Chapter 07: Dropping Acid

                

    

In chapter 7, we move half a world away from chapter 6 and go to the One Tree Island where the author describes the coral reefs and the beauty they bring to staying on that island. This leads to talking more about the effects of ocean acidification and the effect it’s bringing to the coral reef. Charles Darwin saw the corals as one of the most wonderful things amongst the world, corals support multiple creatures until the point to where many creatures depend heavily on them for feeding as well as protection. However, with rising carbon dioxide levels, “within the next fifty years or so all coral reefs will cease to grow and start to dissolve” (p. 138). This means that the reefs will end up becoming the first major ecosystem to be ecologically extinct which the time for disappearance is unknown. This can be connected to the theme that Earth is one interconnected system, because once the coral reefs are gone so might some of the species that heavily depend on it on food and protection, unless they evolve to live without it. It could also ruin the ecology of the area, resulting in maybe more of a carbon dioxide release or absorption [P].