic activity: with all the sulphuric acid pouring into the sea in
Hawaii, why are calcareous organisms still present if oceanic
acidification is such an issue?

In the absence of data for Hawaii, the answer seems to be that
aragonitic saturation is much higher in tropical seas than near the
poles. There may be an effect but it would not be as dramatic as in
colder waters. In addition, epochs of intense global volcanic activity
have been tied to massive die-offs, such as during the Paleocene-Eocene
Thermal Maximum 55 million years ago (with carbon dioxide increase and
ocean acidification being among the prime suspects).

The model used by Orr, et al, predicts spreading areas of
undersaturation in circumpolar regions during the next 90 years. An
animation can be seen (together with images of other calcified marine
organisms) at http://www.ipsl.jussieu.fr/~jomce/acidification/

Here's a more directly shell-related finding that I don't remember being
discussed on Conch-L yet: living pteropod shells start dissolving
rapidly with undersaturation conditions projected for the year 2100.
There are SEM images of damage to a Clio pyramidata shell available in a
Nature article that can be found online as a pdf. (Vol
437|29September2005|doi:10.1038/nature04095)

Work in your home state of Hawaii shows that decreased alkalinity
hampers the growth of coralline algae (often seen as pink dots on shells
and rocks). The team at Kane'ohe Bay points out that coralline algae may
sometimes be more essential to reef-building than coral itself due to
its binding quality.

But the original article I cited actually measured an increase in
acidity -- across one large coastline. So, the changes are not as likely
to be just hypothetical or isolated.

When you questioned the integrity of the scientists who've been doing
this research, I thought to myself, "Now, there's a food fight
("food-chain fight"?) I'd like to see." Those publicity-seeking,
money-grubbing, sensationalistic people who call themselves scientists
and publish in Nature or Science will have to step into the ring against
the selfless, impartial executives at ExxonMobil and the "Clean Coal"
leaders (who bring us frequent TV reminders on how to mine an oxymoron).
What a match-up!

The investigations into the question of acidification are just
beginning. It's a complex matter with many variables and mitigating
processes. There need to be hard questions.

Some people have concluded that since there's uncertainty, nothing
should be done. That suits the fossil fuel interests just fine. However,
it's been pointed out that the costs of doing nothing and being wrong
far outweigh the costs of doing something and being wrong.

David Kirsh
Durham, NC



"It makes you feel good to know that there are other people who are
afflicted like you." --Harvey Pekar

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