Arctic Ocean Turning Acidic

In a case of unfortunate timing, Barack Obama’s chief energy advisor Carol Browner has voiced skepticism over a climate change bill happening this year, just as new studies have shown that pollution is making the Arctic Ocean inhospitably acidic. Researchers recently discovered that the massive amounts of pollution going into the ocean—around six million tons of carbon a day—are making oceans increasingly acidic to the point where the water will dissolve the shells of shellfish, a trend an oceanographer summed up in an understatement as “extremely worrying.” By 2018, 10 percent of the Arctic will be corrosively acidic, but with the U.S. political system mired in messy arguments over reform in health care and on Wall Street, Browner said passing a climate change bill this fall is “not going to happen.” Recently, Democrats in the senate put forth a bill proposing to cut emissions 20 percent by 2020.