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Great Barrier Reef at 'terminal stage'

theguardian.com

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Re: Great Barrier Reef at 'terminal stage'

#51

Post by Tossrock »

crawrey wrote: post #47

I grew up on the coast of the Great Barrier Reef in North Queensland and I can say that the current state of the reef is almost unrecognisable to what it was 20-odd years ago. While a large part of this damage has been caused by rising sea temperatures, another large component is due to the run-off from agriculture, refineries and mining. The latter being a directly contributed by the local population. The region is…

Sorry, you said the reef looks "indistinguishable to what it looked like 20-odd years ago." which implies it looks basically the same, but that seems at odds with the rest of what you're saying. Did you mean something besides "indistinguishable" ("unrecognizable", maybe?)

Re: Great Barrier Reef at 'terminal stage'

#52

Post by jfoutz »

intrasight wrote: post #40
erikpukinskis wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mankind is absurdly resilient. We are like rats or cockroaches but a hundred times more adaptable. Billions of people could die. We might lose 99% of species. But human extinction is out of the question. We could live in bubbles of air under the ocean huddled around nuclear reactors if we needed to. Roaches couldn't do that (without our help).

The topic of "Seveneves" by Neal Stephenson - which I did enjoy. https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Seveneves

Lucifer's hammer falls into the same category.

Re: Great Barrier Reef at 'terminal stage'

#53

Post by [deleted] »

intrasight wrote: post #40
erikpukinskis wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mankind is absurdly resilient. We are like rats or cockroaches but a hundred times more adaptable. Billions of people could die. We might lose 99% of species. But human extinction is out of the question. We could live in bubbles of air under the ocean huddled around nuclear reactors if we needed to. Roaches couldn't do that (without our help).

The topic of "Seveneves" by Neal Stephenson - which I did enjoy. https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Seveneves

[deleted]

Re: Great Barrier Reef at 'terminal stage'

#54

Post by catmanjan »

vacri wrote: post #38
catmanjan wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the average Australian cares, at least not enough for it to influence the way they act/vote. Of course if you ask anyone on the street if they are in favor of protecting the reef they'd say yes, but when they see the price tag they would probably lose interest.

It's not so much about the price tag, but more that there are other issues nearer and dearer to their hearts. A strong majority of Australians want gay marriage laws passed, for example, but the two major parties can dodge the issue because other issues are more important to their voters.

I agree, but replace hearts with wallets ;)

Re: Great Barrier Reef at 'terminal stage'

#55

Post by flukus »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #28
Red_Tarsius wrote: post #25

This is what keeps me up at night. If we don't find an efficient way to extract CO2 and methane from the atmosphere, I fear that mankind might go extinct.

Mankind is absurdly resilient. We are like rats or cockroaches but a hundred times more adaptable. Billions of people could die. We might lose 99% of species. But human extinction is out of the question. We could live in bubbles of air under the ocean huddled around nuclear reactors if we needed to. Roaches couldn't do that (without our help).

> Mankind is absurdly resilient. We are like rats or cockroaches but a hundred times more adaptable.

Are we? We've been around for a fraction of the time and nearly gone extinct at least once (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory). We also have a tendency to build absurdly interconnected systems so a single failure has ripple effects, we see this in things like the late bronze age collapse where most civilizations in the Mediterranean disapeared (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Bronze_Age_collapse).

Re: Great Barrier Reef at 'terminal stage'

#56

Post by jfoutz »

Arizhel wrote: post #46
erikpukinskis wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to keep all of it working. Most of it can fall apart. During the decline, important things will retract, move around, be protected. Look at what happened in the Holocaust. European Jewish culture wasn't wiped out. It was dealt a massive blow. Many important things were lost. But the community closed ranks and certain assets were protected too. This apocalyptic thinking is something you only do if you'r…

"European Jewish culture" is not a technology. It doesn't take a huge population base for a group of people to remember their roots and culture and save a lot of it. But most people are not technologists. Sure, there's a few smart people in a million, but that's not enough to maintain things: medical technology, transportation technology, computer technology, etc. Want a historical example? Look at the fall of the Ro…

The Middle East, Iraq in particular might be a better example. It Was probably the garden of eden. Farming slowly increased the salt content, gradually destroying agriculture.

People absolutely survive, but survival is far more work, and far less population is supported per acre. Not necessarily bad, but very different. And hard everyday.

Re: Great Barrier Reef at 'terminal stage'

#58

Post by ryankennedyio »

crawrey wrote: post #47

I grew up on the coast of the Great Barrier Reef in North Queensland and I can say that the current state of the reef is almost unrecognisable to what it was 20-odd years ago. While a large part of this damage has been caused by rising sea temperatures, another large component is due to the run-off from agriculture, refineries and mining. The latter being a directly contributed by the local population. The region is…

I grew up in Cairns & think that's a big part of why I'm so fascinated with marine life. I can happily spend a day watching almost any fish tank. My girlfriend has to drag me out of aquariums every time. It completely crushes me to think my (future) kids might not ever know what it was like.

I thoroughly urge anyone in the world with the means to do so, to visit and experience it.

Re: Great Barrier Reef at 'terminal stage'

#59

Post by ajmurmann »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #39
vacri wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The humans that survive such an event will not be the smartphone engineers, but the subsistence farmers.

You don't need smartphone engineers just repair techs. We already have billions of smartphones, millions of which will last a century with proper care. There are palm pilots that still work today. But also as the world collapses a thousand motivated people could and would relocate a basic computer fab to a safe location. Guaranteed.

There is a great short story with the unfortunate name "The man who came early". It's about a American GI who is stationed at Keflavik during the cold war and somehow gets thrown back in time to the Icelandic saga age. He wants to give people there so kind of technology that's much simpler than a smart phone and it all fails. Even something simple as gun powder doesn't get off the ground. They don't know how to get Salpeter. Even if the had the powder they would be missing so much technology to make the guns. As the main character says "you haven't the tools to make the tools to make the tools". Also resources.

Re: Great Barrier Reef at 'terminal stage'

#60

Post by huckyaus »

My cousin Sam[0] runs the environmental side of things at GetUp and is putting a lot of time and effort into raising awareness about the reef. They're currently fundraising[1] for a targeted campaign in 12 Liberal electorates with the aim of encouraging MPs to break their silence and listen to their constituents on the issues surrounding Adani and the GBR.

Full disclosure: GetUp is a politically partisan organisation with strong left leanings. But I think the work they're doing around these issues is rooted more in common sense than politics.

Is anyone else involved in any grassroots-level efforts to save the reef? I'd be interested to hear about them.

[0] https://twitter.com/samregester

[1] https://www.getup.org.au/campaigns/great-barrier-reef--3/the...

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