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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 10, 2010 Studies now conclusively show the imminent danger of ocean collapse due to increased ocean acidity as a result of CO2 emissions. At the recent UN climate talks in Cancun, Mexico, the highly respected Swiss NGO, the International Union for Conservation of Nature[1], convened a panel of marine biologists to present its latest findings on the danger of the collapse of ocean life due to increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere. New scientific consensus finds us now already at or above the CO2 level that could cause the collapse of ocean marine ecosystems within 50 years. This new information implies that even the most aggressive CO2 reduction targets currently under discussion would not avert the collapse of ocean life. “Climate change may be all over the headlines, but it has an evil twin, caused by the same invisible gas, carbon dioxide, with more measurable, rapid and seemingly unstoppable effects," says Dan Laffoley, Marine Vice Chair of IUCN’s World Commission on Protected Areas. “By answering the main questions people have about ocean acidification, we intend to break through the ignorance and confusion that exist, so everyone is clearer on what is happening and why this is a matter of the highest global priority." To reverse the phenomenon and stabilize our oceans, CO2 emissions will need to be curtailed far more rapidly than previously understood, and large amounts of CO2 will need to be removed from the atmosphere, in order to return it to pre-1980 levels of 350 ppm or less. Current climate negotiations are still grappling with CO2 levels and associated temperature increases that far exceed what the scientific data suggests are sustainable. “As the risk of crashing the food web in the oceans is now emerging as the most immediate danger among all global warming related phenomena, we must use this new information to cut through the well-funded denial and move forward together,” says Jim Fournier, Founder of Planetwork and CEO of Biochar Engineering Corp. “In order to protect our children and defend life as we know it, we will need to transform our society as completely and rapidly as the mobilization for WWII. Humanity now faces our most serious challenge; we will either rise to it or risk crashing the global ecosystem.”
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