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Great Barrier Reef at 'terminal stage'

theguardian.com

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Re: Great Barrier Reef at 'terminal stage'

#111

Post by jackgolding »

sundvor wrote: post #68
ryankennedyio wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Travelled up to Cairns from Melbourne last year and visited the reefs on a day trip. Whilst amazing, the bleaching had clearly started although not fully set in. It was as such a bitter sweet experience. I regret not going earlier, having been in Australia for over a decade - yet grateful to have seen it in some semblance of its glory before it's gone. And very sad - and angry - that it is going. I am angry because w…

I'm not sure to what extent WA has been affected but I grew up on the Houtman Abroholas Islands off Western Australia (500 km north then 50 km west of Perth) which are extremely beautiful and secluded (need to hire a plane to take you over and you are limited to one very beautiful large island.)

Re: Great Barrier Reef at 'terminal stage'

#112

Post by harry8 »

I've been hearing the reef is at death's door for 30 years. When I go, it looks amazing. Still. Maybe this scare campaign is different to all the other ones. Maybe this time as they cry wolf there really is a wolf. Maybe... If so it's a perfect example of the environmental movement destroying their own credibility so that not many in Australia, among those who love the reef, care what they're saying this week. People need to call bullshit on bullshit whether that bullshit is in the service of great justice or not. It's still bullshit and it still trashes credibility. Outrage fatigue is far worse when you know you've been had.

Re: Great Barrier Reef at 'terminal stage'

#113

Post by boralben »

spodek wrote: post #89

Many posts here about how sad and disgusted people are. Not much about people taking personal responsibility. What do people think the carrying capacity of the planet means? Sustaining more humans means sacrificing other life that competes for our resources. It means pollution rising until it doesn't quite kill us but is well above the levels of a pristine, clean environment. Nobody wants to live near the carrying ca…

My employer pays for its software developers to attend one conference per year. While software conferences can be terrific learning experiences, most of us consider this perk to be something similar to a paid vacation. Many people try to find conferences in exciting, far-flung locations.

It seems like the software conference industry is one that could be a leader in creating "virtual tracks" for conferences. This would have the effect of reducing unnecessary airplane trips while also opening conferences up to larger audiences.

There is a group within academia that is promoting this approach: https://academicflyingblog.wordpress.com/

Their FAQ has a lot of really solid information, and some of the answers really resonated with me in terms of "Do I really need to physically be at this conference?" FAQ: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1URRRh4zMSpvtZY08F9-Rkbx0...

Re: Great Barrier Reef at 'terminal stage'

#114

Post by kerbalspacepro »

infradig wrote: post #75

The real culprit for coral bleaching? A swift fall in mean sea level during a major El Nino event. See: http://www.biogeosciences.net/14/817/2017/

The Guardian article is about a 2017 event, not the 2016 event that the BG article references.

Re: Great Barrier Reef at 'terminal stage'

#115

Post by milesrout »

laumars wrote: post #106
milesrout wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite frankly I think blaming it on flying is incredibly offensive. It's got nothing, at all, to do with cars or flying. They're tiny pollutors compared to industry, specifically the dairy industry, transportation by truck and manufacturing things in China. Sure we could fly less and drive less but that would do fuck all, and certainly having fewer kids isn't going to solve any problems. Having fewer kids in the west…

While I don't disagree with the facts you presented, I do disagree with the sentiment. Your argument is akin to passing the buck, yet the issue of climate change affects us all. Maybe let's ignore the GP's examples of flying and instead discuss industry. How many of us by pre-packaged foods or have Amazon Prime accounts and use it to order stuff we could just as easily get from our local shops? How many of us support…

No, you're promoting the same fallacy: if something as a whole is bad then you're bad for doing it personally.

You can't solve these problems by peer pressuring people into not supporting exploitative systems. Your argument is akin to people saying 'so much for being socialist, you own an iphone, capitalism made your iphone!'.

Now I don't use amazon prime to get things that I could just as easily get from local shops, except for things that already come from overseas anyway. I live in NZ, I don't have much choice. What little carbon budget the world does have should be used to ensure that people living in places like NZ can still have access to global commerce.

I don't buy fruits out of season. And I certainly don't buy 'pre-packaged foods'. What does that even mean? Do people actually buy plastic-wrapped boxes of lettuce from the supermarket? Really? Do people really buy bottled water? Why would they do that?

