Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Great Barrier Reef headed for ‘massive death’

edition.cnn.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 127 posts

Re: Great Barrier Reef headed for ‘massive death’

#91

Post by maximente »

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…

actually, long distance flights are huge generators of carbon. for many, getting to Australia involves multiple long distance flights.

it'd probably be best to reduce demand of these long distance flights across the globe, and as a result, encourage people to not engage in tragedy of the commons style behaviors justified thusly: I have to see it before it goes away, which are likely to increase demand.

so, really, you should absolutely not visit if you're considerate of your personal carbon emissions.

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/27/sunday-review/the-biggest...

Re: Great Barrier Reef headed for ‘massive death’

#92

Post by intended »

roenxi wrote: post #81
cschwarm wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> France with nuclear remains the first world country with the cheapest, … France had a nationalized electricity grid when it build its nuclear fleet. So, the demand side was nationalized (EDF), and they made sure to nationalize the supply side of nuclear as well (Areva). This was probably the main reason why Nuclear is cheap in France: They standardized the design on the supply side (only two designs in 30 years) an…

> In a free market setting, nuclear is not going to be cheap. Costs haven't stopped Germany trying to jump ship to solar, and that hasn't turned out half as well as France from an economic or environmental perspective. Australia is one close election away from the Greens pushing something similar on to us. Australia is composed of unusually large, flat, desolate geotechnically stable areas. We produce large amounts o…

What does nuclear power have to do with the coral reefs?

As far is know, it was ocean acidification which is killing corals, and then run off/pollution?

Re: Great Barrier Reef headed for ‘massive death’

#93

Post by intended »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #56
ekianjo wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know that some people claim we could but it is often because they do not look at every angle, especially economics, and scalability. Global scale endeavors tend to be complex and require long timelines.

There is a known straight-forward way to solve the economic problem. You impose a large carbon tax per ton of CO2 and use 100% of the money to subsidize power generation from non-fossil energy sources per KWh. Schedule regular increases in the rate over time, announced years in advance. There are only two real impediments to this happening. The first is lobbying from oil and coal companies (especially in the United S…

This is incorrect - the fact is that we cannot afford it at all

A carbon tax of that nature will kill global growth, and our ability to service debt.

A carbon tax will mean many businesses will shut down or have their margins pruned significantly - costs which will be pushed to consumers.

This means lower global growth rates, which is not something politicians can sell, especially since the source of funds (corporations) will fund politicians who oppose it.

So it’s not just that nobody is willing to put their foot down, it’s that no one can afford to, without suffering huge repercussions.

Re: Great Barrier Reef headed for ‘massive death’

#94

Post by listenallyall »

wk_end wrote: post #85
listenallyall wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great for China! The point is that the OP used the all-too-common, purposefully-vague "lobbyist" argument into his rant, as if a profession (rather than the oil and gas companies for whom they work) is responsible for all the global warming problems in the world. Further, the OP obscures the simple fact that even with large shifts in power production over the next few decades, China is, and will remain, the largest c…

The oil and gas companies employ lobbyists as a means to effect policy changes (or inaction), so...well, despite your snippy attempt to clarify I'm still not sure exactly what your point here is? Yes, the oil and gas companies are the bad guys, I doubt anyone (myself or OP included) would disagree; the problem is that the tens of millions of dollars each year they spend lobbying is apparently a very effective weapon…

Now you're just repeating propaganda.

> it's inane...

India is almost as populous as China, but its coal usage is similar to the U.S., i.e. about 25% that of China.

> actively fighting against one (the US)

The U.S. is aggressively reducing coal usage. Here are two charts:

(Fig. 13) https://energypolicy.columbia.edu/research/report/can-coal-m...

http://ieefa.org/global-coal-consumption-down-an-additional-...

In the first, the U.S. and China are the only countries reducing coal use in the final years of the chart. In the second, from 2015, it clearly states the U.S. reduced coal consumption by 11%. Double the reduction from Japan or Canada, 3x that of Germany.

