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Great Barrier Reef headed for ‘massive death’

edition.cnn.com

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Re: Great Barrier Reef headed for ‘massive death’

#21

Post by greglindahl »

ekianjo wrote: post #7
DavidPiper wrote: post #6

We're going on holiday to the Great Barrier Reef in a few months. I think it's quite likely to be the first and last time I see it in any state worth visiting for many years. Irrespective of how successful or unsuccessful the far-rights are in maintaining Australia's CO2 emission levels, I believe it's already too late - we've crossed from 'recovery is possible' to 'rebuilding is the only way' and that will take deca…

As far as I understand it recovery was never possible by the time we realized what was happening. We have no good way to capture CO2 and no actionable way worldwide to reduce CO2 production fast enough. Even if we stopped producing CO2 right now the levels in the atmosphere would still continue to have detrimental effects for dozens of years.

> no actionable way worldwide to reduce CO2 production fast enough.

People disagree about that one, but OK, your view is certainly one that a fair number of people agree with.

Re: Great Barrier Reef headed for ‘massive death’

#22

Post by wolf550e »

grecy wrote: post #13

Not that the headline exactly matches the article, but at this point is there any well educated forward-thinking person who doesn't think the planet is headed for a catastrophe? The population of humans is booming.. and surely any intelligent person can see that eventually, at some point something will have to give. Maybe it will be when there are 10 billion of us, or 20, or 100, but surely, at some point something's…

UN world population projection for 2100 is 11.2B. Stop with the Malthusianism.

https://www.un.org/development/desa/publications/world-popul...

Re: Great Barrier Reef headed for ‘massive death’

#23

Post by negadave »

It's cognitive dissidents. We all know this is happening to every aspect of our enviornment and that we as humans are behind it. But of course we're not going to give up our material world, and we'll continue to disbelieve only because it threatens our very nature of the animal that minipulates materials. The planet isn't doomed, we are. We're creating conditions that are feeding back on us in a negitive way. We will be our own distruction; probably be creating a nice warm enviornment for some disease to mutate and run rampant, where the only humans left will be some isolated populations of humans. To Moburg in Hunter S. Thompson's "Rum Diaries, "The only animals to claim a god, yet behave the least lile they have one."

Re: Great Barrier Reef headed for ‘massive death’

#24

Post by dev_dull »

negadave wrote: post #23

It's cognitive dissidents. We all know this is happening to every aspect of our enviornment and that we as humans are behind it. But of course we're not going to give up our material world, and we'll continue to disbelieve only because it threatens our very nature of the animal that minipulates materials. The planet isn't doomed, we are. We're creating conditions that are feeding back on us in a negitive way. We will…

Fairly morose even for internet standards. The Earth is plenty capable of plunging into an ice age without human intervention. Also no matter what an asteroid is eventually going to destroy the earth or it will get swallowed up by some exploding star.

Those facts still should paralyze you. We are all plenty capable of improving the lives of ourselves and others today. What’s stopping you?

Re: Great Barrier Reef headed for ‘massive death’

#25

Post by mirimir »

joe_the_user wrote: post #20
grecy wrote: post #13

Not that the headline exactly matches the article, but at this point is there any well educated forward-thinking person who doesn't think the planet is headed for a catastrophe? The population of humans is booming.. and surely any intelligent person can see that eventually, at some point something will have to give. Maybe it will be when there are 10 billion of us, or 20, or 100, but surely, at some point something's…

The population of humans is booming. What a shame you had to spoil your otherwise reasonable argument with this canard. In most areas of the global (the Americas, Europe, Asia above India), population is not booming but shrinking. Moreover, the destruction of various sorts we see hardly the result of booming population by itself but massive resource wastage of variety of sorts combined overall short-sightedness. Clim…

Sure, the human population is no longer growing exponentially. But mean resource use and pollution per capita is still growing. During the last century or two, when humanity released all that CO2, less than one billion people were responsible for most of it. And now we have maybe 2-3 billion more who demand such a lifestyle.

So anyway, it's not population per se that matters. It's the sum over population times per capita impact. And that is still growing exponentially.

Re: Great Barrier Reef headed for ‘massive death’

#26

Post by A2017U1 »

joe_the_user wrote: post #20
grecy wrote: post #13

Not that the headline exactly matches the article, but at this point is there any well educated forward-thinking person who doesn't think the planet is headed for a catastrophe? The population of humans is booming.. and surely any intelligent person can see that eventually, at some point something will have to give. Maybe it will be when there are 10 billion of us, or 20, or 100, but surely, at some point something's…

The population of humans is booming. What a shame you had to spoil your otherwise reasonable argument with this canard. In most areas of the global (the Americas, Europe, Asia above India), population is not booming but shrinking. Moreover, the destruction of various sorts we see hardly the result of booming population by itself but massive resource wastage of variety of sorts combined overall short-sightedness. Clim…

Most projections are for about 10 billion people by 2050.

Even if the population stopped growing today developing countries are rapidly modernising. A few billion people soon to be middle class consumers.

The world can't cope with every Chinese person consuming as much as the average American, and they are quickly moving down that path, meat and dairy consumption is a good example of this.

Re: Great Barrier Reef headed for ‘massive death’

#27

Post by ianai »

ggm wrote: post #11

As a Brisbane resident I've been lucky enough to visit the north central reef twice in the last 30 years. If you are a casual visitor (as I was) the damage is for many people, theoretical because you have no basis to compare, and the reef charter boats go to the best places you can find to see the best diversity. I know it's real. It harder too see and understand it's extent. Also, much tourism runs in the northern-c…

How does visiting help?

Re: Great Barrier Reef headed for ‘massive death’

#28

Post by wott »

wolf550e wrote: post #22
grecy wrote: post #13

Not that the headline exactly matches the article, but at this point is there any well educated forward-thinking person who doesn't think the planet is headed for a catastrophe? The population of humans is booming.. and surely any intelligent person can see that eventually, at some point something will have to give. Maybe it will be when there are 10 billion of us, or 20, or 100, but surely, at some point something's…

UN world population projection for 2100 is 11.2B. Stop with the Malthusianism. https://www.un.org/development/desa/publications/world-popul...

For 2050, they expected:

* in 1998: 8.9 B

* in 2006: 9.2 B

* in 2010: 9.3 B

* in 2012: 9.6 B

* in 2017: 9.8 B

That means that they constantly have to revise upwards their scenario because it does not happen as expected and the population grows each time faster. In 20 years, they had to add 1 extra billion people to their forecast...

Re: Great Barrier Reef headed for ‘massive death’

#30

Post by api »

quickben wrote: post #18
danschumann wrote: post #8

The sci-fi writer in me envisions a story about a future where humans exist, and there is only one species of fish in the ocean, and everyone is sick of eating it.

Apparently the medusas will eat whatever is left from the fish. They thrive in high acidity.

Ocean acidification frightens me more than climate change. Moving Miami is doable. Look at how fast Dubai was built. Sea walls and flood control are also things we know how to do. Ocean ecosystem collapse could be absolutely catastrophic and there is no mitigation.
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