I'm not much for reading nonfiction in my off hours. When I'm relaxing, I'm looking for diversion and romance. I get in and out of my email and Facebook streams as fast as I can, completing tasks and trying to avoid the general mindsuck of the Internet. I read a handful of news sites each day, all in Maine — catch the gist of what's going on in the big, scary, crazy world, and drag myself back to National Novel Writing Month, or any other deadline I can latch onto. If I think it might matter to me later, I leave it in my inbox, marked as unread.

The first message showed up last spring, thanking me for the interest I'd shown in ocean acidification, at the Fishermen's Forum last March. Definitely not fiction and not sounding too entertaining or diverting. But, I've gathered an especially big pile of information about the ocean, especially the part that touches on nearby shores. I kept the message, thinking I might write about it some time, since I covered marine affairs occasionally for the Lincoln County News, though not as extensively as I did for my previous employer.

By now, you may have guessed that this will be one of those boring columns that asks you to pay attention to things that are hard to face, and even harder to deal with. I'll try to keep it interesting.

The email from the Island Institute's Nick Battista informed me that Senator Justin Alfond was about to offer the Legislature something called a resolve, saying that research is needed into the possible effects ocean acidification might have on our coastal economies.

Alfond's resolve was packed with nonfiction stuff like the numbers of pounds landed, in Maine, of various shellfish — species that are particularly susceptible to the chemical effects of the atmospheric pollution that finds its way into the sea. He mentioned the 10 percent of Maine jobs that are in ocean related industries. He touched on the value of our “picturesque coasts, harbors and working waterfront communities.”

He called attention to events already taking place on the Pacific coast of the Northwest, in which Washington State's $270 million oyster hatchery industry have been struck hard, seeing the death of billions of larvae and some serious “economic harm to the state’s shellfish industry which supports 3,200 jobs and generates $270 million annually.”

Are you entertained, yet?

A week after I got that email, and with strong support from Senator Chris Johnson (D-Somerville) the Legislature passed Alfond's resolution. 

The final resolution, SP 599, had even more nonfiction than the original version, including numbers — big numbers— describing the impact of the lobster industry on Maine's economy. It stated that our elected officials in Augusta were, “tak(ing) this opportunity to recognize that ocean acidification, as one of multiple consequences of environmental change in the Gulf of Maine, presents a threat to Maine's coastal economy, communities and way of life.” 

The resolve expressed support for more research to help Mainers understand and anticipate the potential impacts of the new scary thing we have to do something about, and called on the federal government to “prioritize research on those species such as lobster that will further our understanding of how our changing oceans will affect key species that support significant portions of our State's economy.”

The Legislature sent Alfond's resolution to a bunch of folks, mostly in Washington, D.C., who spend a lot of time reading about important and serious stuff and are probably looking for diversion even more than I am.

A second message came at the end of June, announcing that the Island Institute had just received some grant money and was setting up a news group so folks could begin a discussion about acidification.

I guess I must have joined the group, but it wasn't until mid-August that the next message came. It carried,as an attachment, a July 30 Congressional Research Service report “about ocean acidification and what the federal government is doing.” 

Tonight, with the harbors quiet and no clever story to tell, I began reading all that factual stuff. The July 30 CRS report repeated a lot of the definitions and numbers that I'd gotten at the Fishermen's Forum. It talked about the cumulative effects of climate change and how a small difference in one factor, such as salinity, can alter the path of another factor, such as temperature. 

It offered statements such as, “Answering the question of how acidification may affect fisheries will likely require the integration of knowledge across multiple disciplines,” and, “Other studies indicate that ocean acidification can impair olfactory discrimination and homing ability of a marine fish such as the clown fish in coral reefs.” There were a lot of footnotes.

One of my favorite statements was this: “Worst-case scenarios can be particularly hard to characterize, due to unforeseen consequences and possible tipping points, where environmental response may suddenly no longer be directly or linearly related to the causative factors. Although the likelihood of a 'worst-case scenario' coming to pass is uncertain and probably low, these circumstances require attention because ignoring them could be potentially disastrous.”