But I shouldn't have to say that. That I do those things is irrelevant. I do them for many reasons, but you are passing the buck when you act like it's my personal responsibility to fix the ills of the world. It isn't. It's society's responsibility as a whole. It should be a global push.

Otherwise we're just taxing conscience.

Re: Great Barrier Reef at 'terminal stage'

#116

Post by kerbalspacepro »

dingo_bat wrote: post #110
good_vibes wrote: post #57

What can we do? Serious question.

A better question would be: why should we care? I really don't see much value in spending a lot of effort and money into protecting a coral reef.

Coral reefs are like the rainforests of the sea: they hold an immense amount of biodiversity and life. They are also a carbon sink:

>Coral reefs play a critical role in the carbon cycle of our planet, by taking calcium ions and dissolved carbon dioxide from the water and turning it into calcium carbonate forming their hard skeleton. http://www.reefrecovery.org/coral-reefs/

Re: Great Barrier Reef at 'terminal stage'

#117

Post by pluteoid »

dingo_bat wrote: post #108
ohashi wrote: post #29

I saw a bleaching event in Thailand last year, it really is depressing to see. This year, the same sites have seemingly recovered and I'm really happy about that. But seeing the pictures of completely bleached white corals in the article and knowing that's probably the future for a lot of these reefs breaks my heart. Coral reefs are magical places and we're destroying them for future generations, maybe even the curre…

> Coral reefs are magical places How so? How are they different from any other natural ecosystem?

They are one of the most biodiverse habitats, if not the most diverse, home to a vast array of often spectacular species. And unlike other highly biodiverse habitats, much of this spectacle is densely represented and constantly on show.

In a tropical rainforest, you can ramble uncomfortably through dense undergrowth for hours, hearing many animals but glimpsing few, usually from a limited range of phyla, and seeing mostly plants. On a healthy reef, drift but a few minutes through the clear, warm seawater, and the sheer abundance and variety of algae, corals, anenomes, molluscs, echinoderms, sponges and many other invertebrate phyla, as well as algae and of course fish, will be immediately apparent.

Re: Great Barrier Reef at 'terminal stage'

#118

Post by Baeocystin »

flukus wrote: post #95
Baeocystin wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Preserve what we can in aquariums around the world so that we'll have reef seed species available as areas become more habitable again. Identify areas that are become more hospitable, and work on establishing reefs there. Expand artificial reef building, to help make up for lost area. Cut carbon emissions, and work on finding ways to sequester what has already been released. No one thing will be the fix, but they all…

> Preserve what we can in aquariums around the world so that we'll have reef seed species available as areas become more habitable again. Can the worlds aquariums store a fraction of the biodiversity of the reef? > Expand artificial reef building, to help make up for lost area. It would take a massive engineering effort to make a dent in the area the Reef covers.

1. Yes. Collection of reef material for transplantation into a controlled habitat involves moving living corals and substrate. Much of what lives in a reef comes along for the ride. Not everything. But (thankfully) more than you might think.

2. You don't need to replicate the entire area. You only need to make refugia. There is a lot of ocean shelf that is relatively barren, but could support a thriving reef, if only there was structure to build on. It's a subject that is being actively worked on. http://www.reefdesignlab.com/about/ for one example.

It doesn't have to be money spent just for reef creation, either. Changing how we construct jetties, piers, and other near-shore structures to be more welcoming to reef life would make a genuine impact.

You've got to keep in mind that we're not 'fixing' the problem, here. We're punting, and trying to keep the ball in play as long as possible while we work out the truly long-term solutions our carbon problem presents.

Re: Great Barrier Reef at 'terminal stage'

#119

Post by zipwitch »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #37
Arizhel wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly right about maintaining this level of technology. Looking around at most people I know and am surrounded by, there's just no way we could keep the technology level we have now without such a large population: most people are just too inept. Kill off 99% and there won't be enough people to even keep the stuff we have working, let alone come up with anything new. Don't bet on governments having anything…

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…

The problem with the "humanity will survive... somehow" is that without a great deal of work now in order to direct the future, we are abdicating our control of the how part. When the specifics are left up to circumstance, the details are all too likely to be horrific.
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