The Center for Biological Diversity is calling on President Barack Obama and the Environmental Protection Agency to develop a national plan to protect sea life from acidification. 

As part of its new Endangered Oceans campaign, the Center is calling on the White House to direct the EPA to use the Clean Water Act to produce a detailed national action plan combating the acidification threatening ocean life and coastal communities.

The world’s oceans have already become about 30 percent more acidic since the Industrial Revolution as a result of a chemical change in seawater that happens when ocean waters absorb CO2 pollution that’s been emitted into the air. The rate of change in ocean chemistry has no precedent in geologic time; the last time seawater was so acidic, about 55 million years ago, there were massive species extinctions.

Credit: NOAA