Hi everyone, I gave a speech on ocean acidification in my toastmasters club and would love to share it with you all. I thoroughly enjoyed researching on this topic and I must say it is something that we must all think about. I also learnt a lot while doing this project. Do read and give your feedback. J

Open any newspaper or magazine and there are stories and stories on global warming, climate change, rising level of water in the oceans and natural calamities happening around the world. The buzzword everywhere these days is ENVIRONMENT, and what each one of us should be doing, or not doing, to preserve it, before things get worse.

If I were to talk about how we pollute the Earth, even 24 hours wouldn't be enough to discuss the issues the Earth is facing. Today I will focus my attention on the wonderful oceans.

The Ocean is an incredible place of mystery and is something beautiful beyond de!--script--ion with an amazing variety of life. Hidden beneath its waves are worlds within worlds. Over billions of years, the ocean has created endless varieties of life life that enchants us, life that sustains us and despite our sciences, life that mystifies us still.

We admire the organisms under the sea, they are a source of livelihood and food to many around the world, and some of the organisms that live in the sea are quite unbelievable. Some species out there ==- are living beyond the understanding of science.

But now it is in danger and the life of all these amazing creatures is in danger too. Yes, all those animals we admire in huge aquariums around the world are in Very Grave Danger.

These organisms are on the risk of vanishing from the face of the Earth only because we, selfish human beings are causing a change in the ocean?s chemistry, rapidly making it more acidic, leading to Ocean Acidification.

This rising acidity has the potential to destroy the entire marine life. The black sea beds, the white sharks, the pink dolphins, they will very soon remain only in books and studied as lifeless pictures. Ever thought about how all this happens. Go ahead read on??????

It all starts with the excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We know that this carbon dioxide causes global warming, but it has only been a few years since scientists have realized that this CO₂ can cause all the deep sea organisms to die.

I have done a bit of research to get a better insight to this concept. It works like this when we burn coal, oil and gas we introduce carbon dioxide into the air. But the atmosphere touches the oceans over 70% of the Earth?s surface. So this carbon dioxide that we?re putting into the atmosphere makes its way into the oceans also. We are also putting the harmful CO₂ into the oceans.

This is the global challenge of Ocean Acidification, and scientists refer to it as the other carbon problem that needs to be tackled.

Now let?s move on to see the link between the rising acidity and the marine organisms. Thousands of animals in the sea build shells and other protective skeletons to survive. These organisms create these shells, which can me paper thin by drawing certain molecules from the water around them. But rising acidity depletes these molecules.

And when the water gets very acidic, it eats up the shells. All those wonderful looking shells that we generally pick up from the sea shore just start dissolving and disappearing into the sea. It?s like the shells melting, almost similar to a candle and its wax just melting away.

All those crabs, oysters, sea urchins, shrimp all these life forms are at risk. Marine life that can adjust to rising temperature or rising acidity may just give up when confronted by both. Coral reefs already struggle to survive in warming waters rising ocean acidity puts them in double trouble.

What we are moving towards is a mass extinction of plants and animals, caused not by a volcanic eruption, or the collision of a meteor, but by the action of one species. ==============-MAN

The tragic part is that we know how to reduce carbon emissions, we know how to shift from fossil fuels to better means of energy but we don?t

All of us being future citizens, we all need to realize that we are now at a remarkable point in the history of oceans.

100 years ago it was inexhaustible, you couldn?t touch it, you couldn?t harm it and in 100 years from now it might be dead.