Carbon Pollution’s Harm To Sea Life Coming Faster Than Expected

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/05/12/3657571/carbon-pollution-sea-life/

by Joe Romm Posted on May 12, 2015

The oceans are now acidifying faster than they have been over the last 300 million years, a time period in which there were four major extinctions driven by natural bursts of carbon. In fact, humans are acidifying the oceans 10 times faster today than 55 million years ago when a mass extinction of marine species occurred.

Recent research finds that the threat to marine life posed by human-caused carbon pollution is coming faster than expected. And that’s a problem because as 70 Academies of Science warned in a 2009 joint statement on acidification: “Marine food supplies are likely to be reduced with significant implications for food production and security in regions dependent on fish protein, and human health and wellbeing.”

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