The world's deepest ocean trenches are packed with pollution
I hope that the global conversation on ecological protection can evolve from climate change to tangible effects, like pollution and ocean acidification, just as climate change evolved from the use of the term global warming.<p>Ocean acidification in particular ought to be an issue even climate skeptics can acknowledge is a problem. Unlike climate change, which can be difficult to communicate due to its abstract nature (we had heat last summer and snow last winter so what's changing?), you can plainly test acidification with two cups of water - tap and sparkling - and a pair of litmus slips to show the difference. Then expand on how all the carbon in the atmosphere does that to the oceans, and then demonstrate what that does to life in the oceans, from the algae and plankton to the fish people eat.<p>Overall I think that focusing on precise tangible issues that people can observe for themselves is a better way to communicate the need for ecological protection than to be completely correct in a large and abstract assessment that people might have trouble following.<p>Only problem is it's hard to sex up the term "ocean acidification."  For something like that we'd need an attention-grabbing shorthand, like "melty fishy death water."