The SCCT project centres on the need to educate our children on the impacts of progressive Ocean Acidification (OA). After all, it is their generation (and their children) who will 'pick up the tab' .
Children's Cartoon Production
We see the production of a 2-minute cartoon (via the University of the West of England (UWE) and Exeter University) aimed at 7-12 year-olds as the most effective means of communicatiing the insidious and pernicious impacts of OA. The trick is going to be in making it funny and entertaining with an underlying serious message. We know that there is more than enough enough imaginative talent in those univerisites to pull off this challenging dichotomy.
Fund Disbursement
We need to raise a further £2000 to help fund the work of the Media and Animation Departments of UWE and Exeter University. Our members have collectively raised £2000 already and now we need to augment this!
Project Implementation
The aim is to complete the cartoon in time for the Festival of Nature in Bristol in June 2013. The cartoon will also be shared, initially, with 15 West-Country schools to help spread the important message.
Ocean Acidification Fast Facts:
EPOCA (the European Project on OCean Acidification) have recently published a document entitled, ’Ocean Acidification – The Facts’ to show the scale of the problem our children are facing:
-
Currently, each year the ocean absorbs 25% of all the carbon dioxide (CO2) that we emit.
-
This hidden ocean ‘service’ has been estimated to represent an annual subsidy to the global economy of US$60 – US$400 billion per year.
-
The increasing volume and rate of our CO2 emissions is progressively impacting the ocean system causing the acidity of sea water to increase – this phenomenon is termed ‘ocean acidification’.
-
Ocean acidity has increased by 30% since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and the rate of acidification will accelerate in the coming decades. This rate of change, to the best of our knowledge, is many times faster than anything previously experienced over the last 55 million years.
-
Numerous animals and plants in the sea have calcium carbonate skeletons or shells. Some are especially sensitive to small changes in acidity and there is some evidence they are already being affected. Many of these sensitive species are directly or indirectly of great cultural, economic or biological importance as primary producers, reef builders.
-
The impact of ocean acidification on marine species and food webs will affect major economic interests and could increasingly put at risk food security, particularly in regions especially dependent on seafood protein.
-
Valuable ecosystems may be damaged or destroyed by ocean acidification – it is predicted that if atmospheric CO2 levels continue to rise as expected, by 2050 conditions for warm water coral reefs will be marginal and we can expect extinctions of some species. By 2100, 70% of cold water corals may be exposed to corrosive waters.
-
The impact of ocean acidification on coral reefs will compromise community security in low-lying areas that are protected from erosion and inundation by these ecosystems.
-
Aggressive and immediate cuts in CO2 emissions leading to stabilization and ideally reductions in atmospheric CO2 levels will be necessary to slow the progression of ocean acidification, as well as global climate change.
Thank you for any help you can give!
