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In the December 14, 2007, issue of the journal Science, chemical oceanographers report that carbon emissions from human activities are not only heating up our planet, but the ocean chemistry is changing so much that if the CO2 build up continues at the current rate, by the year 2050, no coral reefs will be alive. That’s only 42 years from now. One of the coral reef research scientists is Ken Caldeira, Ph.D., and Chemical Oceanographer at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Stanford University’s Dept. of Global Ecology. He and his colleagues say, “If atmospheric CO2 stabilizes at 550 ppm – and even that would take concerted international effort to achieve – no existing coral reef will remain in such an environment.”