The Congressional Research Service concluded that any attempt to use artificial means, such as adding substances into the ocean to try to return the pH to a healthy balance, were unpredictable in their outcomes and could make matters worse. The report suggested that only a reduction in atmospheric carbon dioxide – possibly brought about through a combination of reduced human production of carbon emissions and a technical and somewhat dangerous-sounding process, called sequestration, that has nothing to do with the comic budgeting adventures of our employees in Washington.

“Even if atmospheric CO2 were to return to pre-industrial levels, it could possibly take tens of thousands of years for ocean chemistry to return to a condition similar to that occurring at pre-industrial times more than 200 years ago.” The report optimistically suggested.

It said inter-agency working group is looking into the matter and will report to Congress every two years.

I'm feeling better, aren't you?

A Sept. 12 Seattle Times story provided the entertaining fact that the increase in ocean CO2 is equal to eight pounds per person per day, a figure the story likened to each of us getting up in the morning and throwing a toxic bowling ball into the sea. To give the reader a sense of just how poisonous those 20 trillion pounds of bowling balls are, the story reminded readers of the effect of increased CO2 on the ability of fish to discern odors. No smell, no attraction to potential mates. Finally, we get to the romance.

On Oct. 23, I got a message from a West Coast advocate, telling me the comment period was about to end for the State Department's draft 2014 US Climate Action Report, used in U.N. climate negotiations.

“The draft report barely mentions fisheries, aquaculture, or the impacts of ocean acidification that are already showing up,” the sender wrote. “Neither the current toll on commercial seafood production and livelihoods nor the expected future impacts on the U.S. and world seafood economy, the value in jobs, trade, and total economic impact is mentioned. The risks to fishery-dependent coastal communities are not discussed.” 

Then, about a week ago, I received a link to an op-ed piece by Rep. Mick Devin (D-Newcastle) announcing the introduction of another bill in the Legislature. 

“The bill would establish an 11-member panel to review existing data and literature on ocean acidification and make recommendations to the Legislature on how to deal with the potential impacts of reduced pH in Maine’s marine waters,” Devin, a marine biologist at the Darling Marine Center in Walpole, wrote, “Commercial fishermen, scientists, fishery managers, legislators and other interested stakeholders would make up the panel.” 

On Nov. 4, the acidification news group sent out another message from Devin, telling constituents that the subject of his bill was not considered enough of an emergency to merit discussion in the second year of the current session. He said he planned to appeal that decision and will be given “one or two minutes” on Thursday, Nov. 21, to convince an appeals board that ocean acidification needs urgent response. Only bill sponsors may address the hearing. 

Devin asked voters to contact members of the Legislative Council, in advance of the hearing, to express support for his bill, L.R. 2511. A list of council members follows. 

Senate President Justin Alfond, 232-4187, Justin@justinalfond.com

Senator Anne Haskell, 712-1244, annehask@maine.rr.com

Senator Troy Jackson, 436-0763, sentroy.jackson@legislature.maine.gov

Senator Roger Katz, 485-2394, senroger.katz@legislature.maine.gov

Senator Mike Thibodeau, 233-5177, senatorthibodeau@aol.com

Speaker Eves, 850-0516, markweves@yahoo.com

Representative Seth Berry, 522-1609, bhamberry@gmail.com

Representative Jeff McCabe, 399-3185, jeffmccabe4me@gmail.com

Representative Ken Fredette, 368-4242, fredlaw@myfairpoint.net

Representative Alex Willette, 689-8332, alexander.willette@gmail.com 

Bill sponsor Mick Devin can be reached at 975-3132, and you can send him a copy of your message to his colleagues at mick@mickdevin.org.

If you got all the way to the bottom of this column, without benefit of pretty pictures, you deserve some diversion. Take a walk out into the wild world. Find something natural and lovely, no matter how small. Say thank you.

Then go home and make a call or two.

Shlomit Auciello lives in Rockland. She can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com.