A year and a half ago, the Los Angeles Times did a terrific five day report on the state of the oceans and ocean pollution. Perhaps the most surprising concern was how an increase in CO₂ in the atmosphere had altered conditions to the point that CO₂ was entering the oceans and turning it too acidic for some aquatic life critical to the ocean’s food web.

Scientists estimate that nearly 500 billion tons of the gas have been absorbed by the oceans since the start of the Industrial Revolution. That is more than a fourth of all the CO₂ that humanity has emitted into the atmosphere. Eventually, 80% of all human-generated carbon dioxide is expected to find its way into the sea.

Carbon dioxide moves freely between air and sea in a process known as molecular diffusion. The exchange occurs in a film of water at the surface. Carbon dioxide travels wherever concentrations are lowest. If levels in the atmosphere are high, the gas goes into the ocean. If they are higher in the sea, as they have been for much of the past, the gas leaves the water and enters the air.

If not for the CO2 pumped into the skies in the last century, more of the gas would leave the sea than would enter it…

Scientists say the acidification of the oceans won’t be arrested unless the output of CO₂ from factories, power plants and automobiles is substantially reduced. Even now, the problem may be irreversible.

Two days ago, a similar article in the UK’s Guardian was a reminder that very little, if anything has changed.

Human pollution is turning the seas into acid so quickly that the coming decades will recreate conditions not seen on Earth since the time of the dinosaurs, scientists will warn today.

The rapid acidification is caused by the massive amounts of carbon dioxide belched from chimneys and exhausts that dissolve in the ocean. The chemical change is placing “unprecedented” pressure on marine life such as shellfish and lobsters and could cause widespread extinctions, the experts say.

The polar ice caps is melting, the earth is getting warmer, and now the oceans are becoming so acidic that mass extinctions of ocean life are predicted for the near future if the amount of CO₂ and greenhouse gases in the atmosphere continues to increase. With all of this, you’d think that people would be gradually if not rapidly becoming more concerned about the problem, but as the latest Gallup poll shows, America is actually becoming more skeptical about the issue. Today, 41% of Americans believe the effects of global warming are exaggerated -that’s 11% more than it was three years ago and the highest amount of skepticism about the issue recorded to date.

This is particularly problematic not just because of the growing concern that we’re at that now-or-never moment in history with being able to successfully prevent the worst of the climate crisis for centuries to come, but also because the United Nations will meet in Copenhagen later this year to charter a new treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocal. Thankfully, we don’t have CheneyBush as president anymore, but even with President Obama who is concerned with the climate crisis and a Democratic Congress that is far more sympathetic to the cause than the previous Republican one, with the economy in recession and polling numbers like these, you have to wonder if the political will exists to implement the costly but necessary wholesale changes needed to ratify a new climate change treaty that has any hope of addressing the challenge.