And finally, I'm sorry it needs to be specifically pointed out -- but politicians vote on policies. Not lobbyists, not energy companies.

Re: Great Barrier Reef headed for ‘massive death’

#98

Post by singularity2001 »

h4b4n3r0 wrote: post #68
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…

I’ve read it had died off in the past and recovered afterwards. This had happened 5 times in the past 30000 years, From that it would logically follow that recovery is possible, just not for these particular specimens. Additionally, it’s hard to tell if the current bleaching is as fatal as everyone here seems to assume. FWIW scientists seem to think the situation is grave, but not as grave and hopeless as the mass me…

Yes. Downvoting your valid perspective is stupid. More resilient species would quickly fill the gaps and they have. Problem is temperatures are not stable, so every rebuilt reef will need to be rebuilt again in some years. Maybe full recovery when man is gone.

Re: Great Barrier Reef headed for ‘massive death’

#99

Post by singularity2001 »

dredmorbius wrote: post #62
joe_the_user wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, the human population is no longer growing exponentially. Which is to say it isn't "booming". But mean resource use and pollution per capita is still growing. Indeed total resource is huge and massively destructive but that use isn't even happening in any uniform per capita basis but rather some individuals, processes and organizations consume far more than others. Bitcoin for example, air conditioning Dubai for…

For most of human history, population growth was on the order of 0.04%/yr. It's been about 1.1% in recent decades, 25 times greater. One might even say "booming".

1.1% by the way still exponential, just a lower factor than 50 ya

Re: Great Barrier Reef headed for ‘massive death’

#100

Post by wk_end »

listenallyall wrote: post #94
wk_end wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The oil and gas companies employ lobbyists as a means to effect policy changes (or inaction), so...well, despite your snippy attempt to clarify I'm still not sure exactly what your point here is? Yes, the oil and gas companies are the bad guys, I doubt anyone (myself or OP included) would disagree; the problem is that the tens of millions of dollars each year they spend lobbying is apparently a very effective weapon…

Now you're just repeating propaganda. > it's inane... India is almost as populous as China, but its coal usage is similar to the U.S., i.e. about 25% that of China. > actively fighting against one (the US) The U.S. is aggressively reducing coal usage. Here are two charts: (Fig. 13) https://energypolicy.columbia.edu/research/report/can-coal-m... http://ieefa.org/global-coal-consumption-down-an-additional-... In the fi…

> India is almost as populous as China

What does India have to do with anything? Yes, India uses even less carbon per capita than the US or China! Good for India! It'd be awesome if both China and the US could bring their carbon production per capita down to India's level, or even lower.

As for the situation in the US: the latter of your sources is conveniently from 2015, before the US elected a president who campaigned on reviving the coal industry, appointed the CEO of Exxon-Mobil to Secretary of State, pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord, and has made it his daily mission to roll back EPA protections. Does this [1] sound like a government that's "aggressively reducing coal usage"? If coal usage is going down in the US, it's despite, not because of, any efforts by the current federal government. And indeed, coal specifically aside, carbon emissions in 2018 are projected to rise in the US after a steady decline since 2005 [2].

> And finally, I'm sorry it needs to be specifically pointed out -- but politicians vote on policies. Not lobbyists, not energy companies.

I mean, it doesn't need to be pointed out; we're all, despite differences of opinions, reasonably intelligent people here, and we all know about and have made up our minds on lobbying. Of course politicians write laws and vote on policies; I happen to think that if oil and gas companies are spending things like $65 million a year [3] to try to influence those politicians and the policies they make, they must have determined that has some effect. I suppose you don't, or think it doesn't matter because the buck stops with the politicians or something. I think that's naïve. But I promise we're all familiar with the ground facts, and your condescending attitude isn't really encouraging any useful discussion.

[1] https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/21/politics/epa-climate-power-pl...

[2] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=34872

[3] https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/indusclient.php?id=E01

Post reply on HN