Sigourney Weaver on Ocean Acidification

ABC News' Carrie Halperin reports: Veteran actress and narrator of the Planet Earth series Sigourney Weaver joined Sam Champion to talk about "ocean acidification" Friday on "GMA." Weaver is now narrating a documentary by the Natural Resource Defense Council called "Acid Test: The Global Challenge of Ocean Acidification."Click here to learn more about ocean acidification at www.acidtestmovie.com and click here to learn more about the NRDC.Ocean acidification is the other carbon threat to the ecosystem, in addition to climate change, according to the United Nations Population Fund's State of World Population 2009 Report. Acidification, a recently discovered phenomenon, results from oceans' absorption of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.  Since the Industrial Revolution, the oceans have gotten 30 percent more acidic and projections call for an increase in acidity, according to the National Resources Defense Council. The problem, according to the council, is that acidification makes it difficult for species to build shells and survive. Some scientists worry that acidification could result in global osteoporosis, a process that threatens to upset the entire food chain. Acidification has already been linked to the bleaching of coral reefs and projections show that continued reliance on fossil fuels, deforestation and other measures that increase C02 could create areas that are incapable of supporting the reefs, according the United Nations Population Fund's State of the World Population 2009 Report. Rising acidity is expected to have an impact on U.S. tourism, recreation and fishing industries, all of which contribute more than $230 billion of the gross domestic product annually, according to the National Resources Defense Council. Moreover, recent reports show that the ability of oceans to absorb C02 may be in jeopardy, meaning that more of it ends up in the atmosphere, according to the United Nations Population Fund's State of the World Population 2009 Report. Congress is debating legislation that would help limit the C02 that goes into the atmosphere. Meanwhile, environmental advocates are calling for marine national parks as well as sustainable fishing practices to maintain the health of fish stocks within the oceanic ecosystem.  Much like a healthy body is much more apt to resist disease many believe the healthier the oceans are, the more resilient they will be to rising acidity and temperatures